Memória e historiografia no documentário: o fim e o princípio de Eduardo Coutinho

Pós-graduação em Ciências Sociais - FFC

Identidades secretas: representações do negro nas Histórias em quadrinhos norte-americanas

Pós-graduação em Comunicação - FAAC

A crítica cultural do jovem Glauber Rocha no suplemento dominical do jornal do Brasil: impasses e estratégias adotados na chegada ao Rio de Janeiro

Glauber Rocha’s arrival at Rio de Janeiro can be considered a milestone for the Brazilian Cinema Novo movement in the early 1960s. In 1959, Glauber starts his collaborations in the Suplemento Dominical do Jornal do Brasil. This paper examines Rocha’s major contributions in this newspaper for the purpose of pointing out the strategies and formulations of the young intellectual from Bahia to promote a debate on the forms of modern Brazilian cinema and its relationship to other art forms in the 1960s.

Entre o sonoro e o visual: relações e processos nas artes

Pós-graduação em Artes - IA

Using selected scenes from Brazilian films to teach about substance use disorders, within medical education

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES: Themes like alcohol and drug abuse, relationship difficulties, psychoses, autism and personality dissociation disorders have been widely used in films. Psychiatry and psychiatric conditions in various cultural settings are increasingly taught using films. Many articles on cinema and psychiatry have been published but none have presented any methodology on how to select material. Here, the authors look at the portrayal of abusive use of alcohol and drugs during the Brazilian cinema revival period (1994 to 2008). DESIGN AND SETTING: Qualitative study at two universities in the state of São Paulo. METHODS: Scenes were selected from films available at rental stores and were analyzed using a specifically designed protocol. We assessed how realistic these scenes were and their applicability for teaching. One author selected 70 scenes from 50 films (graded for realism and teaching applicability > 8). These were then rated by another two judges. Rating differences among the three judges were assessed using nonparametric tests (P < 0.001). Scenes with high scores (> 8) were defined as "quality scenes". RESULTS: Thirty-nine scenes from 27 films were identified as "quality scenes". Alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens and inhalants were included in these. Signs and symptoms of intoxication, abusive/harmful use and dependence were shown. CONCLUSIONS: We have produced rich teaching material for discussing psychopathology relating to alcohol and drug use that can be used both at undergraduate and at postgraduate level. Moreover, it could be seen that certain drug use behavioral patterns are deeply rooted in some Brazilian films and groups.

Elementi postmoderni nell'horror americano contemporaneo. Forme testuali e culturali della mutazione 1968-1998

This research argues for an analysis of textual and cultural forms in the American horror film (1968- 1998), by defining the so-called postmodern characters. The “postmodern” term will not mean a period of the history of cinema, but a series of forms and strategies recognizable in many American films. From a bipolar re-mediation and cognitive point of view, the postmodern phenomenon is been considered as a formal and epistemological re-configuration of the cultural “modern” system. The first section of the work examines theoretical problems about the “postmodern phenomenon” by defining its cultural and formal constants in different areas (epistemology, economy, mass-media): the character of convergence, fragmentation, manipulation and immersion represent the first ones, while the “excess” is the morphology of the change, by realizing the “fluctuation” of the previous consolidated system. The second section classifies the textual and cultural forms of American postmodern film, generally non-horror. The “classic narrative” structure – coherent and consequent chain of causal cues toward a conclusion – is scattered by the postmodern constant of “fragmentation”. New textual models arise, fragmenting the narrative ones into the aggregations of data without causal-temporal logics. Considering the process of “transcoding”1 and “remediation”2 between media, and the principle of “convergence” in the phenomenon, the essay aims to define these structures in postmodern film as “database forms” and “navigable space forms.” The third section applies this classification to American horror film (1968-1998). The formal constant of “excess” in the horror genre works on the paradigm of “vision”: if postmodern film shows a crisis of the “truth” in the vision, in horror movies the excess of vision becomes “hyper-vision” – that is “multiplication” of the death/blood/torture visions – and “intra-vision”, that shows the impossibility of recognizing the “real” vision from the virtual/imaginary. In this perspective, the textual and cultural forms and strategies of postmodern horror film are predominantly: the “database-accumulation” forms, where the events result from a very simple “remote cause” serving as a pretext (like in Night of the Living Dead); the “database-catalogue” forms, where the events follow one another displaying a “central” character or theme. In the first case, the catalogue syntagms are connected by “consecutive” elements, building stories linked by the actions of a single character (usually the killer), or connected by non-consecutive episodes about a general theme: examples of the first kind are built on the model of The Wizard of Gore; the second ones, on the films such as Mario Bava’s I tre volti della paura. The “navigable space” forms are defined: hyperlink a, where one universe is fluctuating between reality and dream, as in Rosemary’s Baby; hyperlink b (where two non-hierarchical universes are convergent, the first one real and the other one fictional, as in the Nightmare series); hyperlink c (where more worlds are separated but contiguous in the last sequence, as in Targets); the last form, navigable-loop, includes a textual line which suddenly stops and starts again, reflecting the pattern of a “loop” (as in Lost Highway). This essay analyses in detail the organization of “visual space” into the postmodern horror film by tracing representative patterns. It concludes by examining the “convergence”3 of technologies and cognitive structures of cinema and new media.

La carriera degli attori italiani di prosa dalla scena allo schermo (1909-1916)

Most actors of the Italian silent cinema in the early 1910s have a theatrical training. Some of them are already asserted or famous actors (like Cesare Dondini, Ermete Novelli, Ermete Zacconi, Giovanni Grasso) who are invited “to pose” for the cinema following their reputation, according to a strategy of an aesthetic and cultural legitimacy launched in 1909 by film d'art of the Pathé Consortium. I think it is the proverbial readiness and strength of the stage Italian actors that create a decisive contribution to the rapid development of the national cinema industry, despite its serious structural deficiencies, from the protoindustrialized phase (1909) to the golden age of divismo (starting in 1913), until the first signs of decadence (1919), and the so-called “fall” of the UCI production and distribution system. This is the main topic of the thesis: an investigation on the Italian stage actors engaged in the film industry (“from stage to screen” as the Italian title says, but in a “post-Vardac” approach) through many different sources: periodicals, memories, personal and business letters, and also contracts, found in several archive funds. A specific chapter is dedicated to the artistic career of Febo Mari (1881-1939), real name Alfredo Rodriguez, witch is a time-sample symptomatic of deep ties established between the growing film publishing and the Italian theatrical production system in the 1910s. The Mari debut in cinema and his ascent toward screen “divo” status coincides with the parable that leads from emergence to decadence of divismo in Italy.

Percorsi di gender performance: fotografia tra arte e moda dagli anni Novanta ad oggi

My project explores and compares different forms of gender performance in contemporary art and visual culture according to a perspective centered on photography. Thanks to its attesting power this medium can work as a ready-made. In fact during the 20th century it played a key role in the cultural emancipation of the body which (using a Michel Foucault’s expression) has now become «the zero point of the world». Through performance the body proves to be a living material of expression and communication while photography ensures the recording of any ephemeral event that happens in time and space. My questioning approach considers the gender constructed imagery from the 1990s to the present in order to investigate how photography’s strong aura of realism promotes and allows fantasies of transformation. The contemporary fascination with gender (especially for art and fashion) represents a crucial issue in the global context of postmodernity and is manifested in a variety of visual media, from photography to video and film. Moreover the internet along with its digital transmission of images has deeply affected our world (from culture to everyday life) leading to a postmodern preference for performativity over the more traditional and linear forms of narrativity. As a consequence individual borders get redefined by the skin itself which (dissected through instant vision) turns into a ductile material of mutation and hybridation in the service of identity. My critical assumptions are taken from the most relevant changes occurred in philosophy during the last two decades as a result of the contributions by Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze who developed a cross-disciplinary and comparative approach to interpret the crisis of modernity. They have profoundly influenced feminist studies so that the category of gender has been reassessed in contrast with sex (as a biological connotation) and in relation to history, culture, society. The ideal starting point of my research is the year 1990. I chose it as the approximate historical moment when the intersection of race, class and gender were placed at the forefront of international artistic production concerned with identity, diversity and globalization. Such issues had been explored throughout the 1970s but it was only from the mid-1980s onward that they began to be articulated more consistently. Published in 1990, the book "Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity" by Judith Butler marked an important breakthrough by linking gender to performance as well as investigating the intricate connections between theory and practice, embodiment and representation. It inspired subsequent research in a variety of disciplines, art history included. In the same year Teresa de Lauretis launched the definition of queer theory to challenge the academic perspective in gay and lesbian studies. In the meantime the rise of Third Wave Feminism in the US introduced a racially and sexually inclusive vision over the global situation in order to reflect on subjectivity, new technologies and popular culture in connection with gender representation. These conceptual tools have enabled prolific readings of contemporary cultural production whether fine arts or mass media. After discussing the appropriate framework of my project and taking into account the postmodern globalization of the visual, I have turned to photography to map gender representation both in art and in fashion. Therefore I have been creating an archive of images around specific topics. I decided to include fashion photography because in the 1990s this genre moved away from the paradigm of an idealized and classical beauty toward a new vernacular allied with lifestyles, art practices, pop and youth culture; as one might expect the dominant narrative modes in fashion photography are now mainly influenced by cinema and snapshot. These strategies originate story lines and interrupted narratives using models’ performance to convey a particular imagery where identity issues emerge as an essential part of fashion spectacle. Focusing on the intersections of gender identities with socially and culturally produced identities, my approach intends to underline how the fashion world has turned to current trends in art photography and in some case turned to the artists themselves. The growing fluidity of the categories that distinguish art from fashion photography represents a particularly fruitful moment of visual exchange. Varying over time the dialogue between these two fields has always been vital; nowadays it can be studied as a result of this close relationship between contemporary art world and consumer culture. Due to the saturation of postmodern imagery the feedback between art and fashion has become much more immediate and then increasingly significant for anyone who wants to investigate the construction of gender identity through performance. In addition to that a lot of magazines founded in the 1990s bridged the worlds of art and fashion because some of their designers and even editors were art-school graduates encouraging innovation. The inclusion of art within such magazines aimed at validating them as a form of art in themselves supporting a dynamic intersection for music, fashion, design and youth culture: an intersection that also contributed to create and spread different gender stereotypes. This general interest in fashion produced many exhibitions of and about fashion itself at major international venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Since then this celebrated success of fashion has been regarded as a typical element of postmodern culture. Owing to that I have also based my analysis on some important exhibitions dealing with gender performance like "Féminin-Masculin" at the Centre Pompidou of Paris (1995), "Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Gender performance in photography" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York (1997), "Global Feminisms" at the Brooklyn Museum (2007), "Female Trouble" at the Pinakothek der Moderne in München together with the workshops dedicated to "Performance: gender and identity" in June 2005 at the Tate Modern of London. Since 2003 in Italy we have had Gender Bender - an international festival held annually in Bologna - to explore the gender imagery stemming from contemporary culture. In few days this festival offers a series of events ranging from visual arts, performance, cinema, literature to conferences and music. Being aware that any method of research is neither race nor gender neutral I have traced these critical paths to question gender identity in a multicultural perspective taking account of the political implications too. In fact, if visibility may be equated with exposure, we can also read these images as points of intersection of visibility with social power. Since gender assignations rely so heavily on the visual, the postmodern dismantling of gender certainty through performance has wide-ranging effects that need to be analyzed. In some sense this practice can even contest the dominance of visual within postmodernism. My visual map in contemporary art and fashion photography includes artists like Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Hellen van Meene, Rineke Dijkstra, Ed Templeton, Ryan McGinley, Anne Daems, Miwa Yanagi, Tracey Moffat, Catherine Opie, Tomoko Sawada, Vanessa Beecroft, Yasumasa Morimura, Collier Schorr among others.

Vedere e rivedere il non osservabile. Analisi storica e questioni concettuali aperte nel rapporto tra Cinematografia e Scienza

La ricerca è incentrata sul rapporto tra cinema e scienza e sul ruolo della cinematografia come strumento di ricerca scientifica: si articola in due parti storicamente distinte, ma al tempo stesso strettamente correlate da una riflessione critica sul ruolo delle immagini in movimento rispetto al tema comune a entrambe della visualizzazione e rappresentazione del non osservabile nella realtà fisica.

Narrativas y reflexividad : Los efectos biográficos del enfoque biográfico

En el presente artículo reflexionamos acerca de las potencialidades y efectos biográficos del enfoque biográfico, y en particular de la técnica de relatos de vida. Para ello, nos valemos de las significaciones de jóvenes de barrios vulnerabilizados del Area Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (AMBA) que participaron -como entrevistados y co-autores de sus relatos biográficos- de una experiencia de investigación, en el marco de un proyecto UBACyT. En particular, recuperamos expresiones que refieren a la forma en que los jóvenes conciben (y vivencian) la situación de entrevista y los efectos biográficos que supone la experiencia de co-construcción y apropiación, por parte de los entrevistados, de sus relatos de vida. El análisis del corpus discursivo construido (entrevistas y relatos biográficos) nos permitió identificar tres efectos en la vida de los entrevistados que emergieron como consecuencia de su participación en una investigación que empleó el enfoque biográfico en su vertiente interpretativista: el efecto reflexivo, el efecto identitario y el efecto vincular

Usos sociales del filme. Notas teórico-metodológicas y reseña de una práctica de investigación

El artículo presenta algunas de las principales coordenadas teórico-metodológicas de una investigación doctoral que, sustentada en el enfoque cualitativo ligado al uso de expresiones artístico-culturales, propone al filme como fuente primaria de análisis. Describe, además, las distintas etapas del 'trabajo de campo' sintetizando los recorridos, tareas y actividades realizadas para la conformación del corpus y la delimitación de su modo de abordaje. La puesta en común de estas notas teórico-metodológicas y de la reseña de la práctica investigativa pretende contribuir a la reflexión en torno a la importancia y pertinencia de la incorporación de corpus alternativos y múltiples en la generación de conocimiento científico en el campo de las Ciencias Sociales

¿Ya nos conocemos? Apuntes sobre la intertextualidad en la serie Penny Dreadful

En este artículo se realiza un análisis de la serie televisiva "Penny Dreadull", creada por John Logan. Esta ficción articula elementos de la literatura gótica, el cine de terror y las publicaciones periódicas que dan su título a la serie. En esa amalgama, las referencias a diferentes ficciones clásicas del terror (las de Stoker, Shelley, Wilde y otros) son constantes, como así también las refundiciones de sus tramas y personajes. Esta investigación se adentra específicamente en la intertextualidad y las producciones de sentido que se dan en esta serie a partir del trabajo sobre la base de historias ya conocidas

Cuadros en movimiento: la pintura en el cine : Relaciones intermediales en La hora de los valientes (Mercero 1998) y Te doy mis ojos (Bollaín 2003)

Basándonos en un enfoque teórico intermedial, el presente artículo tiene como objeto estudiar las relaciones entre cine y pintura a partir de dos películas españolas: La hora de los valientes (Antonio Mercero 1998) y Te doy mis ojos (Icíar Bollaín 2003). Nos proponemos cotejar cómo los respectivos directores introducen la pintura para construir y enriquecer el relato cinematográfico y analizar qué función narrativa y estética cumplen los cuadros en el texto fílmico. El estudio de ambos filmes nos servirá para demostrar nuestra hipótesis inicial: la pintura se emplea no solo con fines estéticos y narrativos, sino también para convertir al espectador en testigo de un doble drama, el individual y el colectivo. El juego de miradas que atraviesa la diégesis sitúa a la pintura en un primer plano, a la vez que determina la lectura del texto fílmico

Narrativas y reflexividad : Los efectos biográficos del enfoque biográfico

En el presente artículo reflexionamos acerca de las potencialidades y efectos biográficos del enfoque biográfico, y en particular de la técnica de relatos de vida. Para ello, nos valemos de las significaciones de jóvenes de barrios vulnerabilizados del Area Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (AMBA) que participaron -como entrevistados y co-autores de sus relatos biográficos- de una experiencia de investigación, en el marco de un proyecto UBACyT. En particular, recuperamos expresiones que refieren a la forma en que los jóvenes conciben (y vivencian) la situación de entrevista y los efectos biográficos que supone la experiencia de co-construcción y apropiación, por parte de los entrevistados, de sus relatos de vida. El análisis del corpus discursivo construido (entrevistas y relatos biográficos) nos permitió identificar tres efectos en la vida de los entrevistados que emergieron como consecuencia de su participación en una investigación que empleó el enfoque biográfico en su vertiente interpretativista: el efecto reflexivo, el efecto identitario y el efecto vincular

Usos sociales del filme. Notas teórico-metodológicas y reseña de una práctica de investigación

El artículo presenta algunas de las principales coordenadas teórico-metodológicas de una investigación doctoral que, sustentada en el enfoque cualitativo ligado al uso de expresiones artístico-culturales, propone al filme como fuente primaria de análisis. Describe, además, las distintas etapas del 'trabajo de campo' sintetizando los recorridos, tareas y actividades realizadas para la conformación del corpus y la delimitación de su modo de abordaje. La puesta en común de estas notas teórico-metodológicas y de la reseña de la práctica investigativa pretende contribuir a la reflexión en torno a la importancia y pertinencia de la incorporación de corpus alternativos y múltiples en la generación de conocimiento científico en el campo de las Ciencias Sociales