Repetition in Brazilian modern cinema

• Grant number: 18/03705-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2019
• Effective date (End): May 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Cristian da Silva Borges
• Grantee: Alexandre Wahrhaftig
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 21/09573-0 - Repetition in Brazilian modern cinema, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Different films from the generation of "cinema novo" and "cinema marginal", in Brazil, throughout the 60s and the 70s, displayed structures, forms and narratives that encompass temporal repetition in their interior. The main hypothesis supposes that there is a rich relation between the formal figure of repetition and the aesthetics of authors like Rogério Sganzerla, Andrea Tonacci and Glauber Rocha, among others. Through immanent analyzes and through theoretical research on the history of the forms of repetition in cinema, we aim to delineate and analyze the effects and thoughts that the repetition can produce in the cinema of that period in Brazil. Firstly, we can observer an aggressive stance by the reiterated use of repetition, which fits in the violent aesthetic agenda of the aesthetics of hunger and the aesthetics of garbage. Besides that, the repetition potentially brings the filmic material to the surface. It stresses the works' structure of montage by fragmenting the narratives and also stresses the repetitive "nature" of the apparatus' frames and also the process of rehearsal and retakes during the filming procedures. Repetition and metacinema go hand in hand in many films of the period. A third key aspect is the emphatic physicality present in the films, either erotically or by eschatology and agony (all characteristics of "cinema marginal"). Repetition, in this regard, accompanies the performatic behavior of the actors' bodies, which engage in trance like states, repeating gestures and lines incessantly. Finally, the challenge is to understand the bridges between the many forms of repetition and the thoughts elaborated or incorporated by the films about their historical time, questioning the relations between repetition and history, cinema and time. (AU)