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Dr. Jaime Ginzburg
King’s Brazil Institute Room 3G Chesham
Building, Strand
020 7848 7475
TBC
jaime.ginzburg@kcl.ac.uk
10am-1pm Tuesdays
6pm-9pm Mondays
A critical and theoretical exploration of Brazil’s contemporary cinema.
The course focuses on feature films and documentaries produced from
1992 until the present day, looking at how they deal with a complicated
nexus of what has come to be discussed as globalization. Among these
are the increasingly extensive networks of money and power; the
transnational flow of commodities and cultural forms, the accelerated
global movement of people. At stake are the new ways in which the
geographical, economic, social and political unit of the nation can be
understood and represented. How can the cinema help us think through
Brazil’s new geopolitical reality and trans-national structure, as well as
the technological transformation of the experience of time, space, and
movement? What formal, stylistic, and expressive forms have emerged in
film to deal with increasingly complex and differentiated world? These
are some of the key questions addressed by the course. We will also seek
to understand the role of a Brazilian national cinema in supra-national
circuits of cultural production, as well as the emergence of
representations of difference that contest and problematize the unity of
the nation state, from questions of race and sexuality to new minor and
essentially transnational types of filmmaking (cinemas of exile and
diaspora).
The course begins by looking at the impact of new cultural policies
regarding cinema, initiated by the neoliberal measures taken by the
government in the 1990s, which placed the film financing squarely in the
global commercial market. It proceeds to look at how these policies
national cinema redefined the role and function of Brazil’s national
cinema, by exploring a range of films: these include nostalgic films of the
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mid 1990s which hark back to a golden age of national cinema, cinematic
depictions of poverty and marginality, the emergence of Brazilian
international blockbusters, new documentary practices and the
contemporary road movie.
This module aims to examine key theoretical debates and approaches to
theorizing the idea of Brazilian cinema in a new global landscape. The
module explores how diverse cinematic developments from the 1990s to
the present day have articulated and responded to economic, social and
political changes in the country and at large. In doing so it intends to
question how we might usefully apply a variety of theoretical approaches,
- questions of national cinema, globalization, transnational cinema, to the
Brazilian context today.
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to
demonstrate practical and intellectual skill appropriate to a level 7
module.
1. Module Specific Skills
a) Demonstrate a systematic understanding of key research, theories
and advanced scholarship relating to the study of Brazilian cinema
b) Demonstrate a sound grasp of key film debates in contemporary
Brazil
c) Critically relate scholarship concerning Brazilian cinema to
theoretical debates and issues regarding globalization and
transnationalism.
d) Evaluate this research, develop critiques of them and where
appropriate develop and propose new hypotheses in relation to
both to the theoretical texts and films studies on this module
2. Discipline Specific Sills
a) Show the capacity to analyze films from an historical and
theoretical perspective and in ways that take aesthetic,
institutional and cultural factors and methodological issues into
account.
b) Mount a detailed argument using a range of textual and
contextual evidence in its support
Teaching will consist of one weekly two-hour seminar held over a single
semester. In most cases this will be led by a student presentation on a
relevant topic, followed by a group discussion and supplemented with
teaching and commentary from the course tutor. Students are required to
view films and to read material before the class. All films and books are
available at Maughan Library.
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Attendance at all class meetings is mandatory, and, in accordance with
college regulation, students may be removed from the program if they do
not attend regularly. Attendance at sessions – whether seminars, tutorials,
or screenings – is monitored. Unavoidable absence must always be
explained to the member of staff concerned, preferably in advance. Of
course, you may at times be unwell or otherwise unable to meet a
particular deadline for good reason. You must inform the course tutor at
once in all such cases. If you are absent through illness for more than a
week you must provide a medical certificate as soon as you return. If you
fail to attend three or more sessions in any course without valid excuse,
you will be contacted and your absence investigated.
Assessment will consist of:
1) 1 essay on the same topic (2,000 words), due on 2 November at 5PM.
The essay is weighted at 25% of the module mark and the pass mark
is 50.
2) 1 essay (4,000 words), due Monday 11 January. The essay is weighted
at 75% of the module mark and the pass mark is 50.
All essays should be submitted via KEATS.
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Introduction.
Directed by Luiz Bolognesi
2013
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Readings:


WATTS, Jonathan and ROCHA, Jan. Brazil’s ‘lost report’ into
genocide surfaces after 40 years.
. 29/5/2013.
SCOLUM, J. David. Film violence and the institutionalization of the
cinema.
. V.67. n.3. Fall 2000.
Further Reading:

CARDIA, Nancy; ADORNO, Sergio & FOLETO, Frederico. Homicide
rates and Human Rights violations in São Paulo, Brazil.
. V.6.n.2. 2003.
O SOM AO REDOR
Directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
2012
Readings:
 FRENCH, Philip. Neighbouring sounds- Review.
.
24/3/2013.
 HASUMI, Shigehiko. Fiction and the ‘Unrepresentable’.
. V.26 (2-3), 2009.
 WINGLEY, Samuel. Festival gem: Neighbouring Sounds. British Film
Institute. 2/4/2014. http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/festival-gemneighbouring-sounds.
Further Reading:
 PRINCE, Stephen. Cruelty, sadism and the horror film. In: ___.
. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2003.
Brazilian Cinema: History, Criticism and Challenges
Readings

GOMES, Paulo Emilio. Cinema: a trajectory within
underdevelopment. from JOHNSON, Randal & STAM, Robert,
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
Eds.
. New York: Columbia University Press,
1995.P.244-255.
CHANAN, Michael. New Cinemas in Latin American Cinema. In:
NOWELL-SMITH, Geoffrey, Ed. The Oxford History of World
Cinema. Oxford University Press, 1997. Available:
http://kcl.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=431159

JOHNSON, Randal. The Nova Republica and the crisis in
Brazilian Cinema.
. v.24. n. 1.
1989.
Further readings


Shaw, L. & Dennison, S., (2007) "Dystopian Cityscapes" from
Shaw, L.,
. New York,: Routledge.
Xavier, I., (1997) "Land in Anguish: Allegory and Agony". In:
Minneapolis,: University of Minnesota Press,
1977. Available:
http://kcl.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=310396
ESTAMOS JUNTOS
Directed by Toni Venturi
2011
Readings:


CASTLE, Terry. Phantasmagoria: spectral technology and the
metaphorics of modern reverie.
. V.15. n.1. 1988.
CHAUVARY, Zahid. Phantasmagoric aesthetics: colonial violence
and the management of perception.
. N.59. Winter
2005.
Further Reading:

XAVIER, Ismail. Brazilian Cinema in 1990s. The unexpected
encounter and the resentful character. In: NAGIB, Lucia, Ed.
. London: University of Oxford, 2003. Access:
https://archive.org/details/The_New_Brazilian_Cinema_Luci_Nagib
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HOJE
Directed by Tata Amaral
2011
Readings:
 ATENCIO, Rebecca. Testimonies and the Amnesty Law. In: ___.
Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 2014.
 PEREIRA, Anthony W. Political trials in Brazil. In: ____.
Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, 2005.
 KEARNEY, Richard. Remembering the past.
. V.24. n.23. 1998.
Further Reading:
BEAL, Sophia.
2013. Chapter 5.
. New York: Palgrave Macmilan,
Screenings are
Week 1:
Week 2:
Week 3: Violence in Brazilian cinema
Week 4: Urban conflict in Brazilian cinema
Week 5:
Week 6:
Week 7: Sexuality in Brazilian cinema
Week 8: Authoritarianism and Memory in Brazilian cinema
Week 9: Cinema Novo and its legcy
Week 10: Recent Brazilian cinema
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CARANDIRU. Hector Babenco.
CORPO. Rossana Foglia and Rubens Rewald.
ESTAMIRA. Marcos Prado.
FILMEFOBIA. Kiko Goifman.
GARAPA. José Padilha.
HOTEL ATLÂNTICO. Suzana Amaral.
JANELA DA ALMA. João Jardim and Walter Carvalho.
JOGO DE CENA. Eduardo Coutinho.
O CÉU DE SUELY. Karim Ainouz.
O INVASOR. Beto Brant.
O OUTRO LADO DA RUA. Marcos Bernstein.
TATUAGEM. Hilton Lacerda.
ADORNO, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. London, Bloomsbury, 2013.
ARENAS, Fernando. Utopias of otherness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2003.
ARENDT, Hannah. On violence. Orlando, Harvest Book Harcourt, 1970.
BENJAMIN, Walter. Illuminations. New York, Schocken Books, 2007.
BENJAMIN, Walter. One way street and other writings. London, NLB, 1979.
BENJAMIN, Walter. The writer of modern life. Cambridge, Harvard University Press,
2006.
BENTES, Ivana. "The Sertao and the Favela in Contemporary Brazilian Film" from
Vieira, J.L. (Ed.), Cinema Novo and Beyond edited by Vieira, J.L. (Ed.), page 0-0,
Connecticut,: Herlim Press. 1988.
DUVENAGE, Pieter. The politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and
apartheid. Philosophy & Social Criticism. London, 1999. v.25. n.3.
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MARCUSE, Herbert. Art as a form of reality. In: ___. Art and liberation. Collected
papers. London: Routledge, 2007. V.4.
PIZZATO, Mark. Theatres of human sacrifice. New York, State University of New York
Press, 2005.
ROCHA, Glauber. "An aesthetic of hunger” from R. Johnson R. Stam (eds.), Brazilian
cinema edited by R. Johnson R. Stam (eds.), pp.68-71,244-255, New York,: Columbia
University Press. 1995.