Hollywood’s Viral Outbreaks and Pandemics: Horror, Fantasy, and the Political Entertainment of Film Genres
In Légua & Meia v. 13 n. 1, January 2022, pp. 97-129
Films revolving around big natural catastrophes, the end of the world, and global pandemics are viral in Hollywood. Some authors claim that 9/11 enticed the proliferation of disasters, zombies, and apocalyptical narratives. Will the coronavirus further increase these narrative tropes?
A cinematic apocalypse takes many shapes, including zombie infestation, nuclear war devastation, and aliens’ attack. Watching films such as Twelve Monkeys (1995), Children of Men (2006), or Contagion (2011) during a real-life global pandemic creates a much different viewing experience than when these films were released. Certain films kill humans with a deadly virus and turn them into zombies emphasizing and pushing forward to a cinema of genre its entertainment features, such as I Am Legend (2007), Train to Busan (2016), or Blood Quantum (2020). However, they also use horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres to portray a realistic compelling family drama or discuss structural racism and systemic colonialism against America’s indigenous peoples.
In all these films, scientific ambition, political greed, and economic power intermingle, becoming the unknown forces and real detractors behind these catastrophes. Whether or not the end of the world is an appropriate story for entertainment attracts most viewers to Hollywood cinema. Conventional postapocalyptic tropes create a film riddled with relevant political concerns. Every year, hundreds of films transpose to the screen compelling narratives related to pandemics and their effects. In Coronavirus’s times, I analyze and contextualize several of Hollywood’s viral outbreaks to situate their narratives to current political subjects and understand how disaster and pandemic films have become entertaining.
Zumthor et la voix poétique dans le Cinema Novo de Glauber Rocha et Vladimir Carvalho
In Paul Zumthor: Memória das Vozes. Ed. by Luiz Assunção e Beliza Aurea de Arruda Mello. São Paulo, Arché/Assimetria, 2018, pp. 139-167.
Le médiéviste Paul Zumthor a amplement étudié les racines et l’influence de la culture orale dans la société contemporaine. Ses recherches sur l’oralité nous permettent de mieux comprendre certains aspects de la littérature populaire de Cordel ainsi que le cinéma brésilien, puisque la présence et performance de la voix sont une des caractéristiques fondamentales du Cinema Novo.
La littérature de Cordel fut plus qu’une source d’inspiration pour Cinema Novo, ce fut un terrain de négociation identitaire nationale. En s’appropriant ses caractéristiques particulières d’une racine orale traditionnelle et amplement ancrée dans l’imaginaire brésilien, le mouvement de jeunes cinéastes intellectuels et politisés a pu crée un lien fort et direct avec la culture populaire brésilienne.
O cinema intercultural na era da globalização
In Cinema, Globalização e Interculturalidade, Denilson Lopes and Andréa França, eds. Chapecó, Argos Editora, 2010, pp. 43-66.
Nunca se viu tantos deslocamentos humanos quanto no século 20. A Segunda Guerra mundial provocou uma nova experiência do movimento de populações que se tornou uma das mais significativas e traumáticas dos últimos tempos. O mapa mundial foi retraçado e muitas culturas foram dispersas ou transferidas de uma região à outra. Nosso tempo é sem dúvida a era dos refugiados, das pessoas em movimento, da imigração em massa. Muitos artistas transformam os traumas do deslocamento numa importante renovação do pensamento e de reflexão sobre a sociedade contemporânea. Novas impressões e pontos de vista são criados com o descer e subir de barreiras, muros e alfândegas. Novas geografias e linguagens são impostas à um conjunto inteiro de culturas e antigas nações. Como aproximar o cinema às novas realidades e subjetividades dessas novas fronteiras?
Subtitling Jia Zhangke’s Films: Intermediality, Digital Technology, and the Varieties of Foreignness in Global Cinema
In Global Media, Culture, and Identity: Theory, Cases, and Approaches, Rohit Chopra and Radhika Gajjala, eds. London/New York, Routledge, 2011, 188-202.
Globalization, subtitles, and new technical filming devices bring new possibilities to contemporary Chinese cinema. This potentiality is revealed in the work of Jia Zhangke, through intermediality, which examines the imposition of technology and industrialization on contemporary Chinese society, two phenomena that cause the alienation and estrangement of Chinese people. This paradoxical result, expressed through Jia’s characters, is central to his films, such as The World, Still Life, Dong, Useless and 24 City, that focus on the isolation of transplanted individuals in urban settings and the breakdown of community.
L’expression de l’irrationnel. La parole en acte de la diaspora africaine dans trois documentaires brésiliens
In CinémAction ed. 163, Paris, June 2017, pp. 134-142
L’acte de parole dans le documentaire est un discours d’un sujet « en action » qui interagit avec son entourage et marqué par des tensions. Dans trois documentaires brésiliens, Le fil de la mémoire, Estamira et Ce que la terre a donné, la terre le reprend, on trouve de telles tensions chez trois personnages noirs qui voient l’histoire brésilienne sous un angle particulier. Par le biais de discours historiques et mythiques, de prophéties et de fantasmagories, ces personnages expriment leurs pensées intimes dans un effort pour révéler leur vision du monde. Ces trois discours différents réintègrent dans la société brésilienne d’une manière non-conventionnelle, voire subversive, l’héritage africain dont ils ont fortement conscience et qu’ils ne manquent pas de rappeler à ceux qui les écoutent. Cependant, ces trois films en documentant ces actes de paroles irraisonnées, légitiment toute en discréditant la validité même d’un discours afro-brésilien.
Par le fait de cadrer des personnages noirs au centre de l’image et de leur donner le rôle de narrateur de ces histoires, ces documentaires tentent d’évaluer la position et le discours des Noirs dans la société contemporaine, voire le discours de la société sur les Noirs. Dans l’un ou l’autre cas, il s’agit d’un ‘tour de force’ car ces films montrent la discrimination à l’égard des Noirs, leur aliénation, et leur marginalisation, tout en transformant leur faiblesse (rendue par un discours irraisonné et fragmentaire), une force en termes de document filmique pour révéler la vérité. Cependant, le film documentaire n’est pas réduit à enregistrer des vérités et des souvenirs inaccessibles. Il possède aussi une dimension réflexive qui questionne son pouvoir véridictoire. Pourtant, ces mêmes documentaires ont pour but de critiquer la stigmatisation de la maladie mentale et l’indifférence de la société à leur égard et à leur histoire diasporique.
Great Directors: Nelson Pereira dos Santos
In Senses of Cinema, Issue 60.
Nelson Pereira dos Santos (1928-2018), considered the initiator of modern Brazilian cinema in the 1950s, is also its most literary filmmaker. In fact, of his 25 features, 15 were based on literary work from Brazilian writers. This has assured him a privileged place as a member of the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Letters; never before has a Brazilian filmmaker been immortalized in this way. Santos is one of the most influential Brazilian filmmakers. In his quintessential career, his films have influenced directors and cinephiles for over 50 years. Of the most influential Brazilian films of the past five decades, at least one was directed by Santos in each decade. These influential films include Rio, 40 Graus (Rio, 100 Degrees F., 1955), Vidas Secas (Barren Lives, 1963), Como Era Gostoso o MeuFrancês (How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman, 1971), Memórias do Cárcere (1984), and Casa-Grande e Senzala (2000). Santos’ impact on Latin American cinema cannot be overstated. For critics and cinephiles all over the world, Santos’ early films are milestones in the emergence of modern post-war cinema. Inspired by neorealism, his films from the 1950s and 1960s depict the brutal reality of life in the favelados (slums)found in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, or of retirantes (migrants) fleeing the famine in the drought-stricken northeastern region of Brazil.