Words, Images, Gestures: A Dialogue between João Silvério Trevisan’s Documentary Contestação (1969) and Walter Benjamin’s Theses On the Concept of History

Gustavo Tanus; Antonia Cristina de Alencar Pires; Filipe Schettin

doi:10.25038/am.v0i21.363

Authors

Gustavo Tanus
Antonia Cristina de Alencar Pires
Filipe Schettin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i21.363

Keywords:

political cinema, history, authoritarian regimes, Benjaminian theses

Abstract

Cinema builds a diversity of important narratives to discuss culture and language. Many of them deal with authoritarian states and their antithesis, rebellion, resistance. This study analyzes the film narrative Contestação (1969), by João Silvério Trevisan, an experimental documentary on the protagonism of students against the authoritarianism and violence of dictatorships, from which we will analyze the narrative itself, as well as its composition made from the reuse of media material, film archives and journalism, and music as an element of the filmic montage; it analyzes this intermedia process between word and image. This analysis will be based on Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Concept of History, in order to observe how the film formulates temporalities, the perception of events, and the construction of history. For the analysis of the composition of the film, concepts from theorists such as Eisenstein, Bakhtin, Kristeva, and Intermediality theorists, among others, were used.

Article received: December 13, 2019; Article accepted: January 31, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2020; Original scholarly paper

Author Biographies

Gustavo Tanus

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte
Brazil

Gustavo Tanus holds a Master’s Degree in Literary Theory, a Bachelor’s Degree in Portuguese and a Bachelor’s Degree in Publishing, all from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), and, actually, is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Literature at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). He wrote the book Africans and afro-descendants on the shelves: The Public Library of Minas Gerais (Africanos e afrodescendentes nas estantes: A Biblioteca Pública Estadual de Minas Gerais, translation mine) (2017), and is a researcher at NEIA, a Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on Alterity, in the School of Letters at UFMG. Co-founder and researcher of Moviola–research group intersemiotic: crossings between Cinema, Literature and other areas.

Antonia Cristina de Alencar Pires

Faculty of Letters of the Federal University of Minas Gerais
Brazil

Antonia Cristina de Alencar Pires, Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Letters of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). Master in Brazilian Literature, Faculty of Letters, Federal University of Minas Gerais. Bachelor of Library Science of Information Science at UFMG. Co-founder, coordinator and researcher of Moviola – research group intersemiotic: crossings between Cinema, Literature and other areas. Technician of Management, Protection and Restoration of the State Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage of Minas Gerais – IEPHA / MG.

Filipe Schettin

University of Minas Gerais
Brazil

Filipe Schettini, film-maker, co-director, co-writer and author of the soundtrack for the fiction short film Noturno interlúdio [Nocturne Interlude]. Director and editor of the short documentary Arcangelo, is a screenwriter and film producer. Graduating from the Cinema and Audiovisual course at UNA University Center. Co-founder and researcher of Moviola–research group intersemiotic: crossings between Cinema, Literature and other areas.

References

Benjamin, Walter. “Sobre o conceito de história”. In Obras escolhidas I – magia e técnica, arte e política. 7. ed. Translated by Sergio Paulo Rouanet. Preface by Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, 222–33. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1994.

Chaia, María, and Victoria Julia Lencina. “Historia del Cine Latinoamericano y Argentino: El alma del bandoneón (Mario Soffici, 1935).” Bachelor’s Thesis, Universidad de Buenos Aires Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Artes, 2017.

Clüver, Claus. “Inter textus / Inter artes / Inter media.” Translated by Elcio Loureiro Cornelsen. Aletria: Revista de Estudos de Literatura 14 (Jul./Dez. 2006): 11–41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.14.2.10-41

Compagnon, Antoine. O trabalho da citação. Translated by Cleonice P. B. Mourão. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2007.

Eisenstein, Serguei. A forma do filme. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2002.

Eisenstein, Sergei. The Film Sense. Edited and translated by Jay Leyda. New York: Meridian Books, 1957.

Higgins, Dick. “Intermídia.” Translated by Amir Britto. In Intermidialidade e estudos interartes: os desafios da arte contemporânea, edited by Thaïs Flores Diniz and André Soares Vieira, 41–50. Belo Horizonte: Rona, Fale/UFMG, 2012.

Kristeva, Julia. “Word, Dialogue and Novel.” In The Kristeva Reader, edited by Toril Moi, 34–61. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.

Kristeva, Julia. Introdução à semanálise. 2. ed. Translated by Lúcia Helena França Ferraz. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2005.

Moser, Walter. “As relações entre as artes: por uma arqueologia da intermidialidade.” Aletria: Revista de Estudos de Literatura 14 (Jul./Dez. 2006): 42–65. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17851/2317-2096.14.2.42-65

Nichols, Bill. Introdução ao documentário. Translated by Monica Saddy Martins. Campinas: Papirus, 2005.

Trevisan, João Silvério. Contestação. Brasil: Documentário, P&B, 1969.

Voloshinov, V. N. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Translated by Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik. New York, London: Seminar Press, 1973.

Words, Images, Gestures: A Dialogue between João Silvério Trevisan’s Documentary Contestação (1969) and Walter Benjamin’s Theses On the Concept of History

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Keywords:

Abstract

Author Biographies

Gustavo Tanus

Antonia Cristina de Alencar Pires

Filipe Schettin

References

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