News Media and Historiography in Brazilian Cinema

Abstract

This chapter examines the relationship between news media in Cinema Novo films to underscore the impact of their shared discourse on the history of Brazilian films.

The author discusses the emplotment of news media within representative Cinema Novo films whose narratives speak to an ongoing debate concerning the role of print and televisual journalism in the increasingly repressive political environment of the military dictatorship installed in the 1960s. Interpretations on the level of film narrative, of specific scenes, and of shot and shot-sequencing contribute to the discussion, situated within the broader historical context of the established laws and commissions of 1960s Brazil.

Together, the analyzed films’ various interventions in Brazilian cultural and political history offer a complex representational fabric simultaneously constituting and critiquing national discourse.

The present research is limited to films of the 1960s but has implications for the interpretation of many Brazilian films and for Brazilian film history writ large. The overlap of film and news media is abundantly evident in the films of the Retomada and New Millennial Brazilian Cinema, but they do not fit within the scope of this chapter.

This analysis discusses a major canonical film (Entranced Earth) alongside lesser-known films (Threatened City, Freedom of the Press). When considered together in the light of their shared reflections concerning news media, these films bring up previously underexamined issues within the respective fields of Communication Studies and Brazilian Film Studies.

Citation

Hahn, C.A. (2017), "News Media and Historiography in Brazilian Cinema", Brazil (Studies in Media and Communications, Vol. 13), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2050-206020170000013005