Overview

Examines the centrality of Cinema Novo to filmmaking in Brazil. ""A camera in the hand and ideas in the head"" was the primary axiom of the young originators of Brazil's Cinema Novo. This movement of the 1960s and early 1970s overcame technical constraints and produced films on minimal budgets. In Allegories of Underdevelopment, Ismail Xavier examines a number of these films, arguing that they served to represent a nation undergoing a political and social transformation into modernity. Its best-known voice, filmmaker Glauber Rocha claimed that Cinema Novo was driven by an ""aesthetics of hunger."" This scarcity of means demanded new cinematic approaches that eventually gave rise to a legitimate and unique Third World cinema. Xavier stands in the vanguard of scholars presenting and interpreting these revolutionary films-from the masterworks of Rocha to the groundbreaking experiments of Julio Bressane, Rogrio Sganzerla, Andrea Tonacci and Arthur Omar-to an English-speaking audience. Focusing on each filmmaker's use of narrative allegories for the ""conservative modernization"" Brazil and other nations underwent in the 1960s and 1970s, Xavier asks questions relating to the connection between film and history. He examines the way Cinema Novo transformed Brazil's cultural memory and charts the controversial roles that Marginal Cinema and Tropicalism played in this process. Among the films he discusses are Black God, White Devil, Land in Anguish, Red Light Bandit, Macunama, Antnio das Mortes, The Angel Is Born, and Killed the Family and Went to the Movies. A compelling chronicle of the history of modern Brazilian cinema, Allegories of Underdevelopment brings to light the work of many filmmakers who are virtually unknown in the English-speaking world.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ismail Xavier
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.90cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.400kg
ISBN:  

9780816626779

ISBN 10:   0816626774
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   01 August 1997
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Author Information

Ismail Xavier received his Ph.D. in film studies from New York University. He currently teaches at the University of So Paulo, Brazil.

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