Brazilian National Cinema

Brazilian cinema is one of the most influential national cinemas in Latin America and this wide-ranging study traces the evolution of Brazilian film from the silent era to the present day, including detailed studies of more recent international box-office hits, such as Central Station (1998) and City of God (2002). Brazilian National Cinema gives due importance to traditionally overlooked aspects of Brazilian cinema, such as popular genres, ranging from musical comedies (the chanchada) to soft-core porn films (the pornochanchada) and horror films, and also provides a fresh approach to the internationally acclaimed avant-garde Cinema Novo of the 1960s. Lisa Shaw and Stephanie Dennison apply recent theories on stardom, particularly relating to issues of ethnicity, race and gender, to both well-known Brazilian performers, such as Carmen Miranda and Sonia Braga, and lesser known domestic icons, such as the Afro-Brazilian comic actor, Grande Otelo (Big Othello), and the uberblonde children’s TV and film star, and media mogul, Xuxa. This timely addition to the National Cinemas series provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between Brazilian cinema and issues of national and cultural identity.

This volume examines Brazilian films released between 1995 and 2010, with special attention to issues of race, ethnicity and national identity. Focusing on the idea of the nation as an 'imagined community', the author discuss the various ways in which dominant ideas about brasilidade (Brazilian national consciousness) are dramatised, supported or attacked in contemporary fiction and documentary films.

Looking back through the prism of the severe economic crisis for filmmaking in the 1980s, The Film Industry in Brazil explores the unusual relationship between the state-supported industry, which often produced politically radical films, and the authoritarian regime that had held sway for twenty years. To ground his analysis, Johnson covers the early years of the film industry, 1898-1930; attempts at industrialization during the 1930s and 1940s; film industry congresses and government film boards, 1950-1966; the National Film Institute, 1966-1975; and the expansion of the state's role from 1969 through 1980. Well-conceived, carefully researched and documented, Johnson's study fills a major gap in film studies by tracing the development of this industry in Brazil, focusing specifically on its relationship to the state.

From the documentary to the cinema novo and cannibalism, from Nelson Pereira dos Santos's Vidas Secas to music in the films of Glauber Rocha, this third, revised edition is a century-spanning introduction to the story of a medium that flourished in one of the most developed of 'underdeveloped' nations.

Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes (1916–77) is revered in Brazil as the first ardent defender, promoter and theorist of Brazilian cinema. A film professor, critic and historian, his dedication to cinema shaped a generation of influential film critics in his home country, and set the foundations for the serious study of film in Brazil. For the first time in English, this book brings together a selection of his essays for an English-speaking audience, with detailed explanatory introductions to each section for readers unfamiliar with the context of the writings of Salles Gomes. By blending together ruminations on global and national cinema, as well as avant-garde film and popular movies, the collection shows how the defence and promotion of a national cinema has been forged through dialogues with international trends, informed by commercial influences, and shaped by global and national political contexts. The book thus introduces readers to the international dimensions of Salles Gomes’s engagements with film, and in doing so reassesses the locatedness of his formulations on national cinema and signals their international dimensions.

The innovative collection of essays by a distinguished group of scholars brought together in The Brazilian Road Movie - Journeys of (Self) Discovery represents the first book-length publication on Brazil's encounters with and reworkings of one of cinema's most enduringly popular genres.

Remapping Brazilian Film Culture makes a significant contribution not only to debates about Brazilian national cinema, but more generally about the development of world cinema in the twenty-first century. This book charts the key features of Brazilian film culture of the first two decades of the twenty-first century, including: the latest cultural debates within Brazil on film funding and distribution practices; the impact of diversity politics on the Brazilian film industry; the reception and circulation of Brazilian films on the international film festival circuit; and the impact on cultural production of the sharp change in political direction at national level experienced post-2016. The principle of "remapping" here is based on a need to move on from potentially limiting concepts such as "the national", which can serve to unduly ghettoise a cinema, film industry and audience. The book argues that Brazilian film culture should be read as being part of a globally articulated film culture whose internal workings are necessarily distinctive and thus deserving of world cinema scholars’ attention. A blend of industry studies, audience reception and cultural studies, Remapping Brazilian Film Culture is a dynamic volume for students and researchers in film studies, particularly Brazilian, Latin American and world cinema. *Honorary Mention - Best Book in Humanities for the LASA Brazil Prize 2021*

Brazilian cinema is one of the most influential national cinemas in Latin America and this wide-ranging study traces the evolution of Brazilian film from the silent era to the present day, including detailed studies of more recent international box-office hits, such as Central Station (1998) and City of God (2002). Brazilian National Cinema gives due importance to traditionally overlooked aspects of Brazilian cinema, such as popular genres, ranging from musical comedies (the chanchada) to soft-core porn films (the pornochanchada) and horror films, and also provides a fresh approach to the internationally acclaimed avant-garde Cinema Novo of the 1960s. Lisa Shaw and Stephanie Dennison apply recent theories on stardom, particularly relating to issues of ethnicity, race and gender, to both well-known Brazilian performers, such as Carmen Miranda and Sonia Braga, and lesser known domestic icons, such as the Afro-Brazilian comic actor, Grande Otelo (Big Othello), and the uberblonde children’s TV and film star, and media mogul, Xuxa. This timely addition to the National Cinemas series provides a comprehensive overview of the relationship between Brazilian cinema and issues of national and cultural identity.