Contemporary Brazilian screen performances: from the mimetic to the ontological relationship between actors and characters

• Grant number: 20/11902-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2021
• End date: January 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Cinema
• Principal Investigator: Pedro Maciel Guimarães Junior
• Grantee: Eduardo Bordinhon de Moraes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/03258-0 - Realism and naturalism applied to acting in Brazilian cinema of the 2000s and 2010s, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

This research aims a reflection on the analysis of screen performances in contemporary Brazilian cinema based on the question about the forms of appearance of actors in this period, focusing on the decade of 2010's, in which Brazilian cinema, after significant structural development, gains strength in quantity and variety of productions and expands the dialogue with other media, such as television and internet. The reserach seeks to understand how the on screen appereance of an actor in the cinema of that period, in a matter of quality, is given and how the aesthetic and thematic development of Brazilian cinema in the last decade can be understood with the study of ways that its actors appears on screen. For that reason, five trends of screen performances will be analyzed: continuity of the modern realistic acting of the 20th century; correlation with the documentary instance, in which the actors engage in a game of staging or reenacting their lives; merge of actor-character from physical, psychological or social characteristics, articulating categories of distinction (gender, race, class, etc.); erasure of the spontaneity that acting gives, through the containment of gestures; and cinema's uses of actors coming from another medias, especially television and internet. These courses of action will be analyzed using the tools of acting studies, in order to understand how acting can be formally correlated with other elements of the mise-en-scène, and with the theory of the actor as an auteur, which explores formal and thematic patterns in the careers of actors in search of their author's signature. (AU)