TROPICAL UNDERGROUND. THE BRAZILIAN CINEMA MARGINAL AND THE REVOLUTION OF CINEMA
“Intermedia Cannibalism”
Lecture by Lúcia Nagib (University of Reading)
8.2.2018 at the DFF cinema.
Lúcia Nagib’s lecture draws on the concept of intermediality to examine the political contribution of the film HOW TASTY WAS MY LITTLE FRENCHMAN. In Pereira dos Santos’ film, media forms permeate each other and blur national boundaries, argues Nagib. A new dimension of hybridity and transnationalism is emerging that has not existed in the Cinema Novo movement before. The source of the fictional plot was, for example, the expedition report by the German mercenary Hans Staden. Pieces of his text are also used in the film alongside drawings, letters, poems and decrees from the 16th century in the form of intertitles or commentaries. They often contradict the images shown and open up a further level of history. The possible political utopia contained in the hybrid form of film consists in a supranational view of the world in which people, regardless of their origin or status, become mere vessels of their cultural capital.
Lúcia Nagib is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Reading, UK. She leads the international research project “Towards an Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema”. Her publications include World Cinema and the Ethics of Realism (2011) and Brazil on Screen: Cinema Novo, New Cinema and Utopia (2007).
Film: COMO ERA GOSTOSO O MEU FRANCÊS How tasty was my little Frenchman
Brazil 1971.
R: Nelson Pereira dos Santos
D: Arduíno Colassanti, Ana Maria Magalhães. 84 mins. Digital. OV with English subtitles.
