CEAUL/ULICES - AS - Série III - nº 7
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- The truth of the cinematograph: the metamorphic architecture between literature and cinemaPublication . Guerreiro, Fernando, 1938-2013; Ramos, Suzana Alves; Vieira, Ana FilipaInterview with Fernando Guerreiro
- Viva Las Vegas! City, stage and city-stage in Francis Ford Coppola’s One From the HeartPublication . Sol, Hermínia; Sol, Luísa Alexandra Pimenta FerreiraIn the early 1980s the music video came to prominence thanks to a phenomenon that would change American pop culture irrevocably — MTV. Born out of the necessity to stimulate record sales in a recession ridden America, music videos’ impact on contemporary film, fashion and radio quickly became a reality. Based on this premise, we aim to analyze the alliance fostered by music videos and the film industry in order to develop a merchandizable version of the American Dream within a hyperreal setting — that of the city. Taking a cue from Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard, we will look into Francis Ford Coppola’s Las Vegas in One from the Heart (1982) so as to explore the notion of city as stage, as a hyperreal architectural construction whose constant flux and renovation aim to fill the historical void that has always haunted the USA. We shall also explore the innovative character of the film, visible in its theatre-like aesthetics and in its use of the soundtrack as a Greek chorus. The portrayal of Las Vegas as a city immersed in a soundtrack has led One from the Heart to launch a new cinematic approach to city portrayal which will then be propagated by music videos. Such an approach allows for a tighter viewer-involvement with a collective imagery which combines music, image, fashion and life-style. Lastly, emphasis will be given to the representation of Las Vegas as a city of overindulgence and sensory overstimulation which leads the characters to seek a formula for love and affection that has no real existence.
- The Times they are A-Changin: an approach to contemporary filmmakingPublication . Grilo, João Mário, 1958-; Sol, Hermínia; Azevedo, Rui VitorinoInterview with João Mário Grilo
- A strange kind of feeling: conflict and alliance in literature on screen: interview with Lídia JorgePublication . Jorge, Lídia, 1946-; Ramos, Suzana Alves; Silva, Edgardo Medeiros, 1961-Interview with Lídia Jorge
- Xavier Beauvois and Terrence Malick: two cinematographic attempts at revelationPublication . Alves, Maria Teresa Ferreira de Almeida, 1938-In Des Hommes et des Dieux and The Tree of Life, both Xavier Beauvois and Terrence Malick are concerned with values that from the beginning of time to our day have set the human heart wondering and speculating. These issues are brought to their respective films in a distinctive style, which, however, may be closely associated with a common trait in both directors — creative imagination and zest to make the most out of the art of cinema. Their skilful exploration of filmic devices, their invitation to other artistic expressions, namely music and painting, to figure in their films in a signifying role, is tentatively accounted for in this essay, in order to show how a visual narrative, in the case of Beauvois, and an ever-flowing succession of images, in the case of Malick, may contribute to illustrate unsuspected structural and thematic affinities, their remarkable differences notwithstanding.
- Re-engendering “Cinderella” on screen: Andy Tennant’s Ever After: A Cinderella StoryPublication . Cheira, Alexandra Isabel Bugio Bonito Batista, 1972-The enchanted realm of the wonder tale has been gazed upon quite often by novelists, short-story authors and even poets, who have imaginatively translated into their creations their own personal wanderings in wonderland. I will thus read four very different wonder tale versions of “Cinderella”, on a par with Andy Tennant’s Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998). I will focus on the gendered differences between wonder tale versions and film, as well as on their distinctive narrative techniques. I argue that this feminist revision of “Cinderella” re-engenders identities by being closer to the only version written by a woman author, both in narrative style and in substance, than to any of the male versions — including the alleged Grimm tale it follows.
- Identity and otherness in Forrest Gump: a close-up into twentieth-century AmericaPublication . Feneja, Fernanda Luísa da Silva, 1964-Forrest Gump’s life experience spans a few decades of the second half of the twentieth century. Major events in American history, encompassed by the social and cultural setting of the times, are displayed through the main character’s particular angle, a first-person narrative where fact and fiction, History and stories are inextricably interwoven. While Forrest’s unique view of the world is shaped by his mental and physical limitations, he embodies oddity and otherness as seen from other people’s eyes. However, whether because of his choices or merely out of chance, his difference seems to consistently bring him to the core of mainstream American values and dreams. This article aims to reflect on this peculiar relationship between man and contemporaneity, focusing primarily on the dichotomy identity/alterity, both in terms of individual development and within the realm of American experience. The interrelation of both concepts in the film further enables the discussion on how criticism of American culture and history, on the one hand, and allegiance to it, on the other, may correlate, thereby contributing to enlarge the reflection on the meaning of Forrest Gump.
- Redeeming the old south in David O. Selznick’s Gone with the WindPublication . Silva, Edgardo Medeiros, 1961-David O. Selznick’s filmic adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (1936) is informed by the same kind of Romantic nostalgia we find in the pages of this timeless award-winning novel, offering its viewers a conflicting vision over the nature and significance of the period of time which followed the end of the American Civil War. Northerners understood that period as one of “Reconstruction”, whereas Southerners envisaged it more as a time of “Restoration”. I wish to examine in this paper how producer David O. Selznick attempts to redeem the South in his filmic adaptation of this text, in line with the essential premise(s) of Mitchell’s novel, through his representation of a pre-Civil War idyllic, romanticized South, devoid of the pernicious effects of the “peculiar institution”, subjected in a first instance to the aggression of a great Northern invader and upon its defeat by a civilian army of Carpetbaggers.
- Long Night's Journey Into Day: mapping the Rehabilitation of South Africa's Fractured SocietyPublication . Horta, Paula Alexandra, 1967-Change has been a recurring keyword in every domain of thought and action in South Africa since the dismantlement of apartheid and the implementation of democracy following the 1994 democratic elections. Politically, legally, and symbolically, this process broke with an extensive period of oppression and violation of human rights. However, the new government believed that the most significant change in social consciousness would take place at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s public hearings. The TRC was seen as a vehicle for social repair which provided release from the legacy of fear, hatred, revenge and guilt, and redirected people’s desire for vengeance. I approach this theme by considering Frances Reid’s (2000) cinematographic treatment of the role of compassion and forgiveness in healing severed relationships and promoting a course of action capable of transfiguring social exchange and providing new grounds of human community in the documentary film Long Night’s Journey Into Day.
- Cromwell (1970): a god-sent hero in a time of revolutionPublication . Ferreira, Júlio Carlos Viana, 1949-Three hundred and fifty years after his death Oliver Cromwell remains a highly polemical historical figure producing contradictory assessments of his deeds and beliefs. Cinema is a powerful medium which has developed a controversial relationship with history, especially with the criterion of historical accuracy. It is no wonder that, from the outset, a biopic of Cromwell would give rise to disparate judgements, but the film Cromwell, directed by Ken Hughes and released in 1970, is particularly striking on account of its numerous errors and conscious distortions which this paper aims to analyse. Hughes’s portrayal of Cromwell as a proto-democrat and champion of the rights of the common people owes more to the director’s hidden agenda than to the amassed historical knowledge of the real Oliver Cromwell.