Exposing the illusions of modernity: literary society and the belle époque of brazilian cinema
2007; CIESPAL; Volume: 36; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-4247
Autores Tópico(s)Literature, Culture, and Criticism
ResumoOn July 8, 1896, in Rio de Janeiro, the cinema was shown for the first time in Brazil. Jour? nalists immediately reported the momentous occasion in the country's daily newspapers, en? thusiastically describing the new apparatus and its marvelous impressions of real life. At the same time, Brazilian writers and registered their own opinions of the movies. Jo?o do Rio and Olavo Bilac, amongst others, discussed the cinema's novel effects and techniques in a number of cr?nicas written in the early 1900s, and authors such as L?o Vaz and Th?o Filho mentioned the increasing popularity of the new invention in fiction works.1 Flora S?ssekind notes that it was this kind of indirect relation that characterized Brazilian authors' early encounter with the movies: writers mostly tended to discuss films in journalistic pieces or prose fiction, rarely, if ever, venturing into the practical endeavor of filmmaking (Cinematograph 26). John King too observes that, in spite of Brazilian intellectuals fascination with the cinema, it was not until 1929 when symbolist poet Mario Peixoto (1908-92) wrote and directed the film Limite that they took an active interest in filmmaking (23). Peixoto, however, was not the first Brazilian writer to be involved in film production. When the cinema was still in its first decades, a few authors, known collectively as the bo?mios, became actively involved in movie-making, participating in the production of films and contributing to the period subsequently named the belle-?poque (1908-12), Brazil's Golden Age of filmmaking when domestic films were more popular than imported products (see Johnson and Stam's intro? duction to Brazilian Cinema for an outline of the Belle Epoque of Brazilian cinema). In 1909 poet Manuel Bastos Tigre (1882-1957) began writing movie scripts, or fitas impressas, that were published in the magazine Careta and he later produced the rhyming subtitles for O filme do diabo (1915). In 1910 Raul Pederneiras (1874-1953) penned scripts for the films O cometa and Z? Bolas e o famoso telegrama n?mero 9 as well as participating in their set design; and starting
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