Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism 9780292760981

Citation preview

Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

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Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture Series

E di t e d by F r e de r ick Lu is A lda m a, A rt u ro J. A lda m a, a n d Pat r ick Colm Hoga n Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture includes monographs and edited volumes that incorporate cutting-edge research in cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, narrative theory, and related fields, exploring how this research bears on and illuminates cultural phenomena such as, but not limited to, literature, fi lm, drama, music, dance, visual art, digital media, and comics. The volumes published in this series represent both specialized scholarship and interdisciplinary investigations that are deeply sensitive to cultural specifics and grounded in a cross-cultural understanding of shared emotive and cognitive principles.

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

Richard A. Gordon

University of Texas Press

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Austin

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Copyright © 2015 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2015 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/rp-form The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Li br a ry of Congr e ss Cata logi ng -i n-Pu blicat ion Data Gordon, Richard A. (Richard Allen), 1969– Cinema, slavery, and Brazilian nationalism / Richard A. Gordon. — First edition. pages cm. — (Cognitive approaches to literature and culture series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-292-76097-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Slavery in motion pictures. 2. Nationalism in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures—Political aspects—Brazil. 4. Motion pictures— Social aspects—Brazil. I. Title. PN1995.9.S557G68 2015 791.43′655—dc23 2014015998 doi:10.7560/760974

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I dedicate this book to Lisa Voigt and Bill Worden.

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction 1

Ch a p t e r On e. Influencing Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000) 12 Ch a p t e r T wo. Modeling National Identity on Religious Identity in Cafundó (2005) 65 Ch a p t e r T h r e e. Multiple, Provisional, National Identity Models in Quilombo (1984) 110 Ch a p t e r Fou r. Alternative Understandings of the National Community in Chico Rei (1985) 158 Ch a p t e r F i v e. Flirting with Viewers and Precariously Rethinking Brazilianness in Xica da Silva (1976) 187 Notes

217

Works Cited 251 Index

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Acknowledgments

I

h av e be e n a ble to com plet e t h is book la rge ly because of collaboration. The fi rst seeds for this project— articles that would grow into chapters—were developed in the context of weeklong collaborative writing sessions, beginning in 2003. Several times a year my friend Bill Worden and I would bring together a few colleagues from various disciplines to help each other fi nish articles and submit them for publication. A number of people have provided invaluable feedback as I have written this book, both through these intense collaborations and outside of them. I am particularly indebted to both Bill Worden and to my friend and, for a few treasured years, Ohio State colleague Lisa Voigt for their constant encouragement and constructive critiques. I would like to thank several other colleagues at Ohio State who helped me in the writing of this book, in particular Pedro Pereira and Lúcia Costigan, whose friendship and intellectual companionship during my time there were more than I could have hoped for. I am very grateful as well for the crucial contributions of Elizabeth Davis, Maureen Ahern, Jonathan Burgoyne, Ignacio Corona, Richard Samuels, Rebecca Haidt, Laura Podalsky, Ileana Rodríguez, Dorothy Noyes, and Neil Tennant. The following people also have helped me to bring this book to fruition: Leila Lehnen, Rasma Lazda, Gunars Cazers, Nicolle Jordan, Tom O’Brien, Robert Stam, Randal Johnson, Christopher González, Robert Newcomb, Robert Moser, Yarí Pérez-Marín, Jeremy Lehnen, Isabel Arredondo, Luis Maldonado, Elizabeth Russ, Anna Turner, Dennis Foster, Bruce Levy, Beth Newman, Rajani Sudan, Nina Schwartz, Russell Hamilton, Kátia Santos, Áydano Pimentel, John Petrus, Alan Gal-

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Acknowledgments

lay, Robert Howell, Pilar Chamorro, Meghan Armstrong, Rute Rodrigues Reis, Hélder Garmes, Song No, Howard Mancing, Ilza Matias de Sousa, Marguerite Harrison, and Katherine McKnight. Thank you! I am grateful to the students of courses and audience members at conferences who have asked thought-provoking questions and made insightful comments when I have presented material from this project. The book has benefited greatly from these valuable interactions. I would like to thank, as well, the anonymous readers of the book manuscript, whose detailed suggestions have helped to improve it. I reserve special thanks for Frederick Aldama and Patrick Hogan, the editors of the Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture series with whom I have worked. Frederick has an uncanny ability to make people feel like they are capable of achieving much more than they thought possible. And Patrick’s careful readings and his generous and gracious guidance have been instrumental in helping me to shape this book. I am grateful for the dedication of the staff at the University of Texas Press as this book has made its long journey into print. Finally, I want to record here my profound appreciation for all of the support and wise counsel over the years from my spouse and now colleague at the University of Georgia, Pilar Chamorro. Without her, this book would not exist. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that what shortcomings remain in the book are entirely my responsibility. This book benefited from the fi nancial and logistical support of several organizations. During the fi rst half of 2010 I drafted much of the manuscript while in residence at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte through a Fulbright scholarship. I am grateful to Fulbright and the hospitality and collaboration of UFRN, especially my hosts Sandra Erickson and Glenn Erickson. I thank the Fundação LusoAmericana para o Desenvolvimento for the opportunity to conduct research at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal during the summers of 2005, 2006, and 2007, which provided the initial stimulation for this book. The Ohio State University contributed to the development of the book not only through generous internal research and travel grants but also through a culture tremendously supportive of faculty research. I would like to thank the chairs of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese during my time there, Fernando Unzueta and Elizabeth Davis, as well as Dean John Roberts of the College of Humanities and, later, Dean Mark Shanda of the Division of Arts and Humanities. I am particularly grateful to Associate Dean Sebastian Knowles for his constant and inspiring support. One of the Ohio State travel grants enabled me

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to travel to Brazil to do research at the Cinemateca Brasileira. I want to express my appreciation to the staff of the Cinemateca whose assistance made the research that I conducted for the book there a delight. An early version of chapter 5 was published in Luso-Brazilian Review 42.1 (2005), and a preliminary version of part of chapter 4 was published in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 15.3 (December 2006).

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

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Introduction

T

h is book gr ew ou t of a fasci nat ion w i t h how cinema represents national communities and the impact of those depictions on audiences.1 I use the context of Brazilian fi lms about slavery to investigate some of the ways in which fi lms invite viewers to think differently about such communities and the potential effectiveness of those tactics, especially when viewers form part of the social group that the fi lms cinematically sketch. Typically, such collective cinematic portraits tend to clothe themselves in plausibility. After all, if viewers fail to recognize their own social group in a fi lm, then the viewing experience will fail to activate in their minds how they understand that group. And if the social group is not salient for those watching the fi lm, the fi lm has little chance of causing viewers to revise what that group means to them. At the same time, the kinds of cinematic interpretations of national groups that I consider in this book tend to diverge from what viewers have in mind about that group when the fi lm begins. Of course, any fictional narrative, cinematic or otherwise, is to some degree a stylization of reality. However, I have in mind narratives that stretch an audience member’s reality in appreciable and coherent ways. These fi lms present a tolerable disconnect—plausible, yet substantially different—between how a viewer understands the national community and the version communicated by a fi lm.2 Ultimately, the sorts of fi lms that most interest me are ones that conceivably play a role in the sphere of national identity, regardless of whether those responsible for making the fi lms intended to challenge existing viewer beliefs in this realm. With that in mind, I set out in Cin-

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ema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism to identify potentially effective approaches to cinematically revising understandings of social groups, ones that promise to actually modify the social identity of the viewer. Ultimately, what is at stake in the exploration of these communicative dynamics of fi lm is the capacity for audiovisual texts to reshape society. In the chapters that follow, I evaluate the potential of Brazilian fi lms about slavery released from 1976 through 2005 to revise the social identities of Brazilian audience members.3 I examine how the fi lms defi ne the national community and the qualities that promise to influence viewer understandings of Brazilianness. As we will see, a pattern emerges among this heterogeneous group of fi lms, a sort of recipe for persuasively presenting to viewers a new way to conceive of one of their social groups. (It is worth making explicit that my approach presupposes that non-Brazilians like myself can identify and examine the elements of these cinematic invitations for Brazilian target audience members to rethink their social identities.) I will return to this pattern below, but for now I would say I believe that the various fi lmmakers have intuitively converged on a series of interconnected tactics that research in behavioral sciences suggests can be effective. I certainly do not claim that these fi lms are explicit applications of scientific fi ndings nor much less that they are diabolical attempts at mind control. However, I do attribute some general intentionality to the fi lmmakers and, by extension, to the fi lms, as the volitional language that I sometimes use indicates. I believe that these fi lms manifest what we might call a cinematic strategy with a dual aim: to upset ingrained ways of thinking about Brazil and to persuade those who watch them to accept a new way of understanding the national community. It is my contention that we can derive from this study of Brazilian fi lms about slavery and the interconnected ways that they might influence audiences some broad lessons about stories and their potential effects on people that transcend the context of this particular sort of narrative. It is true that some of the promising tactics I identify are tied to the fact that these are fi lms and not novels, historical rather than present-day depictions, and considerations of a national social group rather than, say, a political or religious one. These are stories that focus on what it means to be part of a certain group, and that is something the fi lms share with narratives produced in many other cultures. I hypothesize that these fi lms exemplify common ways that narratives propose new understandings of social groups. Following the lead of the research of Patrick Colm Hogan, I have chosen to approach the nature and the consequences of the connection

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between fi lm and viewer and the social influence of audiovisual narratives—long studied from diverse disciplinary points of view—in dialogue with the field of social psychology. Research in social psychology provides those who study narrative with tools to describe in detail representations of the social identities of fictional characters. Likewise, this discipline helps us to begin to comprehend the ways in which the social identities of viewers may be malleable and by extension how a viewer’s identity might change when he or she is exposed to certain kinds of stimuli.4 Hogan’s Understanding Nationalism examines what social psychology and other areas of the cognitive sciences can teach us about the development and transformation of the ways in which citizens conceive of their national group. My use of the concept of identity is based on social identity theory, initially developed in the 1970s by social psychologists Henri Tajfel and John C. Turner. In their seminal 1979 article on the topic they define social identity as “those aspects of an individual’s self-image that derive from the social categories to which he perceives himself as belonging” (16).5 Tajfel and Turner have in mind groups whose parameters are determined by religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or nationality. They postulate that individuals associate these categories, or social groups, with “value-laden attributes and characteristics” (16).6 The way I understand “national identity”—and my examination of the interface between fi lm and national identity—is compatible with these hypotheses.7 Rather than treating the concept of national identity as a fi xed definition or reified truth that uniformly overlays a population, I use the term—along with “Brazilianness”—to indicate a set of characteristics that an individual who is conscious of being part of a social group associates with it at a given time.8 I say at a given time because a person’s understanding of the group is subject to change.9 The qualities of the national community that different people have internalized will largely overlap. This superimposition would be a fundamental characteristic of what Benedict Anderson famously termed an “imagined community.” It stands to reason that the widespread coalescing of defi nitions of the national group among citizens—as well as individual divergences from prevailing views of the chief attributes of the social group—evolve in part from diverse efforts to sell certain ways of thinking about the nation. Such efforts include the sort of “foundational fictions”—or nation-building narratives—that Doris Sommer led us to appreciate better. Films have played a similar role for over a century. If the common perception is indeed true that cinema can sway the attitudes and beliefs of viewers, then it is worth our effort to examine how

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Introduction

this engagement with audience members works. With this book I hope to make a concrete contribution to such efforts. Recalling the terminology of Tajfel and Turner, here in Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism I consider how Brazilian fi lms about slavery constitute proposals for the viewer to reevaluate part of his or her self-concept. Without claiming that these fi lms actually exercised influence over Brazilian audiences, I attempt to understand better how the fi lms invite individuals to rethink the collection of attributes they assign to the national category of their social identities. As I suggest above, my study focuses on fi lms that generally but not radically contest dominant and presumably less desirable defi nitions of identity. These instances of cinematic nationalism celebrate their own, distinct versions of Brazil and Brazilianness.10 My book focuses on five fi lms from the past four decades: Xica da Silva (1976, director Carlos Diegues), Quilombo (1984, director Carlos Diegues), Chico Rei (1985, director Walter Lima Júnior), O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000, director Geraldo Santos Pereira), and Cafundó (2005, directors Paulo Betti and Clóvis Bueno). I would argue that the highly popular 1976 fi lm Xica da Silva initiated a trend in Brazilian cinema that we reencounter in the four subsequent fi lms. Notwithstanding the substantially different political and cultural contexts in which the fi lms were produced, they coincide largely in the understanding of Brazilianness that they invite viewers to embrace, and they manifest remarkably similar persuasive overtures toward potential audiences. The nuances of the defi nitions of Brazilianness in the fi lms will emerge in the chapters, but I will synthesize here some of the common ground they share. Basically, the understanding of the Brazilian national group they promote consists of a cultural syncretism that combines elements associated with Europe and others associated with Africa. Their hybrid conception of national identity is essentially Afrocentric, though it also advocates for racial and ethnic inclusiveness.11 I examine how this cinematic corpus recalls the history of African slavery in Brazil, an institution that was abolished there in 1888, and how it urges viewers to rethink what it means to be Brazilian. The thematic approach of these fi lms to rethinking national identity should not be surprising. Filmic depictions of enslavement evoke for audiences part of the genesis of social inequality in Brazil as well as the development of its racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity. If historical fi lms in general lend themselves to provoking reconsiderations of national identity, cinema about slavery intensifies this tendency.12 It is for that reason that the fi lms I exam-

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Introduction

ine here offer a particularly apt context for an extended study of the relationship between cinema and social identity. We might assume that the fi lmmakers whose work is the focus of this book recognized the fundamental role that the history and legacy of the African diaspora in Brazil have played in diverse and influential efforts to defi ne national identity, such as those of Gilberto Freyre and Abdias do Nascimento. Whether intended or not, the vision of Brazilianness broadly shared by the five fi lms can be seen as a mixture of Freyre’s and Nascimento’s understandings of the culturally syncretic nature of the Brazilian population. Gilberto Freyre and Abdias do Nascimento represent clearly distinct but also interconnected positions on Brazilianness. Casa grande e senzala, published by Freyre in 1933 and later translated by Samuel Putnam as The Masters and the Slaves, was an attempt to better comprehend Brazil through a critical return to the era of slavery. Freyre writes, “In tropical America there was formed a society agrarian in structure, slave-holding in its technique of economic exploitation, and hybrid in composition, with an admixture of the Indian—and later of the Negro” (Masters and the Slaves 3).13 Freyre denounces some aspects of the sadism inherent in the system of slavery.14 He challenges the notion, grounded in biological determinism, that miscegenation led to degeneration. Nonetheless, he maintains the position that particular characteristics predominate among certain “races.” Freyre, challenging unfavorable views of miscegenation, advances a position rooted in the concept of whitening: “My insistence has, rather, another purpose: that of bringing out the fact that in the formation of Brazilian society there was not lacking a superior element recruited from the best families and capable of transmitting to its progeny major advantages from the point of view of eugenics and social heritage” (Masters and the Slaves 449).15 Throughout the book he emphasizes what he sees as the beneficial contributions of Africans and Afrodescendants in Brazil. Nevertheless, his description of Brazilianness—which inevitably amounts to a prescription regarding how to understand it—has been criticized for being Eurocentric and paternalistic. Freyre assigns to the Portuguese Christians a qualitatively privileged role in his interpretation of Brazil’s cultural mixture. He writes elsewhere that former Portuguese colonies shared a diverse culture but one he describes as “under the dominance of Portugal and Christianity.”16 Freyre underscored but did not problematize what he posed as an imbalance in the mutual influence of cultures in contact—what Fernando Ortiz in 1940 would call

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Introduction

“transculturation”—that resulted from colonization and the institution of slavery in Brazil: Hybrid from the beginning, Brazilian society is, of all those in the Americas, the one most harmoniously constituted so far as racial relations are concerned, within the environment of a practical cultural reciprocity that results in the advanced people deriving the maximum of profit from the values and experiences of the backward ones. (Masters and the Slaves 83)17

It would be hard to overemphasize the lasting social impact that Freyre’s book had regarding the promotion of national pride based on the celebration of Brazil’s cultural mixture, which is often characterized as the unproblematic combination of European, African, and indigenous contributions. In the essays that comprise Nascimento’s 1980 book O quilombismo he contemplates slavery, among other issues, in order to reexamine Brazilian society, especially the Afro-Brazilian community. In his references to the formation and nature of Brazil and its population, Nascimento emphasizes the central importance of African rather than European contributions while still confirming a vision of Brazil as culturally hybrid. Partly in response to Freyre—whose thinking he characterizes as “a gentle, sweet vision of relations between blacks and whites in the country”—Nascimento writes, “The biological and cultural mixture of Africa and Europe happened in all of the countries of the New World where there was slavery. Therefore, the tenacious persistence of African culture in Brazil and other parts of South America cannot be reasonably attributed to a supposed benevolence of the Aryo-Latinos, nor to their character or culture.”18 In a text from 2000, “Pronunciamento de Abdias Nascimento,” he recognizes multiple contributions to the national culture and advocates for a kind of multiculturalism: “Quilombismo seeks the construction of a State aimed at achieving the egalitarian coexistence of all sectors of the population, preserving and respecting the plurality of identities and cultural matrices.”19 In O quilombismo he communicates a national vision similar to the defi nition of the Dia da Consciência Negra (Black Awareness Day) articulated in 1978 by the Movimento Negro Unificado and quoted by Nascimento as the “‘day of the death of the great black national leader, Zumbi, responsible for the first and only Brazilian attempt to establish a democratic society, that is, a free society in which all— blacks, Indians, and whites—realized a great political, economic, and

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Introduction

social advancement.’”20 While Nascimento supports here what we might understand as a call for multiculturalism and acknowledges cultural hybridity in Brazil, he inverts Freyre’s Eurocentrism and advances a fundamentally Afrocentric view of the nation: “Blacks are far from being upstarts or outsiders: they are the very body and soul of this country.”21 Nascimento’s discourse participates prominently in efforts among activists and social scientists to underscore the inequality and social exclusion—in addition to the injustices of the past—that certain positions on Brazilianness have perhaps inadvertently hidden and, as a consequence, facilitated. Chief among such influential ideas are some that derived from Freyre, such as the concept of Brazil’s “racial democracy,” and continue to flourish in Brazil. Nascimento and others have challenged what is, in the end, the Eurocentric nature of the Freyrean syncretic understanding of national identity in spite of the advance that it represented at the time.22 In O quilombismo Nascimento promotes pride in Afro-descendant Brazil in his attempt to expose and rectify social injustice in the country, yet his Afrocentrism avoids being racially or ethnically exclusive. In his explanation of the notion of quilombismo he emphasizes equality and inclusion of all social groups: “1. Quilombismo is a political movement of black Brazilians; its objective is the implantation of a National Quilombista State inspired by the model of the Republic of Palmares. [. . .] 2. The National Quilombista State has as its foundation a free, just, egalitarian, and sovereign society. Quilombista democratic egalitarianism should be understood in relation to race, economic status, sex, community, religion, politics [and so forth].”23 In his “Pronunciamento” he reiterates that quilombismo is a national concept: “It is a proposal not only for Afro-descendant peoples in the diaspora but also for the Brazilian Nation.”24 In spite of the distinct versions of Brazilianness that they advance, I see the positions of Freyre and Nascimento, much like those of the fi lms I study in this book, as proposals for all Brazilian citizens—regardless of their conscious affi liations with any racial, ethnic, or other social groups—to associate certain attributes and values with the national group. Beyond this rhetorical coincidence between the fi lms and these two intellectuals, traces of the ideas of both or engagement with related notions can be found in all of the fi lms. All the same, the collective posture of this set of fi lms on Brazilianness resonates, albeit in a less radical way, with how Nascimento questions and, in my view, reconfigures some Freyrean concepts or ones connected with the work of Freyre. Although the fi lms respond in various ways to their different political contexts, the overarching qualities the fi lms share in terms of conception of

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Introduction

the national group are less a function of specific political climates than of the ongoing ideological disputations that I have condensed here into Freyre and Nascimento. As with the defi nitions of Brazilianness offered by the fi lms, the details of the fi lms’ shared persuasive engagement with viewers are best appreciated in the close readings of the chapters. In this analysis of Brazilian slavery fi lms I set out to identify and examine aspects of the fi lms that cluster into several interrelated, common tactics that I have delineated in order to understand better the role Brazilian historical cinema plays in grappling with race and ethnicity and in proposing alternative defi nitions of national identity. I presume that these fi lms have gravitated toward similar means of communicating with those who will see them in part through mutual influence but not only for that reason. As I submitted at the beginning of this introduction, those responsible for planning, producing, and promoting these cinematic narratives surely drew on analogous strategies due to equivalent intuitions. I would argue that they favored techniques they felt had the greatest probability of modifying concepts of Brazilianness that viewers possessed before watching the fi lms. I would like to propose one possible way of delineating a common approach these five fi lms take toward communicating with audience members. I have observed five fundamental and interconnected elements in each of the fi lms that, in my view, interact so as to encourage viewers to rethink their social identities: (1) incorporating clues that link the past portrayed in the fi lm to the present of viewers, thus suggesting for them the current relevance of the story being told; (2) calling attention to the nation and treating it favorably, thus encouraging viewers to consider their national group as relatively more important than other social groups to which they belong, such as ones defi ned on the bases of race, ethnicity, gender, or religion; (3) casting the fi lm’s protagonist as a national metaphor and a prototype for the national population; (4) suggesting that a viewer identify with this national representative in such a way that he or she ends up being what I call a cinematic self, a model for how viewers conceptualize part of their self-concepts, specifically here the national category of their social identities; and (5) strategically shaping this proxy for the nation and the national population. The fi rst four aspects combine to create a presumably effective vehicle of influence; the fi fth element articulates a revised defi nition of the national group that audiences assimilate. In chapter 1, “Influencing Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000),” I examine the fi lm that revisits the

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Introduction

life of an eighteenth-century artist from Minas Gerais, Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho (Little Cripple), who has long been a source of national and regional pride. The fi lm traces the character’s trajectory from his birth to an enslaved mother through his rise to artistic esteem and growing political engagement to his painful deterioration and death. Like the other slavery fi lms examined here, Aleijadinho taps into the historical figure’s legendary status as a catalyst for persuasively redefi ning Brazilianness through him. In the chapter I tease out this first version of the five fi lms’ generally shared defi nition of Brazilianness, and I introduce each of the five ingredients that constitute what I see as the main means through which all of the fi lms invite individuals to revise their defi nitions of national identity. While in the other four productions one or two of the elements are salient and the others relatively muted—this is particularly the case with the oldest fi lm, Xica da Silva—Aleijadinho fully exploits all of the tactics. The fi lm lends itself for this reason to an initial exploration of cinematic strategies employed in the fi lms with the potential to change conceptions of social identity. In my analysis of Aleijadinho’s implementation of the five tactics I discuss each of them in light of research in social psychology and other areas. The chapter constitutes the fi rst test of my hypothesis that these fi lms coalesce around a potentially effective strategy for influencing understandings of national identity. Each of the remaining chapters tests the broad preliminary fi ndings in the fi rst chapter and expands and refi nes my understanding of the five communicative components. Chapter 2, “Modeling National Identity on Religious Identity in Cafundó (2005),” focuses on the more recent story of João de Camargo, the charismatic founder of a syncretic church in the interior of the state of São Paulo. The fi lm covers the late nineteenth century through the fi rst half of the twentieth century. Legendary in his own right, the protagonist Camargo probably also evoked for Brazilian audiences the wellknown Antônio Conselheiro, leader of a religious community at Canudos in the interior of Northeast Brazil at the turn of the twentieth century. Conselheiro is the subject of Euclides da Cunha’s book Os sertões as well as the inspiration for a variety of cultural products over the years. Cafundó crafts the narrative of a religious community that exists outside predominant political structures—in contrast with Aleijadinho, which realizes its revision of identity in an urban context—and casts that entity as a new, possible Brazil. Cafundó expresses pride in that protonation rather than in Brazil as it is. The dislocation of the fi lm’s identity experiment to a different and

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Introduction

conceptually unencumbered space in order to propose a new defi nition of Brazilian national identity makes special sense for Cafundó. The isolation of Camargo’s church helps to counter the challenge deriving from the fi lm taking place in modern Brazil, after the abolition of slavery in 1888, in a setting that is so close to that of viewers that an entirely new understanding of the nature of the national group might otherwise be hard to sell. The colonial-era setting of the other four fi lms makes the task of envisioning what Brazil could and should look like more natural. Because there is no independent Brazil in those fi lms, any aspect of the colonized sphere could be cast as a seed of a future independent nation. Quilombo, the subject of chapter 3, “Multiple, Provisional, National Identity Models in Quilombo (1984),” also offers a new space and treats it as a tabula rasa on which to sketch a fresh vision of national identity. The tale of a maroon community, or quilombo, in Northeast Brazil in the mid-seventeenth century, Quilombo coincides with Cafundó in that it likewise conceives of a new and improved Brazil physically set apart from the center of colonial political power in Recife, a capital we might consider an analog of present-day Brazilian society as it is. Both of these fi lms portray utopias that model the qualities the national population should embrace. What stands out in Quilombo and what I focus principally on in the chapter is the way the fi lm gradually builds a stable proposal for how to reconceive Brazilianness. Importantly, the fi lm avoids communicating this vision of the national group through a single vehicle as is generally the case in Aleijadinho and Cafundó. Instead, Quilombo rotates among several characters the status of national stand-in and model of social identity. In this chapter I explore Quilombo’s engagement with each of the five shared persuasive components, but I stress in particular how the fi lm uses multiple cinematic selves as well as the potential effectiveness and implications of this strategy. Cafundó’s and Quilombo’s tactic of geographical distance as an approach to redefining the national community contrasts with the strategies of Chico Rei, which I examine in chapter 4, “Alternative Understandings of the National Community in Chico Rei (1985).” The choice of this fi lm and of Aleijadinho and Xica da Silva to situate their reconsiderations of identity in the context of colonial society might suggest that they are involved in imagining how current understandings of identity might be rearranged, assuming that viewers infer an analogy between colonial and contemporary Brazil, as I believe is likely. These three fi lms propose, in this sense, a reconfiguration of current, prevailing understandings of Brazilianness and suggest that all the necessary ingredients for the understanding of identity that they favor are already

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Introduction

present in the existing political context. They seem to imply that all that needs to be done is to select exemplary figures and through them to remold what is already there. Chico Rei champions a conciliatory character, Galanga, a historically grounded African man of the eighteenth century who gained his freedom from enslavement in Brazil by working within the legal and social confi nes of the colony. The fi lm contrasts the approach of the protagonist, who comes to be known as Chico Rei, with the strategies of his son, Muzinga, who escapes from captivity and joins a quilombo. The fi lm shows respect for the son’s refusal to seek change from within a system of repression, yet it reserves for Chico Rei the status of viable model of reform and, more broadly, Brazilianness. Chapter 5, “Flirting with Viewers and Precariously Rethinking Brazilianness in Xica da Silva (1976),” treats a highly popular fi lm that I believe influenced all of the other fi lms I study in the book. Xica da Silva inaugurated aspects of the sort of Afrocentric, syncretic, racially inclusive understandings of Brazilianness that the other four fi lms articulate less ambiguously. It also manifests kernels of the persuasive tactics that I see the other fi lms carrying out more fully. Xica da Silva narrates part of the life of another eighteenth-century historical figure who, like Aleijadinho and Chico Rei, lived in Minas Gerais. During the course of the fi lm, the protagonist gains freedom, wealth, and power and eventually loses all but her liberty when the woman’s protector and lover is recalled to Portugal. In this chapter I trace several distinct stages in the character’s development that correspond to shifts in her social status. I examine the degree and manner in which Xica da Silva—in each of these stages and in the fi lm as a whole—might have constituted an appealing means to offer a revised understanding of Brazilianness. Taken together, these five fi lms provide an opportunity to comprehend Brazilian cinema’s role, over three decades, in intervening among the various forces that swayed how citizens conceive of Brazilianness. More broadly, the fi lms enable us to learn about the ways narratives invite those who consume them to modify their self-concepts.

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C h a p t e r On e

Influencing Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000)

A

le ija di n ho: Pa i x ão, glór i a e su plício , directed  by Geraldo Santos Pereira, takes place in eighteenth-century Minas Gerais.1 The fi lm, initially conceived in the 1950s,2 crafts a version of the life of Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho, the son of a Portuguese man and an enslaved Afrodescendant woman. Aleijadinho was a sculptor who struggled with severe physical hardship during his artistic career. This character has been shaped and reshaped over the past two centuries into a national hero, one characterized as the pride-inspiring epitome of homegrown baroque art.3 The fi lm begins in 1858 with a framing narrative: historian Rodrigo José Ferreira Bretas visits Joana Lopes, the artist’s daughter-in-law, to interview her about Aleijadinho’s life. The first ten minutes and final three minutes of this one-hundred-minute fi lm are set in this later period, and throughout the long eighteenth-century flashback, viewers are periodically and briefly exposed to the later period. The fi rst flashback transports viewers to the moment in which the protagonist’s mother, Isabel, is giving birth to him with the help of a midwife, as his father, Manoel Francisco Lisboa, who is also the owner of his mother, nervously paces in the next room. (A later scene indicates that the father subsequently emancipated both mother and child at some unspecified time.) After a short sequence that shows the fi rst stage of the boy Aleijadinho’s training as a sculptor with his father, the fi lm jumps to the protagonist as a young adult already showing artistic promise. Audience members are introduced at this time, as well, to Aleijadinho’s passionate denunciation of both slavery and colonization through a heated argument with his father after the young man witnesses a bru-

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Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho

tal whipping of a slave. The character’s rise in the artistic world, where he searches for “a Brazilian style,” parallels his courtship with a young woman of African descent. Soon a mysterious, painful, disfiguring illness affl icts him, and after some time his wife leaves the artist for a Portuguese lieutenant. The fi nal third of the narrative chronicles Aleijadinho’s tireless dedication to his art as he grows older and more deformed, a progression the fi lm interlaces with the story of the failed Brazilian independence movement called the Inconfidência Mineira. During the protagonist’s fi nal moments, alone in bed, he successfully begs God to take his life. At this point, the fi lm flashes forward for the last time to Lopes and Bretas reflecting on the meaning of Aleijadinho’s life. The principal qualities of the trend represented by the five fi lms studied in this book are most explicit in Aleijadinho. The fi lm manifests unambiguously the nature of the Euro-African syncretic vision of Brazilianness shared by the fi lms as well as the ways that they potentially convince viewers to embrace a certain view of the nation: linking past to present, calling attention to Brazilianness, casting the protagonist as a national metaphor, offering the character as a social-identity model, and strategically articulating proposed understandings of Brazilianness. I use this chapter’s analysis as a means to delineate those qualities and to explain my approach to understanding them. I examine key tactics that Aleijadinho and the other fi lms employ that can tweak the social identities of viewers, specifically the national category of their identities vis-àvis other categories such as ethnicity, race, and religion.

M a k i ng t h e Past R e leva n t for t h e Pr ese n t Influencing viewer understandings of national identity through a figure from the past may be particularly advantageous if those watching the fi lm already associate the person represented with the presentday nation.4 Still, Aleijadinho and other Brazilian fi lms about slavery do not seem to take this advantage for granted. The way that the fi lms are constructed discourages viewers from merely escaping into what they might expect to be a costume drama. The fi lms leave nothing to chance and explicitly link the depicted past, as well as the historical protagonists, to the context of viewers. The content and form of the fi lms stress the relevance of the temporally remote story to present-day circumstances. Here I consider some of the ways that Aleijadinho treats eighteenth-century Brazil as an allegory of Brazil at the turn of the twenty-fi rst century.

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

One of the techniques of nationalization identified by Hogan is durability, which can involve tying a present-day nation to the past (Understanding Nationalism 89). He identifies literature, and I would add fi lm, as participating in such efforts (90). Brazilian fi lms about slavery are generally involved in this task, but more precisely they tend to do the converse or to work in the opposite direction. In addition to emphasizing that the past still lingers in the present, they show signs of the present in the past represented. In other words, they depict the past represented not as intriguingly different as historical fi lms often do. Instead, they offer settings that appear similar and relevant to the present and not in ways restricted to enduring human themes like love and war, favorite means through which historical fi lms might engage viewers. Rather, the past worlds they create tend to highlight affinities with present-day politics, nationalism, and discussions of race, ethnicity, and religion. Such modernizing revisions of history often allegorize the societies of audience members. Beyond depending on the audience to recognize parallels in their own context to characters or situations in the narratives, the fi lms by various other means allude to the temporal context of production. One common vehicle is a manifestly modern soundtrack. Three of the fi lms studied in this book, Xica da Silva, Quilombo, and Chico Rei, associate their protagonists with pop theme songs by the well-known singers Jorge Ben Jor, Gilberto Gil, and Milton Nascimento, respectively. In Cafundó, the last of the five fi lms studied in this book, the voice heard during the closing credits is that of Gil. However, the primary way that fi lm links its story to the present is by beginning and ending in presentday São Paulo and treating the main narrative as a sort of long flashback; in this it coincides somewhat with Aleijadinho. Aleijadinho fuses past and present principally by taking advantage of the nineteenth-century framing narrative (figure 1.1) in various ways. Perhaps the most persistent and potentially effective elements in the framing narrative’s suggestion of the continuity of Aleijadinho’s past and its nineteenth-century future (and beyond) is embodied in the character Joana Lopes, in whose memory Aleijadinho still lives. This link to the past is emphasized when, in one of the last scenes of the fi lm, the flashbacks depicting the sculptor’s fi nal moments show a youngerlooking Lopes played by the same actor, Ruth de Souza, caring for her father-in-law.5 Viewers are constantly reminded of a future vis-à-vis Aleijadinho’s era, one that continues to remember and care about the protagonist. What is more, the fi lm predicts—in a not so oblique proposal to audi-

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Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho

F igu r e 1.1. The nineteenth-century historian Rodrigo José Ferreira Bretas interviews Joana Lopes, Aleijadinho’s daughter-in-law.

ences for how to receive Aleijadinho—that subsequent periods will continue to venerate the figure, as Bretas’s comment at the end of the fi lm helps to make clear: “Nobody will forget Antônio Francisco.”6 Bretas’s nineteenth-century context offers viewers the chance to recall Aleijadinho’s time through the perspective of a not so distant future in which the protagonist’s context is still palpable. All of these qualities that the fi lm attaches to the framing narrative combine to diminish the affective and perceived chronological distance between audience members and the protagonist. Aleijadinho employs various tactics to help viewers grasp what the fi lm suggests is the protagonist’s perennial relevance. After the initial flashback, there are regular, brief flash-forwards, sometimes cutting to the interview between the historian Bretas and Aleijadinho’s daughter-inlaw, Lopes, and other times only by way of Lopes’s voice-over complementing the main, eighteenth-century narrative and thus doggedly reminding viewers of the interconnectedness of earlier and later periods. Conversely, during the framing narrative the fi lm reveals glimpses of the past visually and through the story. During Bretas’s long walk to visit Lopes at the beginning of the fi lm, we hear his historiographi-

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

cal musings in voice-over sparked by each new site that he sees; this sequence models for viewers how they might also choose to recall the eighteenth century. With regard to how the story connects eras, I would point to a moment in which Bretas stands watching as an escaped and then recaptured slave is led back by a man on horseback. He comments, “But not all was mirth, wealth, and opulence in Vila Rica and Ouro Preto. There was also misery, suffering, and humiliation, like I still see now in this slave flayed to the bone that a violent capitão-de-mato [escaped-slave bounty hunter] takes back to the senzala [plantation slave quarters].”7 It is significant that Bretas lives in the era of slavery. His present has this specific continuity with the eighteenth-century past that he is talking about. Even though slavery would not be abolished in Brazil for another thirty years, by his condemnation of the treatment of the slave, Bretas makes it more probable for viewers to accept his 1858 context as a proxy for their own. The historian’s attitude toward slavery anticipates Aleijadinho’s and in this way reinforces the link between the eighteenthcentury protagonist’s setting and the fi lm’s production context. Audience members can see that Aleijadinho’s attitudes constitute in general a sort of present-day ideological enclave, a familiarity that the fi lm leverages as part of its attempt to inspire viewer identification with the protagonist. At the same time, the audience’s chronological stand-in, Bretas, actually is witness to the institution of slavery, helping to ensure that it is not seen merely as some distant, if unfortunate, past occurrence but rather a reality that is still present. The lasting social impact of the practice of slavery—extending, the fi lm would seem to imply, to its legacy of inequality and social exclusion in the viewer’s present—is thus underscored. Another instance of Bretas’s apparent indictment of slavery during his stroll exemplifies one of the visual techniques used in the fi lm to connect past and present. As he passes an abandoned mine, he brings it to life not only through his voice-over recollection but through a visual flashback that evokes his interpretation of what went on there in the eighteenth century: a long shot of dozens of slaves in the dark interior of the mine extracting minerals as overseers guard them with rifles in hand. What they extracted from the mines, says Bretas, “made Portugal’s and England’s wealth, at the cost of the toil of thousands of slaves,”8 articulating the last few words slowly and dramatically. The fi lm then cuts from the long shot of the slaves mining to a medium close-up reaction shot of Bretas contemplating, with a sad and sober countenance, the terrible past that he imagines and viewers see. Bretas’s recollection is au-

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Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho

thorized and the link between the past and the future is reinforced when viewers see a young Aleijadinho observe this same mise-en-scène. What is more, the fi lm shows a nearly identical reaction shot of the protagonist after he witnesses the whipping of a slave. If Bretas is the viewer’s chronological stand-in, the parallel between him and Aleijadinho suggested by the editing and mise-en-scène begins to propose that viewers imagine the protagonist as well as their proxy, a process that I will discuss in more detail shortly. The fi lm uses several more flashbacks that evoke the historian’s contemplations of the past. It overlays the setting through which Bretas walks with double exposures of the events that he recalls in voiceover. As he continues alone through ruins on the outskirts of town, we see a participant in an eighteenth-century rebellion against the Portuguese government being dragged behind a horse until he dies. Later, as the historian stands next to a fountain, he recalls a well-known eighteenth-century writer, Tomás Antônio Gonzaga, who, Bretas says, used to visit with Dorotea Joaquina de Seixas, “the idyllic and ill-fated lovers of the Inconfidência Mineira.”9 As Bretas says these words, the fi lm flashes double exposures of detail from drawings of the two figures in close-ups of their faces, while a long shot depicts Bretas by the fountain next to two nineteenth-century lovers. As in the case of Bretas recalling the slaves in the mine, the shot of the fountain anticipates how viewers will soon see Aleijadinho by this same fountain with his prospective spouse, similarly suggesting the continuity of the protagonist’s time and Bretas’s. This link is emphasized when Bretas says that the fountain “seems to resound even today with [. . .] vows and woes of love,”10 which may be understood as implying that the echoes still remain in the audience’s Ouro Preto. The scene also plants another thematic seed. If Bretas anticipates Aleijadinho’s denunciation of slavery, this preview of the narration of Aleijadinho’s life, through its reference to the Inconfidência, anticipates his association with the insurrectionist movement, which plays a prominent role in the main narrative as a way to associate the protagonist with resistance and nationalism. Additionally, this scene emphasizes the concrete historical grounding of the story that the fi lm is telling. Aleijadinho suggests that these lovers were real: just like Aleijadinho, they are people who lived and were preserved in the historical and cultural record of Brazil. The fi lm implies that these historical figures fuse past and present through their durable existence in the memories of Brazilians. Or, more appropriately, Aleijadinho encourages viewers to consider these historical protagonists as perpetually relevant. The glimpses the fi lm gives us dur-

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

ing Bretas’s walk of famous eighteenth-century watercolors by Carlos Julião depicting people of African descent in Brazil during Aleijadinho’s era serve a similar purpose; they establish a link between the images that viewers may fi nd in books and museums and the fi lm’s narrative of Aleijadinho, thus simultaneously authorizing the fi lm’s representation and infusing new and lasting life into the cultural artifacts that audience members will continue to encounter after seeing the fi lm. One of the fi lm’s flashbacks provoked by Bretas’s introspections introduces a central motif of the fi lm, one that the protagonist will evoke later more than once—the figure of Chico Rei. He is the subject of another Brazilian slavery fi lm that I analyze in a later chapter, Walter Lima Júnior’s 1985 eponymous production that tells the story of a Congolese king who was brought to Brazil in bondage and eventually bought his freedom and that of many of his fellow slaves. In Aleijadinho a lowangle long shot of a church atop a hill and fronted by dozens of steps shows Bretas approaching. As he looks up at the church his voice-over recounts, “Saint Ifigênia’s Church. The church of Chico Rei [. . . ,] of the slaves Chico freed with hard work in the mines.”11 As he speaks, a double exposure on the image of Bretas standing next to the Igreja de Santa Ifigênia shows an image of Chico Rei. Viewers see Chico Rei descending stairs in the garb of a king, which helps to animate the Julião paintings of the women that they see immediately before and that evoke the congada mineira, a dance also referenced in Chico Rei and Cafundó.

H i e r a rch i zi ng t h e Nat ion Hogan fi nds that hierarchizing the national category of identity is essential in nationalization processes (Understanding Nationalism 66–123). He has in mind attempts to persuade people to prioritize being members of the national group over other associations that make up their social identities, such as religion, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.12 Any redefi nition of national identity, such as those communicated by the fi lms studied here, risks seeming less than relevant to those exposed without the hierarchization of the national community. Although it may seem simplistic, it is worth acknowledging explicitly that if a fi lm is to change the way Brazilian viewers understand what it means to be Brazilian, Brazil and Brazilians must be explicitly referenced and in ways that make the nation and citizenship compelling and attractive.13 I focus now on those references, the way they work, and their potential effects.

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F igu r e 1.2. A young Aleijadinho argues with his father after seeing the public whipping of a slave.

As part of its process of possibly changing understandings of Brazilian national identity, Aleijadinho may influence viewers in several ways to fi nd their membership in the Brazilian national social group to be especially important vis-à-vis membership in other groups. Here I detail some of the techniques of nationalization that the fi lm employs to encourage audience members to elevate in their minds the Brazilian social group. First, however, I associate the general topic of category hierarchization with social psychological research on what has been termed social identity complexity.14 The possible shift in audience members’ social identities connected to the exaltation of the national category can be understood in part through the concept of social identity complexity. This notion was introduced by Roccas and Brewer in 2002 and has been developed in subsequent research (Brewer and Pierce; Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle; Schmid et al.). Social identity complexity describes the degree of complexity with which people perceive their simultaneous membership in different groups, such as those defi ned by nation, ethnicity, race, and religion. Low social identity complexity describes a situation in which a person considers his or her subjective ingroup to be only those with

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

whom he or she shares key overlapping group memberships, such as white and Christian, and considers all others to belong to an outgroup.15 On the other hand, a conscious acceptance that one’s social groups do not entirely overlap constitutes a more complex social identity. In other words, a person with a higher social identity complexity would tend to consider part of her ingroup people with whom she does not share some fundamental group membership, such as a black Christian embracing a white Christian as a fellow ingroup member. High social identity complexity has been found to correlate with increased tolerance toward outgroup members (Roccas and Brewer; Brewer and Pierce; Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle; Schmid et al.). Brewer and Pierce have linked high complexity, for example, to “greater acceptance of multicultural diversity” (433). The potential for change in one’s social identity complexity—one of the issues addressed in these studies—and the correlation of social identity complexity with attitudes toward outgroups make it a valuable tool for understanding how film may shift understandings of the national category of identity and its relationship to other categories in an ethnically and racially diverse society like Brazil’s. As we will see, some aspects of Aleijadinho’s revision of national identity, as well as the elements of the fi lm that encourage viewers to embrace it, coincide with observations in social psychological research regarding the nature, mutability, and consequences of the degree of complexity in social identities. Coinciding with Hogan’s attention to the process of hierarchizing of categories of identity, specifically the national one, social identity complexity also accounts for the relative importance of a given category within an individual’s social identity and describes some of the different ways that people can conceive of the relationship between that category and others. Roccas and Brewer point to several “models for how individuals may incorporate multiple group memberships” (89), and each of these models “has implications for the inclusion or exclusion of others as members of the subjective ingroup” (90). Roccas and Brewer identify four principal social identity complexity models; varying in level of complexity from low social identity complexity to high social identity complexity, they are intersection, dominance, compartmentalization, and merger (90– 91).16 To illustrate the broad point of inclusion and exclusion consequences of social identity representations, the authors give the example of a woman who is a manager in a company: “When the social context emphasizes the professional identity (e.g., a management conference), she is likely to perceive a male colleague as an ingroup

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Understandings of Brazilianness in O Aleijadinho

member. Nonetheless, she may be aware that in different circumstances (circumstances that emphasize her identity as a woman) that same colleague is an outgroup member” (89). Aleijadinho emphasizes the national category of identity by depicting a social context—colonization—in which a population that would become Brazil is collectively oppressed. The fi lm suggests that this shared situation promotes the cohesion of a protonational social group among a heterogeneous population in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and social class. This focus would presumably make salient in the minds of Brazilian viewers their membership in their national social group and influence them to consider other Brazilians, regardless of race, religion, or other group memberships to be part of their subjective ingroup. We might see the fi lm as encouraging the second social identity complexity model among audience members, dominance, in which “those who share the dominant category membership are treated as ingroup members; those who are not in the category are outgroupers” (90). However, the fi lm also puts on display social identity dilemmas, especially the relative importance for some people in certain situations of racial groups. Ultimately, as I will explain later in the chapter, I believe Aleijadinho promotes among audience members the highest kind of social identity complexity, that is, merger, “in which non-convergent group memberships are simultaneously recognized and embraced in their most inclusive form. [. . .] In this mode, ingroup identification is extended to others who share any of one’s important social category memberships— social identity is the sum of one’s combined group identifications” (91). After encouraging viewers to raise their levels of social identity complexity, it then shows them ways to come to terms with this now salient and possibly tense simultaneous membership in several social groups by depicting the protagonist as evaluating and adopting specific models of doing so. Roccas and Brewer explain that “having a complex social identity is dependent on two conditions: fi rst, awareness of more than one ingroup categorization and second, recognition that the multiple ingroup categories do not converge. Reconciling the incongruences that are implied by this nonconvergence requires cognitive resources” (93). They observe as well that while some individuals tend to be “chronically high in social identity complexity” (93), others are less so. Therefore the fi lm cannot merely propose how viewers might conceive of the relationship between, say, racial and national identity, which is certainly a relevant aspect of how the narrative grapples with complex social identi-

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Cinema, Slavery, and Brazilian Nationalism

ties. It must fi rst get as many audience members as possible to share great awareness of the web of social groups of which they form a part. Research suggests that this task is not easy. Roccas and Brewer go on to say that “cognitive overload may affect the accessibility of information that contributes to a complex social identity” (99). Conversely, Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle (2009) confi rm the role of cognition—that does not reach the point of overload—in social identity complexity. They observe, for example, that “additional thought [. . .] increases the likelihood that the respondent will think of individuals in each ingroup that do not share the second ingroup membership, encouraging a more heterogeneous and inclusive representation of each ingroup and reducing perceived overlap” (90). Aleijadinho may help to limit the cognitive resources that would be needed for audience members to achieve higher social identity complexity by putting on display the protagonist’s own complex social identity. An early scene in which the protagonist argues with his father illustrates this process; it emphasizes Aleijadinho’s membership in AfroBrazilian and Euro-Brazilian groups and underscores both the marginalized place of slaves in colonial Brazil and the need for the diverse groups of society to unite in a national community. Generally, the fi lm recognizes the challenge of cognitive overload and thus facilitates viewers increasing their social identity complexity and conceiving of it through standard models. Part of this process is grounded in proposing that individuals embrace a broad subjective ingroup—in the fi lm, the Brazilian protonational group—that includes a number of other social groups. Brewer and Pierce argue that such a “salient, attractive superordinate category” as a national group can lead to “identification at the more inclusive level [and] solves the problems of achieving cognitive balance in the face of overlapping ingroups and outgroups” (435).17 Underscoring Brazilianness within the fi lm and portraying it as a desirable and inclusive association available to a heterogeneous population may help to provoke in audience members a complex social identity. I believe that Aleijadinho and similar fi lms tap into the potential for change in social identity complexity by replicating in their fictional universes the sorts of conditions that might lead to such alterations. Roccas and Brewer hypothesize that social identity complexity is affected by social experiences, personal motives, and situational factors (95– 96), and they suggest that “the actual complexity of the experienced social environment” (96) is what may most clearly affect social identity complexity.18 While they see the first two kinds of factors leading to stable changes in social identity complexity, they view the third as having a

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temporary impact. Aleijadinho and similar fi lms might be understood as presenting situational factors that engage social identity complexity only temporarily. In other words, the screened fi lm calls attention to one or more categories of social identity that a viewer may not typically think much about and briefly raise the complexity of this person’s social identity. In such a scenario, viewers of Aleijadinho may for the duration of the fi lm and a little while afterward follow the fi lm’s lead to feel acutely their Brazilianness and at the same time to consider race vitally important. Through the struggles of the protagonist, this fi lm might lead to all or most viewers embracing—at least fleetingly—a complex social identity, one that leads to solidarity with all fellow Brazilians. I would argue, however, that with regard to fi lms like Aleijadinho, the line between situational and experiential factors can be blurry, and thus the potential to provoke changes in social identity complexity is not necessarily ephemeral. By alluding to present but perhaps not yet contemplated realities in viewers’ own lives, the fi lms may act as catalysts for greater introspection. In this way, these cinematic narratives may have an experiential role as well, as they can bring into clearer relief how complex an audience member’s identity might become, even if he or she does not realize it. Additionally, the fi lms may facilitate awareness of existing real-life experiences in another way: they may underscore the diversity that actually surrounds viewers. They may make audiences aware of this potential incongruence of ingroups even for those who do not typically experience it directly—for instance, those with low social identity complexity due to a relatively homogeneous living situation. The fi lms depict experiential conditions through stylized members of society who present hypothetical social identity situations. They replicate for viewers contact with outgroup members through exposure to fictional characters. The fi lms also model intergroup contact by showing characters in one group interacting amicably with characters in different groups. Aleijadinho puts on display the protagonist’s struggles with his simultaneous membership in various groups that by analogy would tend to make more salient equivalent groups for viewers.19 Perhaps in addition to increasing audience members’ awareness of social groups that surround them and of which they are a part, immersion into stylized fictional universes can in fact also constitute a meaningful experience, in Roccas and Brewer’s sense of the word, even if a virtual one. In this regard, the act of viewing the fi lm might therefore have the potential to impart a lasting influence over the social identities of audience members. In Understanding Nationalism Hogan argues that emotional experiences that “serve to specify and intensify the motivational

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force of the categories [. . .] may derive from our engagement with the world itself or from our engagements with representations of the world in literature, media, ordinary discourse, and so forth” (63– 64). Aleijadinho would seem to acknowledge that fi lm has the capacity to affect both the hierarchy of categories of identity and the social identity complexity of viewers. Films that expose audience members to new ways of understanding social groups may influence them through priming.20 We can fi nd in the fi lm each of the five techniques of nationalization that Hogan identifies (Understanding Nationalism, 58– 63; 66–123): salience,21 functionality,22 durability,23 affectivity,24 and opposability.25 All of them urge viewers to give primacy to the national social group. The argument between the young Aleijadinho and his father that comes about twenty minutes into the fi lm offers examples of each technique (figure 1.2). Viewers know that the aspirations about Brazilian independence from Portugal and the abolition of slavery that Aleijadinho articulates here would be realized, and this recognition helps to hierarchize the nation by implying its durability. The impassioned performance of the protagonist in this scene on behalf of colonial Brazil and its population emphasizes the nation through affectivity. Also with regard to affectivity, beyond this scene the casting of Aleijadinho as a metaphor for Brazil helps to infuse the fi lm with emotional associations. More specifically, if viewers are inclined to like a character who is linked to the nation, those feelings will be transferred (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism, 96). Such a viewer/protagonist affective interface may contribute to achieving what is for Hogan an essential step in a functional national identification: trust. The fi lm makes the national category more salient when Aleijadinho attributes the cruel treatment of slaves to Brazil’s lack of independence from Portugal by referring to the “people Portugal brought from Africa! People branded like cattle, who work all day long, suffering! But they are building the Colony! And what do those people get? The whip! Torture! Brutality!”26 The whipping of a slave that he witnesses before the argument acts as a catalyst for him to emphasize his realization that if Brazil were consolidated as a nation, there would be less oppression, an assertion that also contributes to underscoring the functionality of the nation. The protagonist makes the point as well that Brazil’s lack of status as a nation, its subjugation to Portugal, has restricted its access to key infrastructures: “What’s left for Brazil?! We don’t have schools, roads, hospitals, bridges!”27 Finally, Aleijadinho’s emphasis on the ills that derive from the outgroup of the colonizers evokes opposability. At key moments the fi lm makes substantial and efficient use of opposability to elevate the national

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category of identity. Primed by the reference to the “colonizer” in the scrolling text that precedes the narrative and a comment during Bretas’s long voice-over early in the fi lm in which he speaks of the colonizers’ “covetousness” and “oppression” (“ganância, a opressão dos colonizadores”), Aleijadinho’s comments about Portuguese dominance over Brazil helps to distinguish clearly a protonational ingroup by juxtaposing it with a despicable outgroup, a polarizing tactic that constitutes one aspect of opposability (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism, 80). Aleijadinho’s generous disposition and gestures of solidarity toward different social groups in Brazil, from slaves of African descent to intellectuals and artists of European descent, as well as the ethnic synthesis he embodies help to suggest national unity, even with regard to a socially diverse Brazilian context, the second aspect of opposability (80). The fi lm uses polarization in two additional important ways: through the Portuguese characters and through Aleijadinho’s wife, who switches from Aleijadinho’s Brazilian ingroup to the Portuguese outgroup. About an hour into the fi lm, Aleijadinho, already debilitated and deformed by his illness, is carried to a meeting with the Portuguese governor. Much like the eighteenth-century Portuguese depicted in Xica da Silva (1976) and Carlota Joaquina, princesa do Brasil (1995), Aleijadinho’s Portuguese governor is a caricature. His Portuguese accent is exaggerated, and he makes silly sounds and strangely abrupt exclamations, such as when he dismisses his lieutenant maniacally or when he cries out after opening a book to a page with an illustration of a bat, which the soundtrack of the fi lm accompanies with screeching. All in all, he makes the Brazilian community seem quite appealing by contrast. The Portuguese lieutenant plays a similar role and shares the governor’s fake accent and overall loathsomeness, although a leering deviousness dominates his air. His pursuit of the national hero’s wife reinforces the polarization between Brazil and Portugal. As the lieutenant departs after his fi rst conversation with Helena at the home she shares with Aleijadinho, the protagonist’s mother is shown arriving at the house and looking suspiciously at the soldier. The mother represents the ingroup and models for audiences an interpretive path that enhances opposability. Helena’s succumbing to the lieutenant’s advances and running away with him contribute to consolidating and promoting the Brazilian national group through opposition. Helena at fi rst may have appealed to viewers as national metaphor alongside Aleijadinho and even as a possible model for the social identity that I call a “cinematic self.” But after her liaison with the soldier she comes to represent a traitor to Aleijadinho and by extension from him to the nation. By becoming a mem-

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ber of an internal outgroup or “internal enemy,” this character may enhance the elevation of the national ingroup through affectivity (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism, 113–114). In contrast to his mother’s reaction to Helena’s infidelity and abandonment, however, Aleijadinho embodies if not forgiveness then resignation by taking the news with merely a sad smile. He sits in front of a mirror as melodramatic music accompanies the appearance, following Aleijadinho’s imagination, of Helena next to him. First she smiles, as he does, and then she disappears. This is his farewell to her and the beginning of his new, asexual persona that the fi lm associates with Jesus, a process that I will take up later. Helena’s sneaking out at night to have a sexual encounter with the lieutenant and preparing to leave town with him cements her alignment with the outgroup. To drive this association home and to evoke the central strategy of opposability in the fi lm’s effort to hierarchize the Brazilian group, the soundtrack of the fi lm accompanies Helena’s clandestine approach to the lieutenant’s door at night with the same bat sound effect that was used in connection with the Portuguese governor.

Nat iona l M eta phor Like several other Brazilian slavery fi lms, Aleijadinho represents an attempt to reshape a historical figure into a viable and compelling stand-in for the nation and the national community. If viewers accept that association, then we might consider the character’s collected attributes a proposal to understand Brazil and Brazilianness in a new way. The fi lm assigns the protagonist this analogical role through implicit and explicit cues. In addition to Bretas calling the protagonist a symbol of the people, some of his qualities may help to ensure that audience members see Aleijadinho as a proxy for the nation if they already associate those qualities with their understanding of Brazilian national identity. For example, the extent to which a viewer considers Brazilian artistic originality vis-à-vis Europe to be fundamentally Brazilian, this fi lm’s depiction of its protagonist as spearheading what is represented as a Brazilian Baroque artistic revolution ties the character to the nation. However, the attributes in question need not be specific to Brazil to link the protagonist with the country. If Aleijadinho’s hardworking nature— or in other fi lms, kindness, cordiality, or charity—is a revered quality among Brazilian members of the audience, then the protagonist’s embodiment of that trait helps to establish him persuasively as an analog of the nation.

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My analysis of Aleijadinho’s metaphorical status draws on Hogan’s observations in Understanding Nationalism on kinds of national metaphors and how they work (124–166). He argues that we “conceptualize the nation in the same way that we conceptualize other abstract entities— through cognitive modeling or metaphor, specifically what is sometimes called ‘conceptual metaphor’” (124). He says that “our thought and action are affected whenever we adopt a cognitive model to think through or act on an idea or problem” (125). In particular, Hogan holds that such conceptual metaphors often contribute to nationalization (166), and they enhance the nationalizing techniques of salience, durability, opposability, affectivity, and functionality (125). I believe that Aleijadinho and other Brazilian fi lms about slavery tap into this tendency by casting their protagonists as national metaphors. These fi lms use their enslaved or formerly enslaved characters to propose new understandings of the nation in part by treating the figures as what Hogan calls inferential and emotional metaphors that “guide our thought about a target” and “facilitate our communicative transferal of feelings regarding a target,” respectively (Understanding Nationalism, 129–130). Associating the nation with an individual is one of three common domains of nationalist metaphors that Hogan identifies, along with tying it to family and land (166).28 Aleijadinho leaves no room for doubt that it is a conscious depiction of Aleijadinho as a national metaphor. The scrolling text before the fi lm’s action begins weaves Aleijadinho into the story of Brazil’s glorious national founding and even reserves for him a central role. The initial minutes of the narrative, as Bretas tours the area where Aleijadinho lived, returns to some of the same historical and cultural topics covered in the opening lines of scrolling text—the discovery of gold, slavery, cultural splendor, political rebellion—thus reinforcing the associations primed earlier and helping to layer the protagonist with attributes that help him to stand for the nation. The selection of an already celebrated historical and cultural personage works in collaboration with these associations. In the fi nal moments of the fi lm, the historian Bretas cements Aleijadinho’s various means to condense into its protagonist a composite view of Brazilianness.29 He tells Lopes that Aleijadinho “symbolizes our people” (“É o símbolo do nosso povo”). The fi lm was released in 2000, the year of the Brazilian quincentenary of the arrival of the Portuguese to the Americas—a year of reflection on the legacy of the nation’s colonial past—adding to the probability that Aleijadinho might be taken as representative of Brazil. In the argument scene with his father, the fi lm does much of the work to set the protagonist up as national metaphor. Opposability, for

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example, not only helps to consolidate the Brazilian social group by a juxtaposition with the Portuguese outgroup that promotes a national category of identity, but it also aids in emphasizing specific Brazilian and Portuguese attributes through Aleijadinho. In the scene Aleijadinho speaks on behalf of Brazil as a whole, contributing to the fi lm’s suggestion that the protagonist stands for the nation. The ideas that Aleijadinho embraces in the scene, then, help to determine the nature of the metaphor. The Portuguese father in many respects becomes an undesirable model in spite of his love for his son; he reveals in this scene a view of black women as sexual playthings, a somewhat embarrassed support of slavery, and a justification of Portuguese colonial rule of Brazil. The way the fi lm characterizes his father helps Aleijadinho to be interpreted as representing Brazil and what it should be. The protagonist argues in this scene for solidarity among Brazilians, national unification, protonational pride, and condemnation of oppression. His varied social identity including simultaneous membership in white and black Brazilian communities stands in opposition to that of his father’s and intersects with more of Brazil; this helps to align him more with a country that is often defi ned as racially and ethnically syncretic at its core. Finally, the fi lm uses Aleijadinho’s artistic ability in several interrelated instances to propose the protagonist as representative of the nation. Although there is much discussion throughout the fi lm of his artistry, at times the fi lm uses the topic to argue that Aleijadinho epitomizes Brazilian art. Other aspects of Aleijadinho extend this association from the domain of art to the domain of nation. This link is primed in a promotional poster for the fi lm that declares it as “the story of a genius who [. . .] became the pride of Brazilian art” (“a história de um gênio que se tornou uma glória das artes brasileiras”). The conversation between Bretas and Lopes at the end of the fi lm probes the memory of viewers by emphasizing these same points. Bretas says, “He left a sublime work, which all the world will come here to see.”30 Earlier, Aleijadinho tells his patron, Cláudio Manoel da Costa, whom we learn later is a participant in the Inconfidência Mineira, “I’ve been looking for personal solutions, [for] a Brazilian style.”31 He ties his art to the notion of Brazilian originality with regard to Europe, to artistic if not political independence, and casts himself as a pioneer at the vanguard of this Brazilian effort. In a subsequent scene Cláudio Manoel confi rms Aleijadinho’s selfrepresentation:

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My dear Master Antônio Francisco. I’ve been thinking, and I decided that your path is the correct one. You are making your own personal revolution, looking for a Brazilian style, but without neglecting to study the classics, the great European masters. Congratulations. [. . .] Persevere, young man, in realizing a work of personal character that is enduring, a work which reflects the time and soul of our people. I am absolutely sure that the future will do you justice, and that your art will be known all over the world. And this will be your consecration.32

Cláudio Manoel’s comment concretizes the implication that Aleijadinho’s art helps him stand for Brazil. While viewers hear Aleijadinho’s father implore his son in the argument scene and on his deathbed to follow his art, it is here and through Bretas at the end of the fi lm, as well as extradiegetically in the promotional poster, that his art is lent nationalistic significance. His acknowledgement of Aleijadinho’s creation of a unique Brazilian style that derives in part from consuming European classics recalls the cultural cannibalism that Oswald de Andrade famously advocated in his 1928 “Manifesto antropófago”—a kind of artistic postcolonial strategy—and reinforces the broad national implications of Aleijadinho’s art.33 The comment by his patron Cláudio Manoel, a revolutionary, about Aleijadinho’s artistic “revolution” helps to extend the protagonist’s implied metaphorical status from the arts to the nation. His proposal for the protagonist to create art that “reflects the time and soul of our people” underscores Aleijadinho as national representative by casting him as a sort of medium for the population and anticipates Bretas’s later comment about the sculptor’s symbolic value. His words likewise prime Bretas’s prediction that this national metaphor will be durable. Cláudio Manoel’s fi nal reference to his art being a consecration anticipates the final stage in Aleijadinho’s characterization, after those of artist and activist, that of Christlike martyr. Once the character is accepted as a national metaphor, the attributes—as well as beliefs and behavior—that tie him to Brazil as well as all other manifest qualities contribute to the fi lm’s definition of the national community. Certain attributes can reinforce aspects of the defi nition that audience members had in mind before viewing the fi lm. Others might emphasize qualities that were minor and latent in a viewer’s understanding of national identity or introduce traits that may not have previously played a part in the person’s defi nition of Brazilianness. A

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short list of some of Aleijadinho’s attributes can highlight the dual purpose that I have outlined here of making him a national metaphor and of defi ning the nation through him. The fi lm strategically suggests that Aleijadinho, like Brazil, and Brazil, like Aleijadinho, are, for example, formerly enslaved/oppressed, artistic, both white and black, original visà-vis Europe, proud of diversity, promoters of solidarity among different groups, racially and ethnically mixed, Christian, hardworking, selfsacrificing, and more.

T h e Ci n e m at ic Se lf I consider the next aspect of Aleijadinho’s potential to modify understandings of national identity in audience members—establishing the protagonist as what I call a cinematic self—to be particularly important. Here I discuss a specific fi lm-viewer interface, or communicative role, that Aleijadinho assigns to the protagonist. I term the successful use of this technique a cinematic-self effect. I understand this interface to be a viewer identification situation that entails a fi lm successfully proposing that an audience member accept a character as a model for some aspect of his or her self-concept.34 If a fi lm associates a character with a particular social group such as the members of a religion or the population of a country, then the character may act as role model for audience members who are also part of that group and who have been persuaded to identify with the character. So a cinematic depiction of Jesus may have some impact on how Christian viewers understand what it means to be Christian if the fi lm has been successful in making them identify with the iteration of the figure. If the portrayal does not alienate audience members, then the slight differences between the viewers’ pre-fi lm understandings and the fi lm’s depiction of Jesus might find some purchase. Cinema, in this way, has at least some potential to affect the way that audience members think about themselves. The fi lms I study in this book can provoke viewer identification with characters connected to the Brazilian national group. I see such fi lms as efforts to create a model for the self-concepts of audience members. While a character might exemplify how to conceptualize various facets of either personal identity or social identity, I focus here on how a protagonist may act as a guide for ways viewers might conceive of the national category of their social identities.

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F igu r e 1.3. A racially heterogeneous group shows reverence for an older Aleijadinho passing by in a carriage.

Aleijadinho and the other Brazilian slavery fi lms I study approximate in their fictional worlds how social identity dynamics tend to work for people. We might consider such representations of identity hypotheses about the nature of social identity. The fi lms tend to stylize the dynamics of real-life social identity, a tactic that I see as increasing the chances of characters’ represented identities resonating with viewers. More specifically, a fi lm’s depiction of simplified and intensified selfconcepts facilitates viewers’ comprehension of and identification with those self-concepts. The potential for efficient interpretation by viewers of verisimilar social identities sets up the possibility that the understandings of groups that the fi lm models might be internalized by the people in the audience. In other words, a protagonist represented in these ways has the potential to serve as a stand-in for the self-concept of viewers, or a cinematic self. The case of Aleijadinho helps us understand how Brazilian slavery fi lms and many historical fi lms, for that matter, condense and simplify subtle and intricate identity dynamics and use these stylizations of selves as guides for how viewers might rethink their own social identities. In-

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deed, cinema that targets national identity through the past is a fruitful context to study how the cinematic-self effect works, since stories told of the distant past—often with hints of legend and myth—lend themselves to streamlining and modification.35 Cinematic-self fi lms tend to balance credible representations of the social identities of characters with sketches of how the social identities of audience members might be reconfigured. This process is contingent on at least three factors: creating a cinematic-self interface with viewers through which they can really see themselves in the character and imagine their membership in a social group through the character; depicting identity dynamics that seem plausible and resonate with viewers; and proposing alterations to social identity dynamics that are both conceivable and appealing. The convergence of these factors would appear to be essential in giving a fi lm the capacity to successfully guide viewers’ social identities. If a fi lm is to achieve a cinematic-self effect for the members of a large, heterogeneous, superordinate group such as the Brazilian national community, it needs to convince this diverse group—in terms of race, religion, class, and so forth—to identify with a single representative of the national group who nonetheless possesses concrete characteristics that distinguish his or her social identity in many respects from the social identities of audience members. Aleijadinho and other Brazilian slavery fi lms stand out for making their protagonists into one-size-fits-all stand-ins for a key category of social identity. Another factor on which the success of cinematic-self fi lms hinges involves the intensity of the identification. Viewers would have to identify sufficiently with a character within the domain of being Brazilian to accept him or her as a proxy. Presumably only then could an audience member feel inclined to envision himself or herself in the role of the protagonist.36 By means of this kind of connection the protagonist can, for instance, strategically model both defi nitions of the national group and particular approaches to social identity complexity by offering solutions to confl icting social identities that a viewer might also be facing, like how to prioritize national identity in a hierarchy of identity categories and reconcile it with other competing domains such as race, ethnicity, and religion. In the following discussion I address these two related challenges. First, I will discuss how Aleijadinho offers its protagonist as a viable proxy self for a diverse population, and then I will examine the ways it is meant to provoke deep identification with the protagonist in order to enhance his viability as a cinematic self.

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From Exemplum to Prototype The concepts of exemplum, a specific instance of a group within an identity category, and prototype, the standard or average for the group, help us to understand what is involved in developing a cinematic self for the heterogeneous Brazilian national ingroup.37 Hogan argues that our disposition toward a national group—and I would say other social groups as well—will be affected by the both the exempla and prototypes to which we are exposed (Understanding Nationalism 96).38 Aleijadinho begins by reviving a historical and often fictionalized exemplum, one that viewers would already likely link to Brazilian history and culture. This process might work as well with an invented, purely fictional Brazilian exemplum, but grounding the character in history has built-in advantages. The fi lm fictionalizes its protagonist in ways that make him seem somewhat aligned with whatever national prototype audience members might have internalized, both to improve the chances that he will be interpreted as a prototype and so the modifications to what is understood to be essentially Brazilian are more readily digested.39 Part of the fi lm’s means to transform the exemplum into a prototype also involves suggesting that the protagonist is a composite of several fundamental sectors of society—he has a foothold in different social groups or shows solidarity with them—which would seem to increase the chances that he would be embraced by a greater proportion of the population.40 Aleijadinho himself intersects with various groups, even ones that are essentially distinct; he was enslaved and is later free, and he was raised in a Euro-Brazilian context and does European-style art yet asserts that his primary ethnic group within his social identity is Afro-Brazilian. As a means of bolstering the fi lm’s approach to crafting the protagonist as a versatile national stand-in or of fi lling in gaps resulting from the limitations of a single character, Aleijadinho depends on other favorably depicted characters such as his mother. Members of different groups and closely associated with Aleijadinho, these characters diminish his incompatibility with viewers who are very different in some category (gender, race, ethnicity, religion) and thus help him stand for a diverse population.41 To convince audience members to see Aleijadinho as a national prototype, the fi lm suggests as well that the protagonist represents being Brazilian for all Brazilians because he possesses what the fi lm alludes to as a cross-category national essence that it characterizes as suffering due to oppression. Aleijadinho treats the character as a prototype for Brazil in

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a way similar to how Christianity treats Jesus as a prototype to which the human social group might aspire. Indeed, the fi lm even associates its protagonist with Jesus. This connection is linked to a role slaves play in the fi lm. It proposes an analogy, albeit drastically different in degree, grounded in shared oppression between slaves and the colonized population at large and by extension to the present-day Brazilian population inasmuch as Brazilians still feel that oppression persists in society. For example, in the argument scene Aleijadinho condemns slavery in the same breath as he indicts colonization. He argues that people should not feel free unless freedom is achieved for all, including the slaves. In a later scene the fi lm visually reinforces the societywide representative status that it assigns to slaves. The scene depicts Aleijadinho drawing several men in loincloths that Lopes, speaking to Bretas in voiceover, identifies as slaves panning for gold in a stream. Significantly, the men in the stream range in skin tone from much darker than the protagonist to much lighter, with some even seeming to be of primarily European descent, a casting choice that may have been intended to enhance the analogy between slaves and the whole, diverse colonial population. As the fi lm progresses it transfers the emphasis on suffering as a defi ning attribute from slaves to Aleijadinho. This shift may help imbue the protagonist with the socially representative value that the fi lm assigned to slaves. The link between slaves and Aleijadinho in turn would complement the more direct suggestions that the fi lm’s would-be national prototype stands for the entire, diverse Brazilian population.

From Prototype to Cinematic Self—Allegiance and Alignment The fi lm encourages audience members to adopt its reshaped national prototype’s understanding of the national category and its relationship to other categories. The fi lm might accomplish this by provoking sufficient identification between Aleijadinho and the viewer to cast the protagonist as a surrogate self or model for members of the Brazilian social group, someone in whose shoes the viewer can see herself or himself. Although this sort of relationship between a character and someone exposed to the character might be achieved through other media such as literature, because there are cinema-specific factors that I take into account as contributing to the relationship, I use the term “cinematic self.” If the fi lm achieves this relationship with audience members, I argue that it is more likely that the protagonist can persuasively and with lasting effectiveness point the way for viewers to a new understanding of Brazilian national identity.

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I will now go into somewhat more detail about the identification dynamics that are at the core of what I see as the cinematic-self effect. My approach to viewer identification draws on Murray Smith’s useful breakdown of these dynamics into allegiance—being favorably disposed toward a character—and alignment, coinciding with the character in some way, such as visually through a point-of-view shot.42 Together, allegiance and alignment can help to explain what people tend to have in mind when they say they identify with a character or what leads to people feeling that way. Smith’s concepts combine fruitfully with Berys Gaut’s understanding of the same phenomena. I find particularly useful Gaut’s concept of aspectual identification, when audience members coincide with particular aspects of a character, or imaginative identification, “imaginarily putting oneself in another’s position” (208), which derives from the workings of aspectual identification. Gaut understands this sort of viewer-character interface to mean that audience members can identify with a character based on diverse aspects of the character (205). Gaut divides aspectual identification into several types, including perceptual (seeing what a character sees), affective (imagining feeling what a character feels), motivational (being privy to the motives of a character), and epistemic (knowing what a character knows), and Gaut anticipates other possible categories (208). Gaut’s approach to identification corresponds roughly with Smith’s concept of alignment. Combining them enables us to make more nuanced observations about cinematic invitations for viewers to identify in diverse ways with characters. Because I fi nd Smith’s term “alignment” simple and intuitive, I prefer to use it and infuse the concept with some of Gaut’s insights and his typology. So here I refer to affective alignment—and my usage is broader than that of Gaut, incorporating actually feeling what a character feels, which Gaut contemplates through the term empathic identification (207); motivational alignment, where again, my usage is broader than that of Gaut and incorporates being privy to the motives of a character and/or sharing the motives of a character; visual alignment rather than perceptual, as here also I take into account, for example, when an audience member actually sees what a character sees rather than merely imagining it, such as through a point-of-view shot; and epistemic alignment. I would add several sorts of alignment, expanding his list to take into account an ethical alignment in which an audience member shares a sense of good and bad with a character whose ethics manifest through behavior or the revelation of attitudes or beliefs; a social identity alignment in which an audience member, like the character, is part of the Brazilian national group or the

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Catholic group or the university-professor group, whichever the case may be; and a cognitive alignment in which an audience member processes input in line with a character. For a protagonist to be embraced as a surrogate self, some degree of what I am calling social identity alignment would have to take place. However, any of the other types of aspectual identification would contribute to achieving a cinematic-self effect. In my view, any aspectual ways of identifying with a character could contribute either to allegiance to or alignment with the character. One of the challenges of cinematic-self fi lms is ensuring that the protagonist has sufficient aspects in common with enough viewers to stimulate deep and broad identification. Audience members might achieve identification with Aleijadinho through the accumulation of exposures to the protagonist’s asserted ethnic identity, gender, political convictions, and Christian disposition. His solidarity with the oppressed, artistic passion, and dedication to working hard and sacrificing likewise might lead to identification. Life events like falling in love, losing his lover, and mourning the death of his father as well as formal qualities all contribute to this process. Point-of-view shots, reaction shots, and scenes that expose viewers to his thoughts, motivations, and emotions also provoke viewer identification.43 Gaut’s concept of empathic identification (206–208), which I am including under the rubric of affective alignment, can elucidate further what I have in mind with the cinematic-self effect. He defi nes it as a dynamic in which “one feels toward the situation that confronts the character what the character (fictionally) feels toward it” (207). He sees it as one possible result of imaginative identification.44 We might understand empathic identification to be an especially profound combination of allegiance and alignment. Gaut argues that sharing the character’s represented emotions comes from “one’s imaginarily projecting oneself into the character’s situation” (208). Hogan points out that “we have a strong, neurocognitive propensity toward empathy” (Understanding Nationalism, 96). One way to conceive of the cinematic-self effect would be as something akin and certainly related to empathic identification but in the realm of social identity rather than emotion. The viewer does not merely imagine being in a protagonist’s shoes as he or she struggles with simultaneous memberships in different social groups and how to defi ne them. Rather, the cinematic self would help a viewer to experience vicariously similar internal confl icts. With regard to allegiance, I generally follow the defi nition that Murray Smith offers. I appreciate his distinction between alignment and allegiance and his assertion that there can be alignment without allegiance;

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in contrast, some authors have “argued or implied that alignment with a character necessarily creates a basic sympathy for that character” (187). He observes, “To become allied with a character, the spectator must evaluate the character as representing a morally desirable (or at least preferable) set of traits, in relation to other characters within the fiction. [. . .] I have chosen the term allegiance in part because it captures this combination of evaluation and arousal” (188). Nonetheless, because I understand the evaluation of moral desirability to be a kind of alignment— an ethical alignment—I see audience-member allegiance to a character as tending to result from alignment. More specifically, I believe that allegiance derives from the accumulation of special sorts of alignment, in particular ethical alignment, which will positively predispose a viewer toward the character, and social identity alignment, which promises to appeal to the tendency for people to show bias toward their ingroups.45 Drawing on concepts of both Smith and Gaut enables us to make more nuanced observations about cinematic invitations for viewers to identify in diverse ways with characters. These invitations are at the core of the nature of Aleijadinho’s and the other fi lms’ social commentary and their capacity for effectiveness. This way of looking at identification helps us go beyond broad and clear identification with few characters to recognize a spectrum of different cinematic approaches that might provoke identification with characters, even unappealing ones. Overall, this way of understanding identification in cinema allows us to understand better how fi lms lead to alignment between a heterogeneous sample of viewers and one individual character. The fi lm may stimulate the sort of allegiance and alignment that invite audience members to project themselves onto the protagonist, specifically in regard to the character’s self-concept. I am referring, then, not just to any sort of solidarity and empathy that the fi lm might engage, such as might be associated with personal identity along the lines of “I like this person and I feel for him because I have also lost a loved one,” for example. Rather, I refer to allegiance and alignment related to social identity, as in “I like this person who is also part of the same religious group as I and who is experiencing some hardship that I can imagine experiencing or that I have experienced.” One category of the viewer’s social identity intersects with the same, and salient, category of an empathetically perceived protagonist in such a way that the audience member feels inclined to imagine himself or herself in that person’s place. As a result, the way the protagonist manifestly understands that aspect of his or her identity and how the character reconciles the category with others in an intricate social identity result in audience members pro-

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jecting themselves onto the protagonist, specifically with respect to the character’s self-concept. Viewers come to see themselves in the character; the ways in which the character is different enables the viewer to imagine being different in the same way.46 So, to summarize, we might think of a cinematic-self effect as a specific viewer interface or communicative role assigned in the fi lm to the protagonist. The interface is a viewer identification situation that entails a fi lm proposing that an audience member accept a character as a model for some aspect of the viewer’s self-concept. In the Brazilian slavery fi lms I examine here, characters are cast as exemplary representatives of the national group and may provoke allegiance and alignment with them among audience members who share the same categories of social identity. In this the fi lms offer some viewers, through engaging and appealing cinematic selves, a revised and attractive understanding of what it means to be Brazilian that is somewhat different from the one they had before watching the fi lm. Through Brazilian stand-in protagonists the fi lms tether to the nation specific values such as a revolutionary inclination or promote the symbolic association of a racial or ethnic group with the country such as when fi lms argue for the centrality of African-derived culture. If they are successful in persuading viewers to embrace a protagonist as a cinematic self, such revisions to prevailing understandings of Brazilianness are more likely to fi nd purchase. Next I focus mainly on allegiance, though I also touch on some of the ways the fi lm also promotes alignment. One of the general tactics adopted in Aleijadinho to various ends involves using other characters to display ways of interpreting Aleijadinho. Their reactions to him suggest that viewers view him as a great artist, as a political activist, as a martyr, or as a national metaphor. In several instances the fi lm uses other characters to propose both allegiance and alignment with the character. Relevant to this effort are who the characters are (Portuguese, Brazilian, white, black, enslaved, free), in what sort of contexts and ways they interact with Aleijadinho, and how this is fi lmed. The fi lm’s use of other characters to encourage identification with Aleijadinho can be divided into showing and not showing allegiance and alignment with the protagonist. Those who clearly do not identify with Aleijadinho are generally characterized unfavorably; among them are the colonizing Portuguese, white slave-owning upper-class people, and the sculptor’s turncoat wife. Characters like these who manifest a conspicuous absence of identification with Aleijadinho encourage viewer identification with him through

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opposability. Such characters endorse a sense of solidarity with the protagonist among audience members based on social group memberships they share with Aleijadinho and do not share with the villainous characters. And the times that other, more benevolently portrayed characters do show identification with him make lack of identification among the others more salient by contrast. About two-thirds of the way into the fi lm, as a now quite deteriorated protagonist is sculpting on a lattice inside a church, the Portuguese governor enters with his daughter to observe Aleijadinho at work. When he engages Aleijadinho in conversation, the sculptor deliberately brushes dust onto the visitors. The governor leaves in a huff, and the Brazilian, Afro-descendant painter Ataíde, who is working there as well, says, laughing, “You did well, Antônio Francisco, you did well!”47 He calls the colonial official an “arrogant buffoon” (“fanfarrão arrogante”). Aleijadinho says to Ataíde, “I hate that kind of person” (“detesto esse tipo de pessoa”). His comment reinforces the Brazilian-Portuguese opposition as well as his nuanced understanding of Brazilianness or his view of the prototypical Brazilian and contrasts that type with those who show him a lack of allegiance. Aleijadinho refers not to “the colonizers” or something similar but to a type of person who is represented by the governor and might include upper-class Brazilians or anyone who is disrespectful to him. Ataíde’s easy, dismissive attitude toward the governor ratifies Aleijadinho’s implications about the delineation of the groups and clears the path for audience members to reject the Portuguese way and feel solidarity and identification with Aleijadinho. This scene recalls an earlier one when a small crowd gathers outside a church to gawk at the efforts of the disabled man, and he reacts with anger. Prominently shown in the group’s midst is an upper-class carriage borne by four black men in livery. The crowd is an array of other characters of upper and lower classes and of blacks and whites. The presence of these nefarious characters helps to defi ne who falls outside the parameters of the Brazilian protonational group postulated by the fi lm. Those who mock him, even if they are Brazilians, should be considered internal outgroupers rather than ingroupers because they are linked to the colonizing outgroupers, the Portuguese, through their shared rejection of the protonational protagonist. That the Portuguese outgroup and its allies in Brazil do not show allegiance to and certainly not alignment with Aleijadinho encourages the Brazilian group, of which viewers form part, to do the opposite. Aleijadinho’s wife manifests a lack of allegiance toward Aleijadinho. About halfway through the fi lm, Aleijadinho, whose face is quite de-

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formed at this point, tries to kiss Helena, and she rejects him. When she reacts with horror and tears to his advance, there are a couple of pointof-view shots in which viewers share the protagonist’s perspective. Because point-of-view shots are uncommon in this fi lm in spite of the use of various efforts to have Brazilian audience members see him as their proxy, these shots stand out here and may contribute to solidifying allegiance toward the protagonist partly through this visual alignment. A subsequent shot in the same scene shows Helena lying face down in close-up on the bed, crying and in focus, while the protagonist remains in the background, farther away and blurry. The focus then switches to him, looking on from behind her in the doorway, thus converting what the viewer sees to a reaction shot, which Gaut argues is more effective than a point-of-view shot in provoking sympathy and empathy for a character (213). Aleijadinho is clearly sad but seems to take the situation stoically. Though Brazilian, Helena falls outside the parameters of the ideal Brazilian group that the fi lm postulates by leaving Aleijadinho to be with the Portuguese soldier. Helena’s rejection of Aleijadinho when he tries to kiss her contrasts with a scene just previous to that in which his mother shows affection for him. After lovingly telling her that she is now free and need not feel uncomfortable around whites and hide in the kitchen, he kisses his mother and she smiles. There is also a roughly two-minute sequence about forty minutes into the fi lm, right after we learn of Aleijadinho’s illness, that models the possible transformation of Brazilian viewer engagement with Aleijadinho by showing a lack of identification with the sculptor among Brazilians that the fi lm will later show changing to identification. Here audience members see snippets of conversations of anonymous, apparently middle-class and upper-class Brazilian characters, as their accents make apparent, speculating mostly that he caught the disease in a brothel. They clearly lack allegiance and alignment; these characters imply that they believe the protagonist to be morally corrupt and thus not deserving of their empathy. Viewers have seen no evidence of such corruption and would be urged to reject the social interpretation they have just seen. In contrast, three women praying in a church and, at the end of the sequence, the mother of Cláudio Manoel da Costa anticipate the allegiance that the fi lm will propose even more. Rather than morally condemning the protagonist based on speculation, the three women in church lament his condition, and Cláudio Manoel’s mother proposes that they celebrate a mass for Aleijadinho’s recovery. Cláudio Manoel reacts favorably to this idea, which coincides with the predominant

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Christian disposition of the fi lm that is advanced largely through Aleijadinho himself. Besides proposing identification by contrast, the fi lm also openly puts on display alignment and allegiance toward Aleijadinho. Early in the fi lm Aleijadinho is witnessing the brutal whipping of a slave tied to a pelourinho, a whipping post. A series of reaction shots—of the slave, a group of onlookers, and Aleijadinho—processes the torture for viewers. The camera tilts down from a long shot of a church to one that now frames the stone pelourinho as the overseers tie the man up and whip him. The camera then cuts to a close-up of Aleijadinho observing with barely contained anger. A series of close-ups toggles between high-angle shots of the slave and low-angle shots of the perpetrators. What follows is a long, medium close-up panning shot from right to left of a group of Brazilians who are presumably meant to be taken as a cross-section of society in terms of skin color and class. At the end of the pan the camera shows Aleijadinho standing farther off, and the camera slowly zooms in until his standing figure fi lls the frame. The horror-fi lled reaction of the protagonist coincides exactly with that of each of the Brazilians observing the scene. The parallel reaction shots thus collaborate in proposing alignment between Aleijadinho and this representative selection of Brazilians and by extension between Brazilian audience members and the protagonist. Toward the end of the fi lm, as Aleijadinho leaves in his horse-drawn carriage after being commissioned for a major job, a collection of about ten white and black people see him off with respect, calling him “Master [Mestre] Antônio” (figure 1.3). Unlike other times when we saw groups interacting with him after his sickness, this time the diverse Brazilian group reveres him. This group shows viewers the model to emulate and the path of allegiance to follow and complements the alignment implied early in the fi lm by the similarly diverse group of Brazilians who were in sync with Aleijadinho’s horror at the slave being beaten. As the fi lm progresses, other characters—rich, white artists and leaders in colonial Brazil and various Afro-descendant people—manifest ever-greater pride in Aleijadinho. They call him “Master” more and more. Near the end of the fi lm the protagonist visits his patron, Cláudio Manoel, in prison after the Inconfidência is discovered, and he receives Aleijadinho with the honorific. These diverse characters model audience reception by interpreting him as a figure to be respected across ethnic and class divisions. Aleijadinho deploys a gradual strategy of promoting audience identification with the protagonist through the modeling of various characters. The fi lm’s characterization of Aleijadinho as national stand-in de-

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velops in tandem with the growth of identification with him among an increasingly diverse proto-Brazilian group of characters. From the beginning, slaves epitomize the protonational community in the fi lm, but those in this eighteenth-century context who would represent what Brazil could and should become, according to the fi lm, also include working Brazilians, black and white, and the occasional special upperclass white Brazilian like the revolutionary Cláudio. Later the fi lm implies that as Aleijadinho’s renown as an artist becomes more widespread, the groups of people who show allegiance to him and the eighteenthcentury Brazilian community—not just the previous core but all nonPortuguese—coincide almost perfectly. These developments in the story thus encourage present-day audience members of the Brazilian social group specifically to share allegiance to the protagonist. The white nineteenth-century historian Bretas underscores the breadth of Aleijadinho’s appeal with regard to different members of Brazilian society. His investigation into Aleijadinho confirms, consolidates, and authorizes the celebration of Aleijadinho that we see among his contemporaries. If at the beginning of the fi lm in the pelourinho scene there was a hint of alignment, at the end the fi lm comes right out and shows Aleijadinho to be a proxy. When Bretas, after we have seen Aleijadinho assume a Christlike role, says that Aleijadinho “symbolizes our people, who suffer like he suffered,” he implies that the sculptor is a stand-in for Bretas’s own nineteenth-century Brazilian compatriots. If viewers consider Brazil still to be characterized by suffering, his comment constitutes a proposal for all of Brazil to feel alignment with Aleijadinho.

A rt icu lat i ng a n A f roce n t r ic, Sy ncr et ic, a n d I nclusi v e U n de rsta n di ng of Br a zi li a n n ess Just as all five of the fi lms that I examine in this book share a general strategy for influencing Brazilian national identity, they coincide as well in the definition of Brazilianness that the fi lms lead viewers to embrace. Specifically, the fi lms all prescribe an Afrocentric, syncretic, and inclusive understanding of the nation. This coincidence helps us to compare and contrast tactics for building a foundation to persuasively redefi ne identity and tactics for exploiting that foundation in the articulation of a revised understanding of the national community. Here I discuss how Aleijadinho redefi nes Brazilian national identity through a protagonist positioned as a vehicle for the would-be persuasive communication of the fi lm’s way of understanding the nation. I con-

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sider how the fi lm proposes revisions to a presumably now hierarchized national identity through a historical protagonist whose story has been suggested as relevant to the present and who has been offered as both a metaphor of the nation and a cinematic self for audience members.

The Morphing of the National Proxy Even the promotional materials for the fi lm reflect care to reinforce the extratextual emphasis on Aleijadinho as a Brazilian artistic genius; one poster calls him “the pride of Brazilian art,” and the DVD synopsis makes reference to his “immortal pieces.”48 The emphasis the fi lm places on Aleijadinho’s artistic genius can be seen as an attempt to inspire awe, a common nationalizing aim of history and fiction (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 117). During the initial flashback, after Aleijadinho is born his father declares as he awkwardly holds the squirming infant, “He’ll grow up to be an artist, just like his father!”49 And later in the fi lm the father, on his deathbed, says to a weeping Aleijadinho, “You must fulfi ll your destiny as an artist.”50 At regular intervals the fi lm underscores the centrality of art to the protagonist’s character, fi rst through references to destiny or genetic disposition and then, as the fi lm progresses, by way of displaying recognition of his genius and accomplishment. The brief sequence of Aleijadinho as a boy depicts his father training him in sculpting stone, at the end of which Lopes’s voice-over comments on his first commission as an adolescent: “That was the fi rst manifestation of his audacious spirit.”51 At the beginning of the early scene of Aleijadinho and his father arguing, the father effusively compliments some drawings the protagonist has made. From then on, characters continue to praise his art. Helena, about twenty minutes into the fi lm when the young Aleijadinho meets and begins to court her, indicates that she already knows who he is, for his fame as an artist has preceded him. Bretas, in his nineteenth-century setting, ratifies the praise for the protagonist’s ability that accumulates in the main narrative, and in so doing he emphasizes the perseverance of the cultural legacy that Aleijadinho left for the country. In addition to underscoring the protagonist’s central role as artist, the birth scene indirectly begins to associate Aleijadinho’s art with other key topics and allude to his subsequent role as activist. When he is told of the birth, the father rushes in smiling, a moment accompanied by the triumphant orchestral theme that was introduced during the opening credits. Viewers would recall that the credits already bracket Aleijadinho within the topics of art, political revolution, and slavery. The protago-

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nist’s association with these issues is tied to this musical theme, which periodically returns during the course of the fi lm, a soundtrack tactic that would likely lead audience members to recall more fluidly the concepts the fi lm links to Aleijadinho.52 His father says in these brief moments that the boy will drive the black girls crazy. He repeats the comment at the beginning of the argument scene after complimenting the young man’s promise as an artist, and in fact his remark provokes the argument. The topic of race-based sexual exploitation and Aleijadinho’s reaction to it emphasize his inclination to fight oppression regardless of whether it is due to enslavement or to colonization. The fi lm foreshadows the link between Aleijadinho’s art and his activism in the birth scene and begins resolutely to blend the two characteristics in the argument scene. The political affi liation of Aleijadinho’s art is most clearly communicated through his relationship with the Inconfidente Cláudio Manoel da Costa, who commissions the protagonist for a major project and offers his library for Aleijadinho to study the European masters. It is there that the sculptor eventually overhears the conspirators planning their anticolonial revolution. In an early conversation with this patron, Aleijadinho makes his declaration that he is in search of a unique Brazilian style of art. This primes Cláudio Manoel’s later comments about Aleijadinho’s artistic “personal revolution” that he should use to reflect “the time and soul of our people.” The latter comment strongly associates Aleijadinho’s art with Brazilian protonationalism and with a revolutionary spirit in a cultural sense and a political sense. Aleijadinho’s activist persona intermingles with his role as artist from the argument scene on. His activism manifests in opposition to two primary targets that the fi lm often associates, slavery and colonialism. Aleijadinho embodies a spirit of resistance to oppression in general, represented in the fi lm as colonial rule, and at times his protonationalist opposition to the Portuguese is racialized even when the topic is not slavery as an aspect of colonialism. Explicitly and implicitly race and slavery remain throughout the fi lm themes that guide Aleijadinho’s position on oppression. Even before the fi lm starts to associate Aleijadinho with the Inconfidência Mineira, it shows him explicitly criticizing colonialism and advocating for Brazilian independence. At the end of the argument scene, in which Aleijadinho indicts both slavery and Portuguese colonial rule, a comment by his father makes clear the activist direction that Aleijadinho is beginning to take: “My son, I love you too, and that’s why I worry about you. Don’t get involved in politics. Concentrate on your

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art, only your art, OK?”53 As we know, rather than choosing between art and politics the protagonist merges them. Besides expressing to fellow protonationalist group members his discontent with the Portuguese, he models overt, albeit slight, resistance when he brushes the dust onto the governor and his daughter in the church and when he publicly ridicules the lieutenant with whom his wife later runs away by putting an unfavorable likeness of the soldier on a processional statue. The more explicit association of Aleijadinho with the Inconfidência begins about an hour into the fi lm when Aleijadinho, while studying in Cláudio Manoel da Costa’s house, overhears the conspirators talking in another room. The viewer hears with the protagonist, shown seated at a desk in medium close-up, comments made by several men: “The collection of back taxes is the signal for insurrection, for the independence of the Colony. We cannot waste this opportunity. [. . .] It is my dream. [. . .] To declare our independence, establish the Republic, create schools, universities, factories, free the slaves. [.  .  .] Brazil will be free. Our people will be free.”54 Although in this scene fi fty minutes after the row with his father Aleijadinho’s countenance gives little indication of his position with regard to their plans, he makes his view clear just a few minutes later in another scene. One of Aleijadinho’s helpers rushes to fi nd him at night to tell him that the Inconfidentes have been discovered and arrested. The protagonist is upset by the news and asks to be carried to visit the incarcerated Cláudio Manoel da Costa. When he arrives, Aleijadinho looks at his friend and patron and declares, in reference to his imprisonment: “What a disgrace, my God. So much misery.”55 During his short discussion with Cláudio Manoel, Aleijadinho’s view of the attempted revolution becomes clear: “This could not have happened. Yours was the best idea possible. To make the Colony independent.”56 Cláudio’s response helps to expose what is ultimately the fi lm’s position, of sacrifice rather than heroics: “That is what comes of all such dreams.”57 Aleijadinho depicts the protagonist in the jail scene certainly showing sympathy for the attempted nationalist revolution of the Inconfidência, but the solution the fi lm ultimately offers to oppression is not rebellion but sacrifice in the martyrdom of Aleijadinho, the fi nal stage of his layered persona. Aleijadinho’s reaction to the imprisonment of Cláudio Manoel anticipates a comment that Bretas makes in connection to Aleijadinho: “Dear God. So much misery, so much suffering.”58 The coincidence of comments helps to link the protagonist’s activism, which the fi lm connects to the self-sacrificing revolutionary actions of the Inconfidentes, with what the fi lm portrays as Aleijadinho’s martyrdom.

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Even if Aleijadinho ends up favoring martyrdom over resistance, it emphasizes from beginning to end the need to condemn oppression, particularly slavery. This position is bolstered by the tendency in the fi lm to associate activism in general to resisting slavery and race, as we have seen in comments that attribute slavery to colonialism and independence to abolition. The fi lm thus suggests that it is not enough to fight a battle that everyone would benefit directly from winning; it is necessary to combat oppression that only some face. Slavery and blackness permeate nearly every aspect of the fi lm’s multipart proposed defi nition of Brazilian national identity. However, in contrast to Aleijadinho’s explicit references to race in the argument scene, the rest of the fi lm treats the topic somewhat more obliquely although nonetheless constantly. All of this contributes to the fi lm’s association of certain values with Brazilianness. It is following the altercation with his father that Aleijadinho meets Helena, also the child of a slave. The development and deterioration of their relationship is linked, at least indirectly, with race and slavery. On the one end we have their courtship, which in the aftermath of the argument scene seems to signify solidarity with Brazilians who are not white and during which the two discuss slavery at some length. On the other end, about two-thirds into the fi lm, we have Helena leaving Aleijadinho for a white, colonizing soldier who, when they consummate their affair, racializes his interest in her; just as they are getting into bed he calls her in a fit of passion “beautiful cabocla.” About one-third into the fi lm, viewers are reminded of the topic of slavery. The voice-over by Lopes narrates a long shot of Aleijadinho to the right of a stream with seven slaves crouching and panning for gold: “Antônio liked to visit, when he was drawing, the places where the slaves worked.”59 As when he saw the man being whipped at the pelourinho, Aleijadinho looks on gravely. This short scene reinforces the connection between his art and his politics. During a conversation Aleijadinho has with his mother about halfway through the fi lm, he raises the issue of slavery directly once again: “Mother, don’t stay in the kitchen all the time. This is no work for you. You’re not a slave anymore. Put that through your head. You’ve been freed, like me. Let Helena help you. And another thing. Whenever some white man comes to talk to me, you shouldn’t hide in the kitchen. You’re my mother. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”60 After the death of his father, Aleijadinho is shown to retain a similar concern about race and slavery. Later, in the aftermath of the governor’s visit to the church where he is working, the conversation Aleijadinho has with the painter Ataíde,

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also Afro-descendant, raises the issue of race and links his activist stance once again to art. Aleijadinho: I see you’re still true to your style of portraying the figures as mestiças. Ataíde: [. . .] It’s as if I was gathering my mulatos in the city square. Aleijadinho: The prejudiced can busy themselves [attempting] to understand the world better. Isn’t the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, also mother of blacks and mestiços? [. . .] Then why can’t She be portrayed as a mestiça herself?61

This is perhaps the most explicit connection that Aleijadinho makes between art and politics. This concrete association bolsters the combined value of the protagonist’s first two personas, artist and activist. Not only does he do politicized, activist art, but he also tries to ensure that others can do it too. When Cláudio Manoel awards Aleijadinho with his fi rst major commission early in the fi lm, Aleijadinho proposes that Ataíde do the painting. And minutes away from the end of the fi lm, Aleijadinho insists that Ataíde paint for another project. The fi nal image of Aleijadinho reinforces the fi lm’s emphasis on the protagonist’s racialized, activist art. An extreme long shot shows the sun setting over the colonial town. After Bretas passes in front of the camera and off screen to the right, the same orchestral theme that accompanied the scrolling text at the beginning returns, and an intertext quotation is superimposed on the landscape: “In the last years of the ‘gallant’ century, when the French Revolution took Europe by storm, in a lost country on the other side of the Atlantic a mestiço with deformed hands produced this sublime work, the last vestige of God conjured by the hand of man. Germain Bazin.”62 As in the initial scrolling text, these words tie the artist Aleijadinho to revolution; while the words at the beginning associate him with slavery, this quotation links his work to race. Before discussing Aleijadinho’s fi nal persona, that of martyr, I want to return for a moment to the core of Aleijadinho’s activism as it relates to slavery. I refer to how the fi lm accompanies the depiction of indignation with a proposal to do something about it. In other words, with the audience in mind, the fi lm not only encourages anger but also models action. The scene that precedes the one in which the slave is whipped at the pelourinho is significant in this respect, for it is the first direct indication of Aleijadinho’s outrage at the treatment of slaves. The fi lm visually underscores Aleijadinho’s initial condemnation of slavery when he fi rst sees the slave being dragged out of the mine, the same one Bretas

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contemplated during his walk. A long shot shows three figures emerging from a tunnel in the mine: two fully dressed, cursing overseers are whipping and dragging—toward and in front of a slowly panning camera—a screaming slave wearing only a white loin cloth as the sounds of their voices mingle with those of whiplashes and an orchestral score that aligns itself with the intensity of the shot. The camera then cuts to a medium close-up reaction shot of Aleijadinho observing the scene, clearly shocked and seething. This is followed by a return to the image of the three and then quickly to a medium close-up, from the other side of the group, of the slave on the left being whipped by one of the overseers on the right. Above and beyond this man we see Aleijadinho, out of focus. The viewer thus sees simultaneously the man being brutalized, the indignant witness who is free and part of the world of whites, and representatives of the cruel and oppressive colonial society that he seems to have noticed only now. A fi nal shot of Aleijadinho’s reaction and a cut to a long shot of him walking purposefully off complete the scene. If the scene just described and Aleijadinho’s argument with his father make the case for anger with regard to slavery as well as colonialism, other aspects of the fi lm allude to favored activist strategies. The fi lm shows societywide revolution ultimately to fail. It advocates the approach embodied by the legendary figure Chico Rei that might be summed up as buying the freedom of slaves rather than taking it by force or, more abstractly, working within a system to achieve goals, retaining allegiance to Christianity, and remaining Afrocentric but embracing other groups. Chico Rei is a leitmotif in Aleijadinho. The topic is first primed by Bretas during his stroll at the beginning of the fi lm. During the argument scene, Aleijadinho brings up Chico Rei: “But I can’t accept the situation of those thousands of slaves. Entire populations, such as Chico Rei’s, were brought here to give everything and then disappear, to be treated like animals.”63 And when Aleijadinho, some ten minutes later in the fi lm, discusses Chico Rei with Helena, the significance that the fi lm places on the figure—the assertion of his prominent and pride-fi lled place in the minds of the people—becomes clear. In response to Aleijadinho’s question about whether destiny has changed her path, Helena says, “If the Portuguese hadn’t enslaved kings, queens, and princes from the kingdom of Congo, as well as many subjects, even my mother, I wouldn’t be here with you.”64 He responds, “I know. I know the story of the great king Galanga, sovereign of the Congo. He was later named Francisco, and now he is Chico Rei.”65 He ends his comment about this other eighteenth-century figure with a proud smile, bringing him more to life for audience members

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who most likely would have heard of Chico Rei. The fi lm reinforces in the memories of audience members what they already know about Chico Rei. Through that figure it complements the accumulation of attributes linked to Aleijadinho: the historical figure Chico Rei helps Aleijadinho to cast Brazil, through the fi lm’s protagonist, as strongly Christian, inclined to work within the system and be conciliatory, and concerned with the oppression of Afro-descendant Brazilians but showing solidarity with other groups. The fi nal and dominant persona Aleijadinho assumes is one of martyr, a role that overlaps with those of artist and activist. His martyrdom, though, tends to eclipse somewhat his activism in a shift that exposes the most favored qualities and strategies within the fi lm’s concept of Brazilian identity. Parallel to this rearrangement, the presiding narrative structure understandably becomes sacrificial, though the heroic structure retains some place in the story Aleijadinho tells, a relatively standard combination according to Hogan (Understanding Nationalism, 20, 266). Hogan writes of the sacrificial narrative structure: The alignment of values in the heroic plot set God on our side as His special people. [. . .] In the fullest version of the sacrificial narrative, the sin was prompted by some out-group tempter, usually identified with the spiritual opposite of God (e.g., Satan). [. . .] Most often, someone must die to prevent the death of the entire community. The story of the Fall of humankind through Adam and Eve, then our eventual salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus, is an obvious case of this sort of plot. (264–265)

While the protagonist suffers from disease, the ills suffered by the population in Aleijadinho are colonialism and slavery. Although there is generally no implication that these conditions are the result of some individual or collective sin committed by the protonational community, we might point to Helena falling victim to the Portuguese lieutenant tempter as one of the parallels with this narrative structure. The fi lm casts Aleijadinho as a self-sacrificing and eventually asexual representative of Brazil who seeks to ameliorate the devastation of slavery and colonialism, and by extension oppression in the modern era that the fi lm allegorizes, through his suffering and death. The topic of sacrifice for the protonational Brazilian group in general is evoked early in the fi lm during Bretas’s initial walk. He recalls an early eighteenth-century failed revolt whose leader is killed as “creating [a] hero and martyr” (“criando herói e mártir”). However, the implica-

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tion that Aleijadinho should be understood as a Brazilian martyr builds slowly in the fi lm and is made explicit only toward the end, even if the fi lm lays the foundation for this persona through frequent references to his self-sacrifice and great suffering throughout the story. When Bretas begins his interview with Lopes, he indicates interest in Aleijadinho’s sickness, which suggests that this is a key characteristic of the figure. It is about halfway through the fi lm that the disease and suffering begin to mingle with Aleijadinho’s art and activism. While Aleijadinho is sculpting, we see him struck by a sudden and debilitating pain. Lopes, in voice-over, says, “That day, Antônio Francisco’s torture began.”66 Aleijadinho’s depicted suffering derives not only from the disease but also from his treatment by others, most particularly Helena. Lopes narrates: “The illness was a terrible torture for Antônio, Mr. Bretas, but the indifference and absence of his son, and the revulsion and unfaithfulness of Helena, were his greatest moral suffering.”67 Aleijadinho’s sacrifice during his long years of extreme pain is emphasized at various points in the fi lm through references to the protagonist being hardworking. He continues to work to give the population a gift beyond his suffering: his art. During the birth scene the father primes the topic by insisting that the infant would be both an artist and hardworking. And immediately after that, jumping to Aleijadinho as a boy beginning his training, he tells the young protagonist, “Antônio, this is no time for playing. You aren’t anyone’s better here. You must work too, you hear?”68 This comment contributes to the fi lm’s effect of casting Aleijadinho as a broad, class-spanning national representative. At the beginning of the argument scene, the protagonist’s father is impressed by some drawings his son has made and says, “Now you have to work hard to improve.”69 The protagonist himself embraces the role of hard worker. When he learns of winning a major commission, he echoes his father’s repeated injunction and effusively tells Helena, “I want to work even more.”70 When Cláudio Manoel learns of Aleijadinho’s illness, he expresses concern about what we can see is an essential attribute of the protagonist when he says he is troubled by “the possibility that Master Antônio will not be able to work anymore.”71 However, we see that Aleijadinho continues to work. The synopsis on the back of the DVD emphasizes that “in spite of enormous suffering, it [the illness] does not impede him from working until he is 76, with the tools that his three faithful helpers tie to his hands.”72 And in the fi lm Bretas says, “I can only imagine [. . .] how Master Antônio suffered. [. . .] Despite his illness, with his fi ngers atrophied, he created his most important works. He never

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stopped working.”73 Later, when the Portuguese governor summons a deteriorated Aleijadinho to him and asks how he is, the protagonist responds, “Exactly how God wants me to be: always working.”74 Aleijadinho is shown to work tirelessly for Brazil. The protagonist sacrifices for the sake of the people, the nation, through continuing to work with his art. The fi lm depicts Aleijadinho as of the people, a simple, hardworking man, as well as a brilliant artist, a combination that emphasizes the attribution of humility. Aleijadinho’s hard work in spite of suffering reinforces the fi lm’s association of him with slaves, whose oppression and suffering are for their part treated as emblematic of oppression and suffering in general, such as that of colonialism. At the beginning of the fi lm the suffering highlighted is that of slaves. Bretas refers in his early voice-over to the “misery, suffering, and humiliation, like I still see now in this slave.”75 As the fi lm progresses, however, it substitutes underscoring the suffering of slaves with an increasing emphasis on the pain of Aleijadinho. The protagonist himself makes the connection in the argument scene: “People branded like cattle, who work all day long suffering, but building the Colony!” As Aleijadinho, a former slave himself, occupies more and more the role of conspicuous suffering and ultimate sacrifice, the fi lm suggests that he does so on behalf of a colonized Brazil and eventually a modern-day Brazil still plagued by oppression. Aleijadinho never stops attaching to the protagonist distinct cultural associations, the most significant of which is that of Jesus. This association has several benefits. It complements the protagonist with the powerful cultural cachet of a well-known figure. The link to Jesus clarifies the suggestion the fi lm makes that Aleijadinho suffers and dies on behalf of and for the benefit of a diverse population. It also gives a prominent place to Christianity within the fi lm’s conception of Brazilian national identity.76 As the fi lm begins to draw to a close, it seems poised, in part by this religious link, to influence viewers to accept the composite national representative it has been constructing. Shortly before the fi nal flashback, Bretas asks Lopes to show him where Aleijadinho lived his last moments. The subsequent scene, chronicling the sculptor’s lonely death, indulges in devices that secure for Aleijadinho the status of martyr and associate him inextricably with Jesus. Viewers witness his plea to God to stop his suffering and take him away, and we see the alternation between images of Jesus and Aleijadinho that ceases only with the apparent divine concession to the suffering man’s request to die. The fi lm uses a series of double exposures of the expiring Aleijadinho and render-

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ings of Christ to create a visual association that complements the analogy implied by the plot and dialogue of the fi lm. The moment of his death reinforces the Christian and European characteristics connected to Aleijadinho that have commingled with explicitly Afro-Brazilian elements throughout the fi lm. And the fi lm-ending intertitle—“a mestiço with deformed hands produced this sublime work, the last image of God evoked by the hand of man”—cements this combination by emphasizing race and implying divine collaboration in his artistry. The fi lm makes the case for the analogy between Aleijadinho and Jesus in diverse ways. In an early conversation with Helena, Aleijadinho anticipates the test to which he will be put, and he apologizes for the Christian path, in contrast to Helena’s understandable doubt regarding an institution propagated by the Europeans who are also responsible for the suffering of slavery. Aleijadinho: [God] created our path. He traced our course. [. . .] What a wonderful world God has given us. [. . .] Helena: I don’t understand, Antônio. God made [this entire] world, but He put in it so much misery, so much suffering. My mother was a slave. Your mother was a slave. And they’ve suffered so much with the others from Africa. [. . .] Aleijadinho: God puts us to the test. Jesus was also put to the test. [. . .] This majestic beauty, Helena, was created to fathom our greatness or our misery, our infi nite glory or our tragedy, our love or our loneliness.77

As we know, Helena will soon fall in prestige in the fi lm and with her, the viewpoint that she advocates here. Aleijadinho, on the other hand, continually rises in prestige over the course of the fi lm and supports conciliation and forgiveness as well as condemning injustice and recalling the past. The fi lm continues to allude to the Aleijadinho-Jesus analogy at key moments. About halfway through the fi lm, when the sick and deformed Aleijadinho kisses his mother and tells her not to hide from white people any more, the fi lm begins to suggest that the protagonist suffers for others, in this case slaves. And when Helena rejects his kiss shortly afterward, the entrance into asexuality that the moment announces indicates the nature of his new role as religious martyr. Much of the rest of the fi lm focuses on Aleijadinho’s constant and intense misery as he continues to sculpt. This tendency culminates in a scene in which Aleijadinho, no longer able to tolerate his pain, cuts off his own toe with his

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sculpting tools. The sequence of shots leaves no doubt about the fi lm’s association of Aleijadinho and Jesus. As an organ drones a series of notes over and over, audience members see a close-up of the chisel on the toe before the camera tilts up to show Aleijadinho’s face, and they hear his screaming as the hammer connects. After a brief shot showing the reaction of his three helpers, the camera cuts quickly to a medium close-up detail shot of a statue of Christ crucified looking into the eyes of a man embracing him, followed by a close-up of Aleijadinho’s face as he continues to cry out. Aleijadinho concludes with a fi nal visual leap from the earlier to the later time frame. Lopes draws Bretas’s attention to Aleijadinho’s cross, which is featured in the double exposures during the earlier scene in which the protagonist dies. In this way the fi lm drives home simultaneously the connection of Aleijadinho and Jesus as well as that of the past and the present. When Bretas bids farewell to Lopes, their fi nal dialogue similarly bolsters more than one of the fi lm’s goals with regard to the protagonist by underscoring Aleijadinho’s link to Jesus and his durability as a national representative. Lopes asks Bretas if Aleijadinho’s suffering and enduring sacrifice for the sake of art was worth it: “You know what I think, Mr. Bretas? Was it worth it, all the suffering of Antônio Francisco? He worked so hard, he made so many beautiful things, and soon everything will be ruined. No one will remember him.”78 Lopes’s comment reinforces the theme of the sculptor working long and hard in order to leave a historical patrimony and draws viewers’ attention to the momentous significance of his suffering that the fi lm postulates— his divinity. Bretas quits Lopes’s company armed with the collaborative rhetorical resources of oral tradition and rare documents related to the artist and assures her that her concerns about her father-in-law’s legacy are unfounded. His parting words definitively tie the analogy the fi lm makes between Aleijadinho and Jesus to its rendition of him as an influential vehicle for a revised definition of Brazilianness: “He symbolizes our people, who suffer like he suffered, and he left a sublime work, which all the world will come here to see.”79 His assertion that no one will forget Aleijadinho and this Brazilian’s artistic genius, the documents Lopes has given him related to Aleijadinho that audience members might assume still exist, and his promise to write a biography combine to help accomplish the interdependent nationalizing goals of all five fi lms: it elevates the Brazilian category through affectivity, enhances the character’s status as metaphor of the nation and cinematic self, and suggests the durability of the stand-in as this past figure stretches into the present.

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Aleijadinho’s Social Identity as Versatile National Model The way the fi lm attempts to engage and influence audience members can be synthesized as follows. By providing a nuanced depiction of the protagonist’s social identity and his disposition toward others in Brazilian society, the fi lm guides a revision in how viewers understand the national category of their social identities. Specifically, the fi lm models through the protagonist how audience members might defi ne Brazilianness and their relationships between the superordinate national group and other important social groups to which they and others pertain in, for instance, the domains of race, religion, and ethnicity. The protagonist faces dilemmas in terms of his social identity that are related to present-day debates about race, class, ethnicity, and national identity. Though Aleijadinho’s story is chronologically remote, it is likely that audience members will have experienced, witnessed, or heard about present-day analogs of the dilemmas that confront the protagonist. Bearing in mind the possibility that the fi lm’s would-be viewer standin may influence a shift in the social identities of audience members, it is propitious that the fi lm underscores moments in which the protagonist’s identity is in flux. If Aleijadinho’s social identity can change, so can theirs. In the argument scene we see a moment in which the protagonist is grappling with possible confl ict among simultaneous group memberships. For this reason, the concept of social identity complexity can help us to describe the protagonist’s social identity dilemmas. It can also aid us in evaluating what sort of social identity the fi lm is favoring and the impact of this cinematic representation of the protagonist’s personal struggle on the social identities of audience members. In general, I would argue that the presentation of Aleijadinho’s struggles promises to elevate the complexity of viewer social identities by making more salient some diverse, often nonoverlapping groups that have parallels in the multicultural, postcolonial, and postslavery context of production and screening. Additionally, the protagonist’s own solutions to the quandaries that result from a complex social identity act as a guide for Brazilian audience members to resolve similar social identity predicaments that they may be facing. Complex social identity solutions are fluid dynamics, and the fi lm takes advantage of that malleability. Roccas and Brewer observe that “individuals may adopt different modes of identity representation at different times, either during different periods of life or under different conditions or mental or emotional states” (92). The fi lm recognizes that for the protagonist, as for viewers, multiple identity groups can be “important and salient across situations” (91).

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The fi lm offers an attractive, superordinate social group, the Brazilian one envisioned by Aleijadinho, which as we have seen helps to reconcile multiple salient group identities, and it proposes through the protagonist models for coming to terms with diverse and sometimes confl icting group memberships. Roccas and Brewer hypothesize about the internal struggle sometimes provoked by multiple group memberships and how different strategies serve to resolve social identity confl icts: Cognitive complexity is characterized by both differentiation and integration of potentially confl icting beliefs and values. The level of differentiation reflects the degree to which inconsistencies are recognized (rather than denied or suppressed); integration reflects the level of resolution or reconciliation between recognized inconsistencies. [. . .] Dominance is [. . .] on the low-complexity end of the continuum because it suppresses inconsistencies within a single ingroup-outgroup dichotomization. [. . .] Merger represents the highest level of complexity because it preserves both differentiation and integration in an inclusive social identity. (91– 92)

The fi lm’s engagement with the complexity of the protagonist’s social identity expands the way it treats national identity while it also calls attention to another way—besides the cinematic self and the national prototype—that the fi lm may tap into potentially effective means to change viewer identities. As I mentioned earlier, Aleijadinho puts on display interactions that audience members might not have experienced themselves, thus allowing them to have vicarious experiences. This may work in tandem with the intense identification with the protagonist that underlies the cinematic-self effect but may also simply be a matter of witnessing the interaction of different groups. It may be the case that exposure to such experiences through narratives may have a similar, lasting impact on the social identity complexities of viewers. In the argument scene we see tension and fluidity in the protagonist’s social identity and witness confi rmations and rearrangements of the hierarchy of his identity categories. The scene begins by probing viewer memories with the father’s winking allusion to sexual exploitation of black women. Audience members would likely fi nd the comment salient, since the fi lm primes viewer attention to the topic in the early scene of Aleijadinho’s birth. Importantly, the father refers to skin color as a defi ning characteristic of the group rather than, say, enslaved status: “So. Tell me. What about the black girls? Have they been treating you well? Abused any of them already, you little bandit?”80 The emphasis on

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race is significant throughout the scene. The son’s response shifts attention temporarily from race to status, however, and inverts his father’s promotion of sexual exploitation by underscoring the oppression of an entire group of people with which he ultimately identifies but not in this moment: “Those people suffer enough already,”81 he says at fi rst. In the same declaration Aleijadinho appears to hesitate, then fi nally aligns himself with slaves: “But you don’t see how she suffers with the situation of her people . . . of . . . of my people?”82 At fi rst they are an outgroup for him, and then they are a new sort of ingroup. He extends the definition of the social group to which his now freed mother as well as current slaves pertain, which would stand to reason, as his mother still apparently has a slavelike status and self-concept; he, who the fi lm implies is born enslaved but later freed, does not. In this way, rather than a status identity, the protagonist asserts an ethnic or racial identity, the primary shared characteristic of which is blackness. He underlines the ethnic or racial nature of the group he postulates by mentioning that his mother hides when she sees white people: “Don’t you notice that she feels awkward among white people? She even hides whenever some white man comes here.”83 Aleijadinho’s father questions his son’s defi nition of the group to which Aleijadinho says he pertains and grounds his skepticism in a biological categorization: “My race is the white race! Therefore, Portuguese blood flows in your veins!”84 He believes there is a clear-cut racial distinction: you’re either white or you’re not. If a person has some Portuguese ancestry, he or she pertains to the white social group. Aleijadinho follows his father’s either/or biologically oriented understanding of race but aligns himself with his African side. “I am not white, Father. I’m your son, and I’m proud of that. But I have African blood,” he says, “and I am not ashamed of that.”85 And later he bases in skin color his racial alignment with slaves: “I am black, Father! I have the color . . . I have the color of those people that Portugal brought from Africa!”86 Through such comments Aleijadinho’s discourse recalls some of the proposals that Abdias do Nascimento makes in O quilombismo, such as pride in African heritage and the importance of asserting primary membership in a black Brazilian social group.87 Aleijadinho’s apparently anachronistic comments contribute to the fi lm’s tying the past to the present. At this point in the conversation Aleijadinho walks away from his father, the fi lm thus suggesting through physical distance the self-conceptual distance from his father that Aleijadinho is articulating. During this first part of the dialogue that seems to emphasize the implications for Aleijadinho of the beating he saw of the slave, the character is evidently in

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the process of modifying his view of the defi nition and parameters of the social group to which his mother and other slaves pertain; now it extends to him, and now it is not a social status category but rather a racial or ethnic category. This category of social identity for him is, at the beginning of the conversation, highly salient and exalted. As the conversation shifts from slavery to colonization and Aleijadinho starts to articulate Brazil-wide solidarity in the face of colonialism, among other complicating issues, he exposes an equivalent hierarchization of the protonational category of identity. Concomitantly he manifests an ever more complex social identity and a need to come to terms with the sometimes tense coexistence and potential incompatibility of his identity as a black Brazilian and his identity as a Brazilian nationalist. Despite his resolute and clear alignment primarily with black Brazilians, Aleijadinho’s identity categories are nonetheless in confl ict. There is no easy solution for him, and indeed some of his approach to resolving dilemmas is only implicit. For example, early in the scene he declares the competing saliency of the family group of which he is part. Just before he proudly declares that he has African blood, he tells his father that he is proud to be his son. The protagonist dramatizes and universalizes a painful confrontation with an either/or identity dilemma. And the closing moments of their conversation highlight reconciliation with his father that derives from Aleijadinho privileging the relatively narrow social identity category of family despite his passionate affirmations of racial, ethnic, and political identity: “Forgive me, Father. I owe everything to you. I . . . I love you so much.”88 His conciliatory tone with his father perhaps compromises his fi rm assertion of black Brazilian identity at the same time that it emphasizes that Aleijadinho is also, to a certain extent, part of the Euro-Brazilian community. The protagonist’s outreach to his father further promotes an inclusive if rhetorically Afrocentric attitude. This scene shows a protagonist with a highly complex social identity but still in need of a way to reconcile simultaneous group memberships. His confl icts remain without a clear-cut resolution. However, this scene anticipates how the fi lm will model through the protagonist ways to organize multiple group memberships. Let us flesh out a bit more Aleijadinho’s complex social identity. Another of the protagonist’s intersecting and competing multiple group memberships is that of artist within a European tradition. His practical identity, that is, his training and profound ability in that arena make this category of identity salient for him and always relatively high in his apparent hierarchy of identity.89 Later in the conversation, his father appeals to Aleijadinho’s alignment with the community of artists who

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work within a European tradition. While the protagonist emphasizes the oppression, such as slavery, that derives from colonialism, his father sees the artistic heritage brought by Portugal to Brazil as a justification for colonialism. Nonetheless, his father points out that one result of colonialism is the “masters” and “artisans from whom you have learned so much,” and Aleijadinho responds, “What you say is right, Father.”90 Also, as we have seen, later in the fi lm Aleijadinho makes a conscious effort to appropriate and transform European artistic traditions. He does this more as a Brazilian localizing European art than as a black Brazilian modifying European or Euro-Brazilian traditions. Nonetheless, he does celebrate another character of African descent, Ataíde, by encouraging him to paint mestiço features for churches and by making sure he continues to have work doing so. In this sense, bearing in mind practical identity, Aleijadinho represents and the fi lm thus celebrates syncretism even if the protagonist does not posit a syncretic group of which he forms a part. The protagonist, rather, primarily asserts just one ethnic identity, Afro-Brazilian, and only hints at shared ingroup status with EuroBrazilians through his familial ties to his father. I believe the protagonist’s reconciliation of the tension between the categories of identity of black Brazilian and European-style artist provide the opportunity for the fi lm to introduce the broad lines of its position on Brazilian national identity and its understanding of the underlying challenges of defi ning the national category of identity in such an ethnically and racially diverse society. Aleijadinho insists on pursuing Brazilian artistic uniqueness—“a Brazilian style,” he says—that he and his patron characterize in terms of syncretism. The protagonist’s passionate alignment with black Brazil, then, harmonizes with his intense dedication to contributing to principally European-style Brazilian artistic patrimony to form a de facto syncretic ethnic identity. That, combined with his push for Brazilian political autonomy from Portugal, may allude to a syncretic solution for how to define a distinct and unified Brazilian national community. I hope to have established that Aleijadinho’s declared primary group membership within his social identity as black Brazilian in the argument scene is not the only factor that determines the defi nition of national identity the fi lm might be promoting through this viewer stand-in. The practical identity, actions, sympathies, and convictions of the protagonist all contribute to the fi lm’s proposed position on Brazilian national identity as well as how to conceive of simultaneous membership in the national and other social groups even when such cross-category affi liation may seem to be incompatible or problematic.

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Aleijadinho, in the argument with his father, proposes a protonational identity, implying a social group that includes the three groups that his father mentions as helping Portugal to maintain its colony—indigenous, African, and Portuguese: “Without ‘those people,’ without the Indians, without us, Portugal would’ve lost the Colony to the English, the French, the Dutch.”91 This trinity of presumably fused influences, with Aleijadinho between two of them, has been emphasized by Gilberto Freyre and others and is still accepted by many as central to Brazilian national identity or, in other words, a key aspect within defi nitions of Brazilianness. The fi lm complements its multiracial nationalist perspective by having the protagonist later embrace the ideals of the Inconfidência Mineira, a white, upper-class, and ultimately unsuccessful revolutionary movement. The protagonist’s emphasis in the argument scene on the need for a resistant Brazilian community and the way his concern over racially based oppression morphs into a protonational rallying cry would seem to suggest to audience members that they rank the protonational social group highly in their hierarchy of identity categories. In other words, for Aleijadinho, being Brazilian trumps being white or black or is at least equally important as those other categories. And the all-inclusive Brazilian group within the category of nation that Aleijadinho posits is defined to a large degree by racial, ethnic, and class associations that are introduced in the father and son’s heated conversation. Aleijadinho models a self-concept that is Afrocentric but also inclusive and a conceivably viable definition of national identity for all Brazil regardless of whether an audience member sees himself or herself as part of an Afro-Brazilian social group. A symbolic centering of certain groups—inevitably outgroups for some—in prevalent definitions of Brazilian national identity is quite common. Indeed, like so many proposals for definitions of Brazilian national identity that are grounded in ethnic or racial syncretism, such as those of Gilberto Freyre or Abdias do Nascimento, Aleijadinho presupposes an acceptable disconnect between, in Hogan’s terms, categorial identity and practical identity. Even if some viewers see themselves as having a Euro-descendant ethnic identity into which they feel practically integrated, they may still also feel part of a postulated syncretic national group that they define, for example, partly in terms of strong associations with a black racial or ethnic identity. I have underscored up to this point how the fi lm proposes an inclusive, Afrocentric and European syncretic understanding of the Brazilian national category of identity. More specifically, however, I read Aleijadinho as privileging something we might call Afrocentric multiculturalism combined with syncretism. The protagonist sees the need to personally

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assert primarily one ethnic or racial group as part of his own solution to complexities in his social identity. Aleijadinho’s passionate emphasis of a black/white opposition in protesting that he is black, not white, coupled with his solidarity with all sectors of Brazil and conciliatory tone with his father at the end help to communicate Aleijadinho’s syncretic, Afrocentric, and multicultural disposition. Two fundamental and diverging understandings of race and identity in Brazil underlie Aleijadinho’s multifarious approach to national identity. Edward Telles’s breakdown of influential twentieth-century trends in understanding race relations in Brazil helps to illustrate this dual understanding. Telles calls attention to two generations that can be tied to the concepts of racial democracy and racial exclusion and that he does not view as necessarily incompatible (1–23). On one side we have descriptions of and proposals to understand Brazilian identity as fundamentally syncretic, one trend of what Hogan calls “nationalist homogenization,” which he exemplifies in the U.S. concept of the “melting pot” (Understanding Nationalism 42), somewhat similar to what has been asserted in Brazil. Gilberto Freyre, largely through his 1933 Casa grande e senzala, was a central inspiration for this still influential claim of broad cultural, ethnic, and racial mixture, which holds that such a situation has reduced racism and produced what has come to be known as Brazil’s “racial democracy.” On the other side, there are descriptions and proposals from the 1950s on that challenge the former view and are grounded in understandings of Brazil as a nation characterized by systemic racism or social exclusion. Related to this position are proposals to conceive of Brazil as a collection of distinguishable and valued subgroups, more of a multicultural understanding of identity. Abdias do Nascimento’s 1980 O quilombismo is more aligned with the latter argument, which underscores social discrimination and proud and independent unification of black Brazil but also coincides in some ways with Freyre in that Nascimento’s view likewise values ethnic fusion and reaches out to nonblack Brazil, even if he endorses an Afrocentric consolidation of social identity. The depiction of Aleijadinho’s social identity dilemmas in the argument scene engages these fundamental trends in how the intersection of race and identity in Brazil might be conceived. The concept of social identity can help us understand the fi lm’s intervention in these debates. The fi lm highlights the protagonist’s struggles with how to reconcile simultaneous membership in various groups and thus calls attention to the potential complexity of social identities in Brazil. In this way, Aleijadinho encourages audience members to conceive of their own social identities

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in more complex ways. At the same time, the fi lm proposes through the protagonist specific solutions for coming to terms with complex social identities, thus facilitating the lasting adoption of a complex social identity.92 The model for resolving multiple social group identities that the fi lm favors is perhaps most related to the one that Roccas and Brewer call “merger,” which represents the highest level of complexity (91– 92). Aleijadinho’s attitude of solidarity toward all social groups within Brazil alludes to this model. However, in another respect the fi lm’s view of multiple group memberships coincides with the model of “dominance” on the low end of levels of complexity (91).93 Roccas and Brewer anticipate a proposal like that of Aleijadinho, which values discrete groups and contemplates acceptable simultaneous membership but encourages widespread adoption of a dominant superordinate national ingroup among a heterogeneous population. They write that “when merger is achieved by integrating multiple social identities into a single highly inclusive group identity (e.g., citizen of the world), the resolution resembles dominance, albeit with a highly complex and differentiated primary identity” (92). The fi lm’s advancement of multiculturalism with syncretism in its defi nition of Brazilianness and how that group membership can be understood vis-à-vis others is similar to Roccas and Brewer’s understanding of the combination of merger with dominance. What Aleijadinho proposes through its cinematic self is also related to what Roccas and Brewer call integrated biculturalism, which “acknowledges multiple cultural identities simultaneously—where membership, values, and norms of both groups are combined and integrated. [.  .  .] This conceptualization clearly equates multiculturalism with the acquisition of a more inclusive complex group identity than that represented by any component cultural identity alone” (93). The fi lm’s view of the national category could be understood as integrationist rather than assimilationist. Roccas and Brewer see the integrationist category as potentially enhancing social identity complexity: “it encourages the various ethnocultural groups to express their diversity and raise its salience. Thus, [. . .] members of the dominant group are more likely to be aware of nonoverlap between their ethnic or racial group and the other groups to which they belong” (96). Aleijadinho proposes a dominant Afro-Brazilian group at the center of an integrationist national identity that is partially syncretic and partially multicultural. Since prevailing definitions of the national category of identity, such as that of Freyre and even Nascimento, tend to already be integrationist and syncretic and sometimes multicultural, the primary shift in the defi nition of Brazilianness that this fi lm advocates involves

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placing Afro-Brazilians at the center. Aleijadinho makes this proposal through the doubly nondominant group of enslaved people of African descent. The fi lm in this way incorporates slaves into the dominancemerger social identity model that it advocates. The fi lm proposes an inclusive superordinate national group that is conceptually associated with the subaltern group of slaves. Also, by saying that the most oppressed among us represent us as a people, it promotes broad solidarity alongside national unity within a merger model of social identity. Sometimes Aleijadinho refers to slaves not as part of a shared racial or ethnic category of which he is a member but as an outgroup within a social status category, such as in the argument scene. He emphasizes their enslavement and their vital contribution to building the colony, an emphasis reminiscent of Nascimento.94 Interestingly, the son’s focus on the social group of slaves, of which he does not currently form part, anticipates how he will position them at the core of Brazilian national identity, as collective stand-ins for colonized Brazil, that is, how he will characterize slaves before he takes their place through what the fi lm characterizes as his martyrdom. Since the protagonist was initially a slave and as a young man expresses intense identification with them, his discourse centering them within the Brazilian population reinforces his own status as national metaphor. While his father points to slavery as necessary to maintain the Portuguese colony, which he sees as a worthy sacrifice, Aleijadinho considers the work of the slaves and, importantly, everyone else in Brazil as bolstering an exploitative metropole. What is more, he directly links the enslaved population to his proposal for a new a regional and political category of identity: a protonational Brazilian group. I have argued that this and other Brazilian slavery fi lms use slavery to urge national cohesion by alluding to a sense of ongoing, shared oppression. Aleijadinho asks, “Who can be free, Father, seeing thousands of slaves treated like human beasts?”95 We are all enslaved if anyone is enslaved, or, more generally, no one should rest while there is substantial oppression being felt by any sector of society, an extension that underlines the relevance for a contemporary Brazilian viewership. A fi lm might appeal to a feeling of political oppression that it presumes is felt by audience members living within a military dictatorship and establish an analog between the persecution and suffering inherent in slavery and in political oppression. In so doing such a fi lm infuses slaves with broad metaphorical or prototypical value for a social group that typically encompasses all members of the society who are not in power. Significantly, the protagonist’s call for solidarity and conceptual

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alignment with slaves, that is, the oppressed—part and parcel of the fi lm’s redefi nition of the Brazilian community, including what it values—anticipates situations in which only part of the population is suffering oppression, as systematic racism, sexism, discrimination based on sexual orientation, and so forth. The fi lm’s analogical viability for the present thus is broadened. It is not restricted to contexts such as Brazil’s military dictatorship in which a state of oppression applies to a wide and diverse swath of the population. Aleijadinho and other slavery fi lms that fall outside the bounds of clear, societywide situations of oppression build solidarity into their analogies between slaves and contemporary populations. The protagonist models how viewers should not rest while anyone in society suffers systemic persecution. More than tolerance for difference, Aleijadinho’s proposal considers solidarity with outgroups to be a vital attribute in its Afrocentric, inclusive, syncretic-multicultural defi nition of the category of Brazilian national identity. In sum, I see the protagonist’s allegiance and alignment with slaves, along the symbolically central place the fi lm gives this group, as potentially encouraging several outcomes. First, the link between Aleijadinho and slaves may bolster his viability as a cinematic self for a diverse national population. The protagonist models feeling allegiance and alignment with an outgroup, which may suggest that viewers identify with him profoundly and passionately even if he is different from them in important ways. Along these lines, Aleijadinho’s solidarity with nationally centered slaves may have the effects of starting to upset whatever prototypes of Brazilians audience members might have brought to the viewing and of contributing to the shift in the definition of national identity that it proposes. Second, their link promotes national unity through a sense of shared oppression. And third, the association of the protagonist and the enslaved advocates for multiculturalism even in a context that for many is dominated by syncretism. Through Aleijadinho, viewers are encouraged to identify with oppressed sectors of society, which the fi lm proposes means all of society if any part is oppressed. Because the protagonist’s attitude models identification with an outgroup due to the status of the outgroup members rather than in spite of it, the link between them proposes a multiculturalist position within a call for national cohesion, one that appreciates difference. The multiple values that the fi lm assigns to slaves and its parallel proposal for both syncretism and multiculturalism may seem to be contradictory or irreconcilable. Hogan has argued that what he calls nationalist homogenization is not incompatible with difference (Understanding Nationalism 42). He observes that it is not uncommon for tolerance to be

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emphasized in conjunction with homogenization as a means for growing identity movements to avoid the splintering of their social group (40). Similarly, multiculturalism is another attribute that might be favored within a unifying vision of national identity. Some research suggests, however, that promotion of multiculturalism can lead to the splintering of the national group into consolidated, separate, ethnically orthodox groups that might undermine national unity (Verkuyten 280). Multiculturalism might tend to foster clusters of people with low social identity complexity characterized by the dominance of, say, one ethnic identity category and the perception of all other groups, such as the national group, as outgroups. Aleijadinho responds to the challenge of potential compromise of national unity in the context of multiculturalism by proposing an attractive superordinate group, evaluating favorably ethnic and racial outgroups, and tempering the fi lm’s multicultural position by celebrating syncretism. As we have seen, the fi lm Aleijadinho grounds its proposed redefi nition of Brazilianness in prevailing, syncretic understandings of Brazil. It centers slaves and, more broadly, Afro-descendant Brazil within its defi nition of national identity, which in turn helps to promote a multiculturalist view of society.

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C h a p t e r T wo

Modeling National Identity on Religious Identity in Cafundó (2005)

I have the notion that today Brazilian Cinema is the family album of our mother FATHERLAND! It is there that we register our history, our artists, close and distant relatives, our language, our landscape, our memory, our identity. It is in our cinema that we raise our self-esteem. That we feel that we are part of a Nation. Pau lo Bet t i, co -di r ec tor of Ca f u n dó

I

nspi r e d by t h e li f e of João de Ca m a rgo a n d a book about him, as one of the opening credits in Cafundó declares, this fi lm brackets with a present-day framing device a story that begins shortly after Camargo gains his freedom as a young adult through the 1888 abolition of slavery.1 The narrative concludes when he is an old man, the charismatic founder and leader of an Afro-European syncretic church with a thriving and racially and economically diverse congregation. The protagonist would certainly resonate with Brazilian audiences even if they were not familiar with Camargo himself due to his similarity to other evangelical leaders of syncretic congregations, most famously represented by Antônio Conselheiro of Canudos.2 The title of the fi lm, Cafundó—which means a remote or solitary place or the middle of nowhere—is also the name of a real quilombo in the interior of São Paulo, near the city of Sorocaba, where much of the fi lm takes place, an association that some audience members might make.3 Cafundó resembles the 2000 production Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício not only in its use of a narrative frame set in a later period but also with regard to the plot structure and messianic characterization of its protagonist.4 The fi lm makes clear that João de Camargo, like An-

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tônio Francisco Lisboa, was enslaved and then freed and passes through worldly and carnal stages in life—an “of the people” phase and then a spiritual, sacrificial, and transcendent stage, a “for the people” phase. Cafundó and Aleijadinho gradually transform their protagonists into instruments through which the fi lms propose that audience members rethink their social identities, a role in Cafundó shared by Camargo’s church and its congregation. The hypothesis of this chapter is that the fi lm’s narrative offers Brazilian viewers a way to reconsider their understanding of the national community by way of the representation of a religious group and, in particular, its leader. In other words, Cafundó redefi nes national identity in the context of religious identity. The religious community portrayed in the fi lm has an Afro-European syncretic belief system and is racially heterogeneous, complementary qualities the fi lm hints that viewers might embrace as helping to constitute their understanding of the national group as well. Indeed, the definition it proposes coincides largely with the other fi lms examined in this book: Cafundó presents Brazilianness as fundamentally Afro-Brazilian but also syncretic and inclusive of the nation’s ethnically, racially, religiously, and economically diverse population. In the analysis that follows I examine how the fi lm defi nes national identity and communicates this defi nition to audience members.

Associ at i ng Past a n d Pr ese n t The fi lm’s opening images clearly pertain to Cafundó’s modern frame. The images that constitute the backdrop for the opening credits are of today’s bustling city of São Paulo. Cafundó in this way anchors its historical tale in the present and in so doing suggests the currency of the main narrative. Here I examine how that proposal works. After several extreme long shots of São Paulo streets packed with people, a panning medium-long shot shows a racially diverse crowd looking up, rapt, at something. As the camera swivels to discover chairs stacked one upon the other, the title of the fi lm appears letter by letter as if being written in script. As the title is completed the camera begins to tilt up to a man—the actor Lázaro Ramos, who will play João de Camargo during the flashback that occupies most of the fi lm—in white pants and jacket with no shirt, precariously balanced on the chairs. The onlookers’ intense interest in Ramos mirrors the reverence that viewers will see among members of Camargo’s congregation. If, as I will argue, that display of reverence among a heterogeneous Brazilian population models

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National and Religious Identity in Cafundó

F igu r e 2.1. João de Camargo and Cirino herd horses at the beginning of the main part of the narrative.

for audience members a respectful disposition toward the protagonist, this shot primes that proposal obliquely and plants the notion that such an attitude can be adopted in the present. The words the performer says abstractly anticipate some of the communicative strategies of the main narrative. Like the panning shot, his words implicate present-day viewers and suggest that the ideas introduced through the historical fiction they will see are not buried in the past but still present. The man and the woman in this scene are the same actors as the protagonist and his wife in the main narrative, further linking past to present. Besides the scene’s role in making the main narrative seem relevant to present-day audience members, I would like to draw attention to three aspects of this short, ambiguous speech. First, in an indirect way, the speech may indicate that the fi lm will be defining a broad social group: “We don’t even know who we are.”5 At the very least, the idea of one’s self-concept or identity is made more salient here. Second, although the national category of identity is not explicitly evoked, collective attitudes are favored over individualistic ones. In this sense the speech alludes to social identity. The progression of shots reinforces the initial one of this scene and associates the collective with a

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heterogeneous population by underscoring the presence of what appears to be an urban cross-section. Third, the fi nal two sentences propose that some essence with regard to “who we are” remains hidden because we don’t share the collective thinking of creation: “We no longer share the common knowledge of creation. The nature of things has the habit . . . of hiding itself.”6 Taken along with the earlier statement that language, which perhaps a viewer might extrapolate to mean communication or even narrative, is creation, these declarations might preview the fi lm’s own project: to make salient the collective group of the national population and uncover its hidden essence or defi nition. However, the fi lm’s opening ties past to present mostly after the actor’s performance before the crowd. The man disappears, the chairs fall noisily to the ground, and a woman closes the box in which she has been collecting the money and quickly gathers up her things as these words appear overlaying the shot: “This fi lm was inspired by the life [of João de Camargo] and the literary work João de Camargo de Sorocaba: The Birth of a Religion by José Carlos Sobrinho and Adolfo Frioli.”7 The words authorize the main narrative by grounding it in history and lend it license to modify by tying it to literature and claiming that the fi lm is “inspired by” rather than “based on.” The statement also announces that the fi lm will be treating the past, Camargo specifically, and religion. The woman is shown rushing through streets, a hand-held camera following her at fi rst in a medium shot. The visual perspective occasionally shifts to show items—a sign, cards on a table, the feet of the woman—as if embodying the point-of-view of a curious pursuer. While I do not see these shots as contributing directly to the fi lm’s interconnected means of stimulating identification among audience members, they do promise to engage viewers and to help build a foundational interface between them and the fi lm and its characters. This in turn may provoke identification and make viewers feel more personally involved in the fi lm’s story in general, enhancing the chances that Cafundó’s redefi nition of Brazilianness will stick. Consonant with the captivating promise of these point-of-view shots is the apparent insertion of the cast and crew within an uncontrived context of people on the street occasionally looking curiously into the camera. Much like Iracema, uma transa amazônica, though in reduced intensity, the insertion of the fiction into reality here gives the fi lm a slight flavor of documentary, a counterbalance to the fantastical vanishing act just witnessed that may insinuate for viewers the real-life and present-day relevance of the story being told. As the woman walks up the main steps of São Paulo’s Catedral da Sé, two boys of African descent are shown in a full shot sniffing glue. But

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the poor people on the steps, importantly, are not just black. As in the case of the crowd watching the earlier performance, Cafundó carefully evokes a diverse national population, an evocation that would appear aimed at engaging as many audience members as possible so that its definition of Brazilianness will have some potential to affect a representative cross-section of Brazilian society. To the extent that those on the steps are understood as partially representative of present-day Brazil, the shot implies that this heterogeneous national community, or at least some of it, is in bad shape. Like Quanto vale ou é por quilo?—also from 2005—Cafundó will soon suggest that there remain in society injustices that are partly slavery’s legacy. Through its brief glimpse into modern-day destitution, the fi lm cements the social relevance of the imminent cinematic voyage to the past and a reconsideration of what should be held dear by the Brazilian community through Camargo and his church. As will become clear by the time the fi lm returns at its conclusion to this present-day frame on the cathedral’s steps, the defi nition of Brazilianness presented through the protagonist would seem to offer solutions to problems such as those embodied by the glue-sniffing boys. The fi lm calls attention to a crisis and offers a solution rooted in a rethinking of the national group characterized by selflessness, inclusiveness, and religious and ethnic syncretism. When the woman from the performance scene reaches the top of the cathedral steps, she places a statue of Camargo—seated in the position that he is in when the fi lm fi nally flashes back to the present—at the entrance to the building. As when she was gathering up her belongings and rushing off, here her behavior likewise seems to indicate that she feels she is being transgressive. She looks around furtively before pulling the statue from the box and placing it on a ledge at the front entrance. Her act apparently is one of symbolic resistance. The placement in the heart of Catholic Brazil of an icon of Camargo, the founder of an AfroEuropean syncretic church, and in the form of a preto velho, an umbanda entity that will evoke for audiences slavery and African-derived religious practices, already begin to upset an understandings of Brazilianness held by audience members who favor chiefly the European side of Brazil. The statue and the woman’s allegiance toward what it represents underscore the continuity and durability of Camargo. After the statue is in place, the woman lights a candle to put next to it. A close-up shows the candle burning as extradiegetic music begins. The music sutures this present-day setting with the past when the fi lm cuts to a dark exterior shot of João and his friend Cirino rounding up horses (figure 2.1), an image that also appears on the fi lm’s web-

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site, TV spot, and trailer. Those audience members who have been exposed to the promotional materials are now in familiar territory. The sun, with six rays emanating from it, in this first shot in the nineteenthcentury context is a graphic match to the flame of the candle in the previous shot. The sun image will appear periodically throughout the film, reminding viewers of the link to the present as it constructs what Camargo stands for; it reappears when João’s mother tells him about a child who died years earlier and who then becomes one of the inspirations for João’s church; the sun appears when the protagonist is having a hallucinatory, syncretic, spiritual awakening; and it appears just before he opens his new church. When in the fi nal minutes Cafundó flashes forward to the presentday narrative frame, once again the fi lm links past to present through the graphic match. Viewers see an old Camargo alone inside his church. After a medium shot of the weary leader in his white suit listening to the sounds outside and smiling, a long shot shows him getting up out of bed. The room begins to grow darker as he totters over to a chair and sits down, ultimately illuminated only by a spotlight from above. This shot recalls a scene in the woods when João fi nds an apparition of his dead mother dressed in white, sitting in a chair, illuminated from above. She says to him, “You knew all the secrets of the world and earth. Today you don’t know anything.”8 Her statement recalls part of the present-day performer’s speech at the beginning of the fi lm: “We no longer share the common knowledge of creation.” The visual coincidence of the shots of his mother and of him links the content of the scene in the woods with this fi nal moment before the flash-forward. The evocation of the present-day frame by way of the visual intersection of this fi nal scene and the earlier one from the main narrative emphasizes the relevance of the fi lm’s message to contemporary Brazil. At the fi lm’s conclusion, the setting returns to the present from the past with a graphic-match dissolve accompanied by continuous music; a shot of an old Camargo illuminated in his chair transitions to a shot of the statue of him in the present at the cathedral, sitting in the same clothes and the same position. In the statue shot the candle is seen again, now almost burnt down, recalling the initial graphic-match link of present to past and underscoring the lasting symbolic value the fi lm assigns to Camargo. The camera pans around from the statue to show the steps in front of the cathedral and the people beyond. These words appear overlaying the shot: “João de Camargo was arrested 17 times. In 1921, he legally established the ‘Association of the Good Lord of the Bonfi m of the Red Water.’ He died in 1942 at the age of 84, [and] 5,000 people attended his funeral.

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His cult continues to this day.”9 This statement claims the durability of Camargo, one of the techniques of nationalization identified by Hogan. It affirms for audience members that other Brazilians currently revere and follow Camargo. The fi lm’s proposal, then, to embrace Camargo as a model for social identity is not merely theoretical; those watching the fi lm are made aware that others seek to emulate him in the present. The fi lm in this way invites audience members to continue whatever relationship they may have developed with the protagonist during the fi lm afterward and transfer it to the figure who lives on in the cultural memory of the nation.

A llu di ng to t h e Nat ion a n d R esh a pi ng t h e Nat iona l Com mu n it y’s I de a l E xt e nsion Every once in a while Cafundó draws explicit attention to Brazil, such as when the protagonist’s former owner, called simply the Coronel (colonel), commands João and Cirino to fight for the republic, when the national anthem is sung in the streetlight ceremony (figure 2.2), and when the Ministro (government official) and the Juiz (judge) talk about the nation after watching the opera O guarani. Generally the fi lm tends not to evoke Brazil in ways that elevate the nation in the setting or to hierarchize the national category of social identity. This indirect approach to the essential step of underscoring the nation in order to redefi ne national identity persuasively contrasts with Aleijadinho, which celebrates Brazil and the protonational population in direct ways. The difference in the tactics of these two fi lms may be due to the historical contexts depicted. When fi lms are set in the era of Portuguese colonization, it is easier to express unqualified patriotism toward the protonation and to promote solidarity, for the most part, among what is characterized as a globally oppressed Brazilian population. Such fi lms tend to imply optimistically that a fi lm’s present-day referents—the country and its people—deserve a similar disposition on the part of viewers. Yet when a fi lm is set, as Cafundó is, after colonization and even after the empire, there is no common enemy like the colonizing Portuguese to galvanize a unified national pride through opposability. The representation of the nation and population in postcolonial period fi lms strikes closer to home for audience members, and efforts to imagine cinematically a new version of Brazil end up being less straightforward. Cafundó distinguishes between what is and is not worth preserving in Brazilian society and crafts in this way its revised version of Brazilianness. In other words,

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F igu r e 2.2. The Brazilian national anthem is played in celebration of the arrival of electricity to Sorocaba.

within the fi lm’s proposed understanding of the national community, internal outgroupers—corrupt, cruel, racist, unjust people—are identified and distinguished from ideal ingroupers. In Cafundó, the only one of the five fi lms that takes place after the colonial period, we have a situation similar to that of contemporary times: everyone is part of a Brazilian community, but the redefinition of the group, of Brazilian national identity, includes imagining the extension, or composition, of the group to include all races, classes, religions, and ethnicities and rejecting unfavorably portrayed exemplars of those groups.10 The fi lm presents a spectrum of characters: positively portrayed poor whites ( João’s poor followers, Rosário at first), Catholics (Monsenhor Soares), rich whites (the Ministro), and blacks in and out of the quilombo (all of those inside and João’s followers outside) as well as negatively portrayed poor whites (the overt racists, Rosário eventually), rich Catholics (the priest who sees the parade), rich whites (the Juiz), and blacks (Teodoro and the man who pushes João in prison and challenges his syncretism). Cafundó establishes, through a context from the past, ideal characteristics of the Brazilian social group as understood in the fi lm. It condemns some and favors others. The fi lm proposes that audience members consider important the collective, diverse group, here represented

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mostly by João’s congregation but also in part by the good people outside it like the Ministro; their characterizations help to show that the proposed group is not just religious but has broader implications. By way of the fi lm’s portrayal of what it postulates as national ingroupers and outgroupers, it suggests what qualities to aspire to and what qualities to spurn. Cafundó tends to hierarchize a microcosm of a revised extension of the national group: Camargo’s church congregation. This heterogeneous group acts as a model for how the national population might understand Brazil. The fi lm’s references to the nation and the national population all serve to bolster its reconfiguration of the extension of the national group and its redefi nition through Camargo’s utopian church. The fi lm offers a contingent nationalism or nationalist pride in a reconceived social group. Here I examine the fi lm’s suggestions that it is indeed talking about the nation and how it postulates and praises an idealized national community. The fi rst evocation of Brazil in Cafundó actually comes before the narrative begins in the form of the ubiquitous logo of the federal government (figure 2.3). Though the placement in the credits of the icon is pro forma in fi lms that have received funding from the federal government, it participates nonetheless in the viewing experience, especially since this fi lm contemplates national identity. The national logo appears to the left of the ANCINE logo. Below it are the words “This fi lm was completed with support from the Agência Nacional do Cinema [National Film Agency]—ANCINE.”11 The “a” in the center of “Brasil” has the colors and design of the Brazilian flag, suggesting a superordinate group that unifies diverse ethnic or racial groups, to which the white, black, and red letters perhaps allude. The nationalistic message of

F igu r e 2.3. The logo of the Brazilian federal government with the phrase “Everyone’s country” is shown in the opening credits of Cafundó.

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the icon coincides with and primes the fi lm’s similar effort to stimulate pride in a unified, heterogeneous national population. In the main narrative’s fi rst sequence, a discussion between Cirino and João indirectly draws attention to Brazil: João: We’re just like those mules . . . going where the whip tells us to. Cirino: But the whip is now in our hand, João. João: On the farm, it’s in the Coronel’s hand. Cirino: Aren’t you aware yet that slavery is over? João: But for us very little has changed. Cirino: If it hasn’t, João, it will.12

As they ride slowly on their horses, João brings up the issue of ongoing oppression even after Abolition. The fi lm here puts in his mouth the articulation of continuing injustice and dehumanization. Cafundó emphasizes here that slavery left a terrible social legacy. At this point in the fi lm, we see just one oppressed group, ex-slaves. But later the fi lm generalizes its allusion to oppression. As the narrative progresses, it becomes clear in the context of Camargo’s church that the government and the Catholic Church participate in perpetrating injustice toward good Brazilians in general. João and Cirino’s exchange about oppression helps to start delineating the fi lm’s understanding of the ideal extension of the national group. Here these two former slaves represent that group, and the Coronel represents the outgroup. It also may elevate that revised national social group by calling attention to an ingroup threat. A subsequent dialogue between João and Cirino during the same sequence makes Brazil salient in a different way, even if the country is not named: João: What if we went back to Africa? Cirino: Forget about Africa. Are you mad, man? We were born here, this is where we have to live [avenge ourselves], João. João: Saravá! Cirino: Saravá!13

The issue is raised of the incongruence of “returning” to Africa for former slaves who were born in Brazil. The fi lm’s reference to Africa may imply a local contrasting context, but more likely it implies Brazil as a whole. Much later in the fi lm, when João is in prison, he, like Cirino,

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emphasizes their own geographical and political context: “This is not Africa. [.  .  .] There’s an ocean in between.”14 The exchange between Cirino and João evokes the pair’s conscious, even if reluctant, pertinence to a Brazilian national social group. Cirino articulates a call to action for the postulated ideal national ingroupers to take vengeance on those internal outgroupers responsible for the oppression the former suffered. One of the most explicit evocations of Brazil and of the national social group occurs when João and Cirino approach the Coronel upon arriving with the mules about leaving his employ: Cirino: We like you very much, but we’re free now. Coronel: I see. João: We’d like to live our own way. Coronel: I see. You’re no longer slaves. Brazil has no more slaves. We’re a free man’s republic. Do you want to be free? Cirino: That’s our point. Coronel: Do you wanna be Brazilians? Cirino: That’s what we are. Coronel: You’ll have to prove that [by] fighting for Brazil, defending the republic. João: No, I just wanted to get Mother at the farm and leave. Coronel: You’ll present yourselves to the military regiment as volunteers. You’ll fight with Marshal Floriano, in Itararé, for the government, against the federalists. I gave my word that I’d send my men. Don’t disappoint me.15

Echoing João’s early comment about how things have not really changed for them since abolition, Cirino highlights the need to talk about true emancipation from the Coronel when he says, “That’s our point.” The Coronel’s demand that they carry out his will before being allowed to leave makes it clear that indeed the two men are not yet free. Cirino underscores his consciousness of being part of the Brazilian community, although the Coronel places this in question and ties it to military service. The fi lm’s redelineation of the ideal extension of the group will reposition João and Cirino at its core. In contrast to the Coronel, João and his community would exemplify the values that the national group should embrace—generosity, kindness, acceptance of diversity, and so forth. A conversation in a bar among several white men the night before João and Cirino leave with the army contributes to the fi lm’s gradual proposal for understandings of the extension of the Brazilian group:

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Man A: It used to be better. Mules and blacks were all that we needed.16 Man B: I heard say Princess Isabel did not free the mules from slavery . . . only the pretos. Man A: Yes . . . but the steam engines are coming. The trains will do the mules’ work. Man B: Brazil is very big. By the time the trains get where only mules reach, we’ll be dead. Man A: But what are we going to do with the pretos?17

They mention Brazil explicitly and highlight modernization, which might recall for viewers the emphasis in some of the promotional materials on what they cast as the fi lm’s attention to a turning point in Brazilian history. Their racist, dehumanizing attitudes would likely alienate audience members from the white speakers but reinforce through opposability the proposed reconfiguration of the extension of the national community that the Coronel’s unjust behavior began. There is no lack of unjust and racist white people as the fi lm progresses.18 The beliefs of the men in the bar would appear to disqualify them as Brazilians worthy of inclusion in the fi lm’s ideal conception of the national group. A wronged black Brazil is at the core of the postulated national community at this point in the fi lm. This contributes to casting the group as symbolically Afro-Brazilian. Later, the racially diverse congregation of Camargo’s church will represent more explicitly the fi lm’s proposal. After witnessing the conversation among the white men, viewers see Cirino dancing happily with a group of people among whom most are black and few are white. The scene represents a further contrast between the existing national community dominated by a minority of unfavorably portrayed people of European descent and the ideal social group proposed by the fi lm. Afro-Brazilians are at the center of the Brazil that the fi lm hierarchizes, but here Cafundó also gestures toward a racially inclusive extension of the group. Cafundó’s postulated extension of the national community is a function of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior, not race or class. When the fi lm treats white people as outgroupers, it does so due to their cruelty, racism, or injustice, as we have seen in the examples cited above. Teodoro exemplifies a poor, black person excluded from the ideal social group due to personal attributes. Levinda leaves Teodoro for his bad treatment of her and joins Camargo’s congregation. She says early in the fi lm, “That bastard Teodoro used to say he’d make me a queen. I’m still waitin’!”19 And just as she is joining Camargo’s church, she says, “I

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have to bear rudeness of dirty white men and mistreatment by disgusting black men.”20 She models joining the consolidation of an improved group, a utopian microcosm of what the Brazilian national group is postulated to aspire to. Negatively portrayed people, whether white or black and even if they are apparently part of the church, are excluded from the protonational group postulated. When João gets out of prison, he ousts from his utopia dark- and light-skinned people selling bogus curatives. The fi lm indicates that the revised extension of the group includes people of all colors and classes. Shots of Camargo’s congregation show more or less poor people with a wide spectrum of skin tones. During the conversation among a Sorocaba priest, the Juiz, and others late in the fi lm that leads to João’s arrest, one of the men implies that wealthy and probably white people attend the protagonist’s church. Although Cafundó does anticipate a group extension based on personal attributes rather than race and the people it suggests should be included and excluded are racially heterogeneous, the fi lm is still Afrocentric. The majority of the members of the postulated social group—and certainly their leaders—are black. Leading up to the gelling of Camargo’s congregation, most of the people whom the fi lm depicts favorably are black, and most of those it portrays disapprovingly are white. Still, the fi lm regularly seasons its centering of Afro-descendant people in the group with gestures toward racial inclusiveness and reminders that ingroupoutgroup divisions in the religious or protonational context treated by the fi lm do not fall strictly along racial lines. During João’s spiritual illumination sequence, the fi lm highlights the Brazilian nation in a way that reinforces its Afrocentric religious syncretism as well as its proposed bridge between Camargo’s religious group and the national group. After climbing the cliff and seeing the orixá Xangô, João is faced with Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Brazil’s patron, here played by a black woman. Once again the fi lm balances the rough distinction between favorably portrayed black, protonational ingroupers and unfavorably portrayed white outgroupers with a suggestion of racial inclusiveness. In front of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, little angel girls are frolicking who might be considered white, black, and indigenous yet all have a similar skin tone. The fi lm implies here perhaps, in this scene that is a catalyst for João’s founding of his church and consolidation of his congregation, that the girls who are playing in front of the national patron represent a stylized, religiously oriented stand-in for the national community. About halfway through the fi lm, shortly after this religious evocation of the Brazilian nation, the fi lm indulges in a political one, the pa-

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triotic celebration of the arrival of electric lighting to the streets of Sorocaba. At the end of the nocturnal scene in which João founds his church, a close-up of the protagonist facing the camera shows him looking off suddenly and intensely to the right of the screen. The next shot, which follows an eyeline match cut, displays João in the city, again in close-up, looking off to the left of the screen as if gazing at himself in the other scene. The editing here connects the respective religious and political content of the two scenes. The juxtaposition links João’s founding of his syncretic church to the nation and represents the strongest implication so far that the religious group he will construct has broad, national implications. Perhaps his look from the previous scene indicates that the nation and the diverse national population are who he needs to cure and the object of the mission that the specter of Monsenhor Soares gave him that lead to the creation of the church. A mostly white crowd is singing the end of the fi rst part of the Brazilian national anthem outside an old building. The camera frames João in close-up listening contemplatively and looking slowly about him, the fi lm perhaps implying that he is contemplating his future congregation. The part of the anthem that we hear explicitly elevates the nation: Gigantic by nature Thou art a beautiful Strong, fearless colossus And thy future mirrors that greatness. Adored land Among a thousand others Brazil is our beloved nation. Thou art the gentle mother Of this soil’s children, Brazil.

With the exception of João, all present seem to sing, possibly implying reserve on the part of the character who will redefine the national group. As those gathered sing, a long shot displays a family standing higher, a white older man, a white woman, and a white girl, with two white soldiers below and before them saluting. The fi lm may imply, through the largely white composition of the crowd in this national cross-section, that the extension of the national community postulated through João indeed potentially includes the politically and economically dominant white population of Brazil. The shot moves away from them to take in more of the crowd until it discovers João standing there not looking at the stage. As the song ends the fi lm includes an extradiegetic symphonic

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fi nale and in so doing participates in the patriotism it represents here. As the song ends, electric streetlights come on. The association of João to the nation is thus extended to João and the modern nation. The anthem scene highlights the white official Brazil that the fi lm in both religious and political contexts depicts as populated by clearly bad people and will several times contrast with the proposed ideal extension of the national social group by way of Camargo’s congregation. The presence of white people doing harm to the protagonist may provoke identification with him, as I will examine in more detail in the section on the cinematic self, and hierarchize the proposed national community. The white establishment generally represents in the fi lm a perversion of the nation. João and his congregation are cast as the real Brazil. In this scene, however, the attention to the nation is not tainted by racism or injustice. The patriotic pride in modernization is preserved, enabling a favorable association between the progressive nation and Camargo’s spiritual progress. Regardless of whether this moment of unadulterated nationalism is aimed at making possible that association, it represents a rare but significant moment of exaltation of the national category of identity. Later in fi lm, when Camargo is older and his congregation is formed and flourishing, he and the members of his church parade through the streets of Sorocaba and call out, “Viva Brazil!” This exclamation represents one of the most direct associations in the fi lm between Camargo’s religious group and the nation and the time in which that diverse, syncretic-religious protonational community is most conspicuously hierarchized; the scene brings to fruition through the mature congregation the connection between Camargo’s church and the nation. The celebratory procession scene displays the most explicit manifestation of a heterogeneous congregation embracing Camargo as their leader and passionately pertaining to his social group. The procession through town suggests that the religious protonational association, whose source was initially the city-national cross-section, can come into contact with the existing national group, the past equivalent of the national social group of audience members, and act as an attractive model for change. The procession draws attention to the frontier between the city and the church as well as the national group as it is and the national group as it could be. The fi lm in this way periodically reminds viewers of the change in social identity it is proposing, that the change is viable and they are all implicated in the proposal. While they are still marching, the fi lm cuts to a scene in which a priest, a judge, and others—a cluster of generally bad people who may

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represent the present-day symbolic core of the national social group— are discussing what is for most of them the nefarious impact Camargo is having on society. The priest and the judge, representatives of the ecclesiastical and legal pillars of society, embody injustice. Their indictment of Camargo suggests a need for fundamental rearrangement of the extension of the national group. If Camargo and his church stand for what the nation should look like, the fi lm implies that there is no room for the current official power structure. The Juiz declares, “They perform blood sacrifices. Fanatics! Outlaws! [. . .] By God and the law! For the heretics, hell; for the outlaws, jail.”21 And the priest laments, “It’s gone too far! Too far! They’ve brought their profane songs to our windows, to our doors. That is an offense to the Christian feelings of our people. [. . .] It’s black magic, witchcraft. They take our most sacred images and desecrate our values. ‘The Black Pope.’ That is heresy!”22 Earlier a white official tells a man who arrives in Sorocaba with his sick daughter looking for Camargo not to seek him out. Anticipating what the Juiz and the priest will say and helping to delineate those excluded from the postulated national community, he calls Camargo “a common witchdoctor” and tells the man, “You should go and see a doctor.”23 But another person present defends Camargo, which may indicate that there is something to be salvaged even from this rarified sphere of oft-abused power: “The situation is delicate. Do not forget we are a republic. João de Camargo has become a respected man. [. . .] They are not breaking any laws. It’s a religion.”24 The fi lm thus may imply that there is no need for an all-out revolution, just a reconfiguration of the national social group. Regardless, their conversation leads to the arrest of Camargo, a direct and aggressive confrontation between the police and the congregation that elevates the religious protonational group through the evocation of perceived ingroup threat. For example, Cirino asks, “What’s going on here? Who do you think you are?”25 Natalino— whom João met years earlier in the quilombo and who by now is one of Camargo’s main followers—challenges the police accusation of “black magic” (curandeirismo) and “witchcraft” (magia) by saying, “‘Witchcraft’? We don’t practice voodoo here!”26 The diverse crowd rushes in to face the police, showing solidarity and resistance to the oppressive national community. When João emerges, the racial diversity of the followers surrounding him emphasizes the inclusive composition of his religious protonational social group. The scene late in the fi lm in which the Ministro and the Juiz are talking as they leave a performance of the opera O guarani calls attention to

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the nation and emphasizes that the Juiz represents a sector of the population that the fi lm excludes from the presumed national community and that others in power would be included. The posture of the Juiz toward Brazilian culture lends new meaning to his attack on Camargo. Previous acts of injustice toward a character portrayed as a national representative and at the center of an improved, reconceived, protonational community merely imply that the Juiz was a proxy for national internal outgroup. Here his anti-Camargo attitude is juxtaposed with a disposition against Brazil. In support of his imprisonment of Camargo he decries the “savage celebration” (“celebração selvagem,” my translation) of “these blacks” (“esses pretos”).27 And he reveals his denigration of Brazilian culture with his claim that the Brazilian composer Carlos Gomes is inferior to European ones. The Ministro, for his part, might be interpreted as defending Brazilian culture and Camargo through his praise of this opera and his assertion that Brazil is becoming a racially mixed place where the various constituencies will eventually make up “a single Brazilian people” (“um só povo brasileiro” [my translation]). The nation that is promoted here is Camargo’s Brazil.

Ca m a rgo as Nat iona l M eta phor Like the protagonists of the fi lms examined in other chapters, João de Camargo is a historical exemplum who prior to the fi lm had already taken on some degree of legendary status. The process of streamlining and stylizing that simultaneously results from and causes broad appeal is related to the acquisition of value as a prototype. However, unlike Aleijadinho, in which the main narrative casts the protagonist as a national metaphor, Cafundó’s approach to redefi ning the national group does not rely on portraying Camargo precisely as a national prototype or metaphor of Brazil, at least not explicitly. Rather than emphasizing that Camargo stands for Brazil, the fi lm comes closer to implying that if the congregation is a proxy for the national population, his church could be seen as a national metaphor, a microcosm of Brazil. Nonetheless, there are a few instances that do in some way associate Camargo with Brazil. Camargo’s church is linked to Brazil during the celebratory procession of the mature congregation through the streets of Sorocaba late in the fi lm by juxtaposed references to the country and the church. One of their fi rst few exclamations, as I mentioned earlier, is “Viva Brazil!”

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F igu r e 2.4. Camargo’s church building is expanded to accommodate its growing congregation.

right after “Viva Lord of the Bonfi m!” and “Viva Church of the Red Water!”28 Camargo, recently arrived from his spiritual illumination, has the following conversation with Cirino during the anthem scene: Cirino: What a miracle to fi nd you here! João: Today is the day of miracles, fella. Cirino: Have you ever seen such an astonishing thing? All of a sudden, night turns into day. [Cut to low-angle medium shot of the two, João reaching out to Cirino’s shoulder, looking serious.] João: It happened so many times today that I couldn’t even tell.29

João refers to his new calling indirectly and links his enlightenment to the national modernization they have just seen in the form of electric lights, an event connected to the country through the anthem and the official pomp. Coinciding with some of the extratextual materials such as those included in the official website, changes in Camargo’s life parallel transformations of Brazil at a crucial and formative time in its history. The fi lm associates João in his spiritual and evangelical stage with the modern nation, suggesting his durability as a symbol of Brazil.

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Se lli ng t h e Ci n e m at ic Se lf Cafundó employs a multipart process in proposing the protagonist as a viable guide for how to understand Brazilianness. The fi lm gradually provokes identification, both allegiance and alignment with the protagonist, in part by promoting viewer identification with characters that model respect for and emulation of Camargo. It promises to build sufficient identification to establish him as a cinematic self, an appealing model for the social identities of audience members. The narrative association of Camargo with the nation and the national population helps to focus the aspect of the self that he models: the national category of social identity. The opening images of the fi lm—the extreme long shots of people on bustling São Paulo streets and the panning medium-long shot of the crowd watching the performance of the actor who will play Camargo— could evoke for viewers the racially and economically diverse nation and perhaps be taken as a cross-section of the Brazilian population. It is significant that the attention of this heterogeneous crowd in the panning shot is riveted on the actor Ramos. This shot plants the seed of presentday engagement with the character he plays. These people can be seen as

F igu r e 2.5. Members of Camargo’s racially heterogeneous congregation line up to request help from the charismatic leader.

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the stand-ins for audience members at fi rst, and they model rapt attention. During the main narrative, Camargo’s congregation will take this attention further and demonstrate a profound connection with the protagonist. In the moments before the flashback to the nineteenth century, the fi lm makes the connection between captivation toward the chair performer and allegiance toward Camargo. The handheld shots of the departure from the performance of the woman who plays João’s wife in the main narrative and who in the present-day frame collects money for the performer place the viewer in the visual position of a curious pursuer, perhaps one who watched the performance, and help to continue the engagement shown among the crowd earlier. When the woman places the statue of Camargo in front of the cathedral, she extends the enchantment of the crowd with the actor who plays Camargo to reverence toward the memory of Camargo himself. The rest of the fi lm will build on this foundation of proposed allegiance toward the protagonist. Early in the main narrative, Cafundó begins to align viewers with Cirino, who will be one of those who lead the way toward identification with the protagonist, through a point-of-view shot in the creek scene. The fi lm periodically reinforces the visual alignment of audience members with this key character in general, even when he is not looking at João, such as when another point-of-view shot shows a murder victim from Cirino’s perspective as he looks on from behind stacked logs. Shortly after the creek scene, the fi lm introduces another sort of alignment to complement the visual alignment of the point-of-view shot, what Gaut calls “perceptual imaginative identification.” When João and Cirino are trying to come to terms with their coerced military service, they exchange these words: João: But we gotta go to war. Cirino: No way. War is white men’s thing. We get clothes, a rifle, a place to sleep, food . . . and even money! João: Yeah, fella, but what if we get a bullet in our guts?30

Their dialogue associates bellicosity with whites and a desire for basic needs and survival with blacks. To the extent that the attitude they embody here coincides with the beliefs of audience members, the fi lm has achieved an ethical or ideological alignment; or, adding a subcategory to Gaut’s list of kinds of imaginative identification (perceptual, epistemic, affective, motivational), one could call this interface ethical or ideological imaginative identification or, better, ethical alignment. Like other classes of viewer-character alignment, it contributes to building a cine-

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matic-self relationship with the protagonist and some degree of identification at least with Cirino. In chapter 1 I proposed another addition to Gaut’s list, social identity alignment, which represents a fundamental sort of alignment in efforts to create a cinematic self that guides understandings of the national community. For example, if a character and the viewer are Brazilian— the situation postulated with respect to all of the fi lms I cover in the book—there is necessarily alignment through that category of social identity. This coincidence does not necessarily have any consequences in terms of identification, as there are many reprehensible Brazilian characters in this fi lm, but it does enable the possibility of a character acting as a cinematic self with regard to the national category of identity. If the character is favorably depicted and portrayed as an exemplary or prototypical Brazilian and thus worthy of emulation, his or her acceptance as a model for the national group is more likely. The diverse approaches to promoting allegiance and alignment with the protagonist enhance the possibility of this outcome. The same night that Cirino and João discuss their impending departure for war, the fi lm for the fi rst time shifts from visual alignment of someone who shows allegiance toward João to a brief visual alignment with the protagonist himself. During the nocturnal festivities the two men are attending, João looks up at fi reworks. An eyeline match edit reveals the explosion in the sky before cutting back to a medium shot of the protagonist as he turns to his right. We see beyond him, out of focus, the blond actress who, in the present-day narrative frame, collected money for the performance. Just before he spots her, a rack focus displays her clearly to viewers. The camera moves in closer to her as they maintain their mutual contemplation. She smiles just as the forward movement of the camera leaves João outside the frame. We have been seeing this encounter from his angle, and now the shot reproduces his visual perspective. This is the first hint of a device that the fi lm will use sparingly in its attempt to provoke identification with Camargo. Here I focus primarily on the two approaches to provoking identification with the protagonist just introduced. First I will consider the impact of the fi lm’s use of visual alignment or more broadly what we might call perspective alignment—when we share a private moment with a character but do not necessarily experience point-of-view shots—with either Camargo’s congregation or with the protagonist himself; then I will look at Cafundó’s suggestion of ethical, ideological, social identity, and other sorts of alignment with Camargo. All of these tactics urge allegiance toward the protagonist, and together they propose substantial

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identification oriented toward shaping the protagonist into a cinematic self for audience members with regard to understandings of the national social group, what we might understand as a particularly profound and influential alignment. When João fi rst sees his mother after returning from military service, the fi lm expands what it began by visually aligning viewers with Cirino in the creek scene. As João walks toward the house in uniform, viewers see him from within the structure, from his mother’s perspective. The camera shows the protagonist through an open door, coming closer. That this is the mother’s point-of-view is soon confi rmed by a long shot of her seated, clearly looking to see who is approaching. When João comes closer, the fi lm cuts to a medium shot of her recognizing her son and smiling. As with Cirino’s point-of-view shot, the mother’s favorable gaze—much like the one we see in Aleijadinho when the protagonist is deformed and rejected by his wife but accepted by his mother— helps to lay the foundation for viewer identification. About halfway through the fi lm, after João and Cirino have built the church, Cafundó shifts the visual alignment of viewers with other characters to a visual alignment of viewers with João. We accompany Natalino in the fi nal moments of his walk to João’s freshly built church and see the building briefly from Natalino’s perspective before the fi lm cuts to a shot from inside the church that shows the young man approaching, holding a cross. A medium-long shot frames João as he looks up and notices Natalino. He had not yet seen the approach during the previous shot from inside the church, making this a near-point-of-view shot, especially since João is alone in the church. The camera placement in these shots inverts the scene in which viewers see from João’s mother’s perspective and begins to hint at the eventual transference of identification to João from those around him. Little time passes, however, before the fi lm once again suggests allegiance toward João by aligning audience members with the perspective of his congregation. The fi rst scene that shows the church functioning begins from the outside. The viewers see a diverse crowd lining up to enter the church as if part of the group. Inside, the fi lm shows several people telling their problems to João. In one shot a woman says to Camargo, “My husband has died. I think I’m gonna die too.”31 Behind the woman audience members see a racially diverse group of people in attendance. As in Aleijadinho, viewers witness a heterogeneous Brazilian population adoring the protagonist. To the extent that the congregation is understood by viewers to represent a cross-section of the Brazilian population and to be looking toward him for guidance and as a standard

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to strive for, the fi lm proposes Camargo as a stand-in for the national community and a cinematic self for the national category of identity. In a sequence that follows, Cirino, Natalino, and later Levinda talk outside. Viewers share a private (with respect to Camargo) moment with these chief representatives of the congregation who model allegiance toward the protagonist. Natalino references the growth of the congregation and says they will need to build a bigger church. The fi lm here emphasizes the rapid increase in Camargo’s reverent followers. And it is a racially and economically heterogeneous congregation that demonstrates this esteem. Since the fi lm has aligned audience members with them, their allegiance constitutes a suggestion that viewers from the national community follow their lead by revering and emulating Camargo. Levinda arrives and jokingly speaks skeptically of the protagonist: “It looks like our friend has become famous. A mongrel dog. Who could tell!”32 Her comment complements Natalino’s implication that many are following João. She also reminds us of the protagonist’s humble beginnings, reinforcing the fi lm’s portrayal of him as a broad national proxy and one of the people. Cirino bolsters and extends this characterization of Camargo. He casts the protagonist as common man turned exceptional, a leader for all, and represents the fi nal stage in Camargo’s development. At the beginning of the fi lm João is concerned principally with himself and his own. Later, he comes to care for all of the Brazilian people. Levinda, after her conversation with Cirino and Natalino outside the church, enters it in search of Camargo. Audience members see the end of her brief search from her perspective—a handheld point-of-view shot reproduces her gaze as she looks around and finally fi nds him inside. Viewers see the protagonist in the position he will be in at the end of the fi lm and in the statue, eyes closed and apparently meditating. She continues her playfulness when she exclaims, “You’ve become a saint!”33 Her remark indicates how the fi lm is beginning to associate the protagonist with Jesus, as Aleijadinho also does. The alignment of viewers with her visual perspective as she looks at Camargo parallels that of Cirino and anticipates her impending incorporation into the flock. When she tells Camargo that she is being mistreated, he invites her to stay. In spite of her initial, characteristic wisecracking, Levinda gratefully joins the church. This moment represents the fi nal stage in a complete transformation of Levinda’s attitude toward Camargo. Levinda and Teodoro, on meeting João, mock him when he is ousted from a factory where he is seeking employment. They embody the lack of allegiance and alignment among fellow poor and oppressed black people toward Camargo.

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Their cruel attitude toward the kindly protagonist does not promise to provoke viewers to follow their lead but rather encourages identification with João through opposability that the behavior of internal outgroupers provokes. Levinda will eventually show the path for audience members who come to the fi lm feeling no identification with Camargo that will lead them from lack of allegiance and alignment to friendly association in the urban setting to profound identification with him in the context of Camargo’s church. Another way to view this process is a transition from internal outgrouper to member of the protonational ingroup that Camargo’s congregation allegorizes. Upon joining the congregation, Levinda models leaving initial skepticism behind and perceiving Camargo in a new and reverent way. Her joining the church belatedly underscores the boundary and its permeability between Brazil as it is, represented by the space of Sorocaba, and Brazil as it could be, represented by the space of Camargo’s church. For those like Levinda who are dissatisfied with the status quo, there is another option. Shortly after Levinda’s arrival, the scene in town in which the father arrives with his gravely ill daughter recalls the symbolic frontier and underscores the favorable characterization of Carmargo’s religious protonational community. The white official who calls Camargo’s religion voodoo is, like Teodoro before, an anti-model. These characters contrast with key church members, Cirino and Natalino, whom the fi lm positions as exemplary. Now that those watching the fi lm presumably feel allegiance toward João and perhaps the beginnings of cinematic-self alignment, they will feel implicated by these insults, which will further cement their allegiance and alignment toward the protagonist. A man in a suit tells the sick girl’s father that João will cure her and gives him directions. As when Cirino and Natalino were talking, here again the perspective of someone who feels allegiance toward Camargo and believes in him guides viewers. Building on the boundary-evoking Levinda, we have a city dweller and stand-in for the existing nation, further alluding to audience members and modeling the possibility of viewers embracing João’s religious protonational group. When the fi lm cuts back to the church, much time has passed, and an expanded church is being constructed. The fi lm now boldly puts on display previous indications of allegiance toward Camargo within his congregation. Supporters of all colors surround a visibly older, fatherly protagonist. As his people raise a new church bell, the fi lm suggests that the congregation not only shows allegiance but also rallies around Camargo’s plan to expand the church or, more broadly, around his vision of change.

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The fi lm urges a full embrace of Camargo through nuanced contemplation of the spectrum of possibilities between allegiance and nonallegiance toward the protagonist. For the most part, audience members see favorably portrayed characters who model full allegiance and reprehensible characters who exemplify antagonism toward him. The alignment with the former that results from viewers wanting to see in themselves the quality of goodness encourages allegiance toward the protagonist. A late scene in the church shows a shade of gray between the two groups in the consequences of adhering only nominally to the Camargo group. A white woman says to the protagonist that her son is dying. He reprimands her: “We have no more medicine for your son. He could be better now. You threw away the herbs I gave you. You didn’t believe me. You threw away faith too. It’s faith that cures. Herbs only help. [.  .  .] Trace your steps back. Have faith and you’ll fi nd the herbs. Go with God and the Virgin Mary.”34 The fi lm reveals here the stick rather than the carrot. However, Camargo is compassionate even with those who delayed in believing in him. The door is always open, Cafundó implies, for even skeptical members of the viewing public eventually embrace the fi lm’s understanding of Brazilianness. When the police come to arrest Camargo, the fi lm cements the proposal for allegiance toward him from a fresh angle, the depiction of an ingroup threat, while continuing to rely on some of the other established tactics. As the police arrive the camera cuts from a long shot of many people outside the church to a reverse shot—one that visually aligns viewers with the congregation—of the police arriving and screaming demands that the door be opened. The fi lm then cuts to a low-angle shot from inside the church that moves toward the altar. As there apparently is no one within the parts of the church interior just seen, viewers are aligned with the church itself or are cast as privileged observers. The camera moves in a way that suggests a person walking down a hall and through a curtained door into a room where Camargo sits in a chair, dressed in white, contemplative, much as he is in the newspaper picture for the story declaring him the Papa Negro de Sorocaba, the Black Pope, as well as at the conclusion of the main part of the fi lm and in the statue shown in modern São Paulo on the steps of the cathedral. Audience members here share a private moment with the fi lm’s cinematic self. Just as the fi lm alternates between visual alignment with Camargo supporters and Camargo himself, it gives access to private spaces of followers and those of the protagonist as part of the process of provoking identification. When Camargo emerges from the church in this scene, the police arrest him in a clear manifestation of injustice amid the protests of his ra-

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cially diverse group of followers. Members of the audience who at this point feel allegiance toward him and are inclined to feel social identity alignment with Camargo’s religious protonational community would tend to see this treatment as an ingroup threat that would consolidate a sense of belonging to that group. The angry, racist behavior of the representatives of the status quo national group, the police, would promise to push viewers toward Camargo’s alternate group. That group embodies more attractive attributes and indeed ones that audience members would likely fi nd more in line with how they already conceive of Brazil. Soon after Camargo’s arrest, while he is in prison, Cafundó offers another critically portrayed representative of a group that sees itself as incompatible with the one being constructed by Camargo. Similar to the possible effect of the police officers’ attitudes toward Camargo, in this scene objectionable treatment of the protagonist would seem to recommend dissociation on the part of viewers from the social group represented by the perpetrator of the treatment and further adherence to Camargo’s religious protonational group. Rather than a representative of the white-dominated, status quo national community, the person who aff ronts Camargo embodies a nonsyncretic, noninclusive, angry, and resistant Afro-Brazilian group. Camargo is praying for a man on the floor of the cell in a syncretic way: “Oxalá and Rongondongo [Saint Benedict the Moor] guide you, Son.”35 The man condemns Camargo and attacks him physically: Man: Stop it! This is a white man’s prayer. Is that what you want? To become white? So I’ll help you. [The man punches Camargo in the stomach and pushes him against the wall.] [. . .] Why do you deny our African gods and the beliefs of our ancestors? You’re black, had black parents, but keep praying to white saints?36

Camargo responds, and a white man gently pushes the aggressor away. And earlier in the same scene a black man defended Camargo. These moments juxtapose an unfavorably depicted poor, black man who is against Camargo and both black and white poor characters who model allegiance toward him for the diverse audience. There is no implication, however, that the latter are adherents of his church, which proposes to those watching the fi lm an intermediate step of allegiance without full social identity alignment with the cinematic self. The next scene of the

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fi lm, the conversation between the Ministro and the Juiz as they leave the opera, carries into the sphere of the white upper classes the contrast between favorably portrayed supporters of Camargo like the Ministro, who defends Camargo, and unfavorably portrayed detractors like the Juiz, who attacks him. The Ministro asks the Juiz for a legal justification for keeping the man in prison, and the Juiz points to Camargo’s religious practices, which does not convince the Ministro. Their exchange promotes dissociation from the status quo group embodied by the Juiz among those who are particularly repulsed by him. At the same time, the conversation encourages allegiance toward Camargo’s group, especially among those who feel particularly aligned with the Ministro for whatever reason, such as his celebration of mestiçagem and Brazilian culture or his defense of Camargo. Near the end of the fi lm, some time after the protagonist is released from prison and attends to followers seeking his help in the church, the fi lm again engages in its alternating tactics of visual alignment to encourage identification with Camargo. The fi rst shot is from the point of view of someone in the church approaching Camargo for consultation, a medium-long shot that moves closer to João, whose face we can see in a hole in a wooden structure, a wall of sorts, that is before the altar. Viewers are aligned with a follower, which proposes visually that viewers also follow the protagonist’s guidance. The visual perspective shifts to Camargo when he cures a delusional woman. Members of the audience see her enter from the protagonist’s perspective in a shot in which he is visible from the back. The fi lm cuts to a close-up of Camargo’s face as he looks toward her and then to a point-of-view medium shot from Camargo’s perspective as he watches her approach. When she arrives at the barrier, Camargo’s hand reaches into the screen as if it is the viewer’s hand, thus aligning the audience with his perspective. Several of the fi lm’s gestures in the fi nal minutes urge viewers to transfer to real life the fi lm’s depictions of a heterogeneous national population’s allegiance toward Camargo. For example, a scene toward the end uses as props what seem to be letters left by followers of the real João de Camargo; this helps to bridge the fictional world and the real one inhabited by audience members. A bit earlier, also, as Levinda and other core members of the congregation help visitors seeking Camargo’s aid, some of those they attend to seem to be nonprofessional actors, suggesting the extension of the lessons of the fi lm to the present-day Brazilian context. And, fi nally, the text that appears at the end of the fi lm about the thousands at his funeral and the continuation of his religious practices makes explicit that allegiance to and alignment with Camargo

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among Brazilians was real when the historical figure died and that they remain in place. This concluding statement possibly closes the deal of viewers embracing Camargo as a cinematic self, a model for how to reconceive of the national group. I will now turn to other sorts of alignment such as ethical, ideological, personal identity, and social identity. In each of the five cinematic cases I study in this book, part of the process of creating a cinematic self aimed at guiding understandings of the national group for audience members involves transforming a Brazilian historical exemplum into an exemplary Brazilian, a national prototype who can act as a proxy for the national community. Besides associating their protagonists with the national population directly, these fi lms infuse the characters with attributes that viewers likely already associate with the national group. These qualities can be as straightforward as honesty, kindness, generosity, bravery, and modesty—attributes that certainly overlap with understandings of many national communities. Yet the commonality of the qualities esteemed by a national population does not detract from the contribution their presence can make to linking someone to the nation and to casting the characters as exemplary representatives of the people. The foregrounding of what might be taken as essentially Brazilian characteristics would also tend to provoke social identity alignment among Brazilian audience members even if they do not necessarily feel they quite live up to the national standard set by the cinematic self. That is what these five fi lms seek: convincing viewers that their protagonists embody what viewers could be and perhaps would like to be as Brazilians. However, after establishing the protagonists as cinematic selves, the fi lms also layer them with attributes that differ somewhat from existing understandings of Brazilianness, and in so doing they carry out their redefi nitions of the national group. In this discussion on the cinematic self I consider the alignment that results from the attribution to the protagonist of qualities that Brazilian viewers would likely readily associate with Brazil as well as qualities that provoke other sorts of alignment and how that attribution contributes to building the cinematic-self relationship. Next I will examine the attribution to the protagonist of qualities that members of the audience may or may not already associate with the national community and that help to redefi ne Brazilianness inasmuch as the protagonist is already established as a national prototype and cinematic self. During the early parts of the main narrative, Cafundó several times contrasts character attributes of Cirino and João. In two scenes—dur-

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ing the festivities in town the night before they leave for military service and right after they return—Cirino is shown to be primarily concerned with seeking out what the fi lm suggests are informal sexual encounters, while João manifests other interests. In the fi rst scene, João seems naïve and amused with the interactions in which Cirino is engaged such as dancing and fl irting with women and instead, after a while, quietly focuses his attention on Rosário, whom João sees for the fi rst time and who will later become his wife. Similarly in the second scene, upon their return from the military the fi lm juxtaposes Cirino’s sexual playfulness with João’s desire to find his mother, which emphasizes the protagonist’s dedication to family. The fi lm certainly does not treat Cirino’s behavior as worthy of condemnation, and for some like-minded viewers, his happy-go-lucky disposition may lead to ethical or personal identity alignment with this character. João’s innocence, his apparent monogamous inclination or deprioritizing of sex, and his prioritization of family invite ethical, moral, or personal-identity alignment and would likely fi nd purchase among those who embrace those attributes. If audience members esteem those qualities but do not feel they embody them, João’s representation would enhance his status as cinematic self in general. If here the fi lm sets him up as one worthy of emulation, gradually it will focus on the national category of identity with regard to his role as model. Among viewers who consider those qualities to be linked to Brazilianness, the referenced scenes would likely produce social identity alignment. These particular characteristics—innocence and, for the time being, chastity—anticipate as well the way the fi lm will accumulate in the protagonist characteristics that associate him substantially with Jesus. Throughout the main narrative João is layered with various attributes that would tend to have similar aligning effects as a function of the self-concepts of individual members of the audience and how they already understand the national group. His mother, for instance, after João returns from the military, seeks confi rmation that he did not kill: “But you didn’t kill anyone, did you?”37 Besides possibly provoking ethical or moral alignment, this connecting of nonviolence to João assists in preserving the impression of pristine character that will be essential in casting the protagonist as a national prototype and especially as one who will embody the national community by way of a religious group. When João is kicked out of the factory where he is searching for work and Levinda and Teodoro at this point do not know him and laugh at his misfortune, the fi lm contrasts their insensitivity with the compassion and selflessness of the protagonist, as he reacts to their laughter by

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offering to help them fi nd work elsewhere, an attitude likely to produce ethical or personal identity alignment with João. When the protagonist, Levinda, and Teodoro are kicked out of the cotton factory where they next look for a job, João is not flustered by the gratuitously rough treatment by the whites who throw them out. His level disposition, even in the face of cruelty and racism, promises to produce ethical, personal identity, and social identity alignment. Similar alignment consequences likely result from the scene in which the three of them search for food; while Levinda and Teodoro steal, João shows a distinct ethics by happily accepting a gift of bananas. In a later scene Levinda covers João’s eyes as she pours a large jar of hot peppers in the stew of her white employers to take revenge on them, a possible reference to Xica da Silva’s rebellious spicing of the Conde’s meat. While Cafundó makes light of Levinda’s resistant prank and does not condemn it, João’s flawless character is preserved. Through his innocence the fi lm encourages ethical alignment and general allegiance toward the protagonist. The fi lm emphasizes João’s upstanding character as well when he and Rosário, now married, are harvesting their fi rst crop. She complains of their situation: “This is no life for me.”38 João responds patiently, “Life will get better. This is our fi rst harvest.”39 He embodies here an optimistic attitude and an industrious and (like Aleijadinho) hardworking disposition. The display of these attributes may lead to various kinds of alignment and set up the protagonist as an exemplary Brazilian. As a young Natalino and others from the quilombo are leaving town, João calls out to the departing people, “Are you on your way?”40 He addresses them as meu povo, literally, “my people.” His comment stands out, for he apparently has never lived in the quilombo. Perhaps the implication here is that he is referencing consciousness of pertinence and allegiance to an Afro-Brazilian group or with a group that consists of those who reject the social and political status quo represented by the city and seek instead to build an alternate and improved social reality, as he will do with his church. For those who identify in some way with the group João calls “my people,” this moment may provoke social identity alignment with the protagonist. The enlightenment scene, which links João to the nation through his encounter with the Brazilian patron, Nossa Senhora Aparecida, similarly encourages social identity alignment among viewers who are members of the Brazilian social group and focuses the protagonist’s cinematic-self modeling on the national category of identity. Cafundó’s emphasis on the protagonist’s qualities such as kindness,

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F igu r e 2.6. Nossa Senhora Aparecida, Brazil’s patron, appears to Camargo in his vision.

compassion, and selflessness encourages ethical, moral, and personal identity alignment in the viewing public. Similar to the case of Aleijadinho, Cafundó’s characterization of Camargo eventually accumulates in the association of the protagonist with the prominent ethical and moral prototype of Jesus. Cafundó makes this connection explicit when, for example, the orixá Exu tells a mature Camargo, “Mr. João now thinks he is Jesus Christ?”41 During the earlier awakening sequence, Nossa Senhora Aparecida reinforces the parallel by referring figuratively to João’s rebirth (figure 2.6): “You were born again.”42 Cirino and Levinda’s conversation when she shows up at the church alludes to this association: Cirino: “We’ve been companions in captivity and freedom. I got tired of carryin’ him around drunk. Now he carries everybody.” Levinda: “So I’ve heard. One man dies, and another is born.”43

The references to his metaphorical rebirth and dedication to helping “everybody” are underscored when Camargo is released from prison and tells Cirino, “All I want is to fulfi ll my mission: help people.”44 Such touches allude to Jesus’s character and story and aid in proposing Camargo as a stand-in for an entire population who is worthy of emulation. In addition to experiencing ethical or moral alignment, viewers who recognize the allusion and consider themselves part of a Christian

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group might feel social identity alignment as well. After the daughter of the man who arrived in the cart has recovered, he calls out jubilantly, “Praised be João de Camargo!”45 His exclamation would contribute to forging the link among those who associate the phrase typically with Jesus. Because the fi lm shows Camargo’s spiritual connection to be real and his healing to truly work, it further connects him to the miracleperforming Jesus. For example, a man’s parrot is where the voices told the protagonist it was, and a man’s daughter is cured through Camargo’s intervention. During his procession through town, a conversation inside a building among the bad priest, the Juiz, and others underscores how rich and poor show allegiance toward Camargo and calls attention to how the protagonist has been compared to the pope, reinforcing the crosscultural breadth of his appeal and complementing the association of Camargo with Jesus. When the police come to arrest the protagonist, his speech shows a humble and spiritual disposition that connects the protagonist with Jesus: If you believe in what I believe, we’ll be brethren. If you don’t believe in it, we won’t be anything. It starts from the little one and goes on to the bigger ones. I’m not God’s friend. I’m only his humble servant where He’s put me. I’m not a priest either. Each one has his own duties and nothing else.46

With this statement he draws a line in the sand with regard to the extension of the social group he has nurtured. Next I address how the fi lm defi nes Camargo’s religious protonational community, the embrace of whose values, the protagonist suggests in the statement here, constitutes ingroup inclusion.

De f i n i ng t h e Nat ion t h rough Ca m a rgo a n d H is Congr egat ion Here I trace how the fi lm crafts its defi nition of Brazilianness through its national proxies: Camargo and his church. If the protagonist stands for the nation and the national community, then his manifest attributes, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior characterize the fi lm’s understanding of national identity. Similarly, if Cafundó associates Camargo’s religious group with the national group, the nature of the church constitutes part of how the fi lm would like audience members to conceive of the nation.

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Other elements in the fi lm besides the representation of the protagonist and his church help to construct the defi nition of the Brazilian social group offered by Cafundó. The title of the fi lm, for example, contributes to the understanding of Brazilian national identity in a rather complex way. The word cafundó is used more than once by Natalino to refer to the quilombo. The choice of this title gives the impression that this fi lm, like Quilombo, is going to treat the maroon community as a utopian space and its inhabitants as stand-ins for the path viewers might take in conceiving of their pertinence to the national community. However, the title and its referent have a conspicuously limited relationship with the main plot about Camargo’s life and the rise of his church and how they defi ne the national group. The role of the quilombo in this fi lm, augmented by its privileged place in the title, aligns Cafundó more with Xica da Silva, Chico Rei, and Aleijadinho, all of which retain a respectful stance toward quilombos—as well as the Afrocentrism and cultural, political, and ideological resistance they represent—yet still favor paths of greater syncretism and inclusiveness, even if Afrocentric ones. Cafundó tempers the quilombo-as-utopia idea, treating it as an alternate idea but less viable than his protonation church. Perhaps the fi lm implies that the quilombo solution is beyond its prime, a dying idea. In support of this interpretation is the quilombo inhabitant with whom audience members have the most contact, Natalino, joining Camargo’s church. What is more, the quilombo is the place João and his mother choose for her dying days. Nonetheless, the periodic presence of the quilombo in the fi lm and João’s favorable attitude toward it link the protagonist and his church to what the maroon community represents. That alternative space emphasizes the topics of slavery, abolition, and political independence from the existing and, in the fi lm’s view, flawed nation; the context of the quilombo anticipates and reinforces the alternate and Afrocentric vision of what the nation could be that the fi lm communicates through Camargo’s church. In what follows I will draw attention to how the fi lm shapes its version of national identity through the three general means that I have just sketched: Cafundó’s portrayal of blacks, especially Camargo, and to a limited extent whites, who represent an appealing understanding of national identity; its depiction of whites and somewhat of blacks, who represent an unattractive understanding of the national community; and the fi lm’s favoring of the chief characteristics of the religious protonational group and the ones that may constitute the core of its redefinition of Brazilianness, such as an Afrocentric but ethnically and racially inclusive version of Afro-European syncretism. Although the fi lm attaches attributes to its version of Brazilianness

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primarily through Camargo, it complements this process through various other characters who sympathize with the protagonist. They are both black and white, in the spaces of the city and the church, and part of the protagonist’s congregation and not. This ingroup diversity contributes to communicating that the fi lm is not advocating the wholesale rejection of existing understandings of the national community and the consistent replacement of those understandings with the one that it is proposing. Rather, the fi lm implies that there is some overlap in appealing qualities between existing and proposed defi nitions of the national group. Soares, for example, is a white representative of Catholicism, part of the existing power structure, and he dies before Camargo even founds his church. Yet he possesses what the fi lm qualifies as outstanding attributes, such as when a man in the city lauds Soares for his selfless and generous act of staying to care for plague victims when all others left. Indeed, he is one of the chief inspirations for João’s church. Another white member of the existing power structure is a man who defends Camargo when the priest and judge are condemning him. In doing this, he represents fairness, a sense of justice, and religious tolerance, although it must be said that he is shown to do nothing to prevent the arrest of the protagonist. The Ministro, when he influences the Juiz to release Camargo, shows similar qualities and the will to act on them. The man who gives the father of the sick girl directions to the church and who may or may not be a member of the congregation shows compassion. And members of Camargo’s congregation, in particular Cirino, are shown to emulate qualities advocated through the protagonist. Throughout the fi lm, especially before the founding of the church, Cirino alternates with João in the embodiment of what the fi lm suggests are desirable qualities and ones not sufficiently incorporated into existing, dominant understandings of Brazilianness. One prominent example occurs early in the fi lm when Cirino associates war with white people, by contrast linking peace with blacks, a group that is not in power but that the fi lm will place at the center of its redefi nition of national identity. Let us consider now the attributes that the fi lm, mostly through the protagonist, favors in its presentation of Brazilianness. Before getting on the train to go fight and to see, as Cirino says, what the republic is all about, João said he preferred to go barefoot. When João returns to the city from military service and begins the upward swing of the profane phase of his life, he starts to evidence some of the attributes that will be at the core of his spiritual self and his church. We see João and Cirino walking on a dirt road in town, and João removes his boots and throws

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them into the street. The fi lm thus connects the boots to the republic and to war, and João’s disposal of the boots seems to imply a kind of rejection of war and the government and to anticipate the semi-separatist religious path he will take and through which the fi lm will propose an alternative to the Brazil represented by existing powers. When João tosses the boots, Cirino quickly picks them up and explains that they are worth much. João dismisses the monetary value of the boots, and in this sense he previews the lack of concern for money that characterizes his religious self and the values of his church. Regardless of his being free or enslaved, the sort of vocation he has and whether he lives a married or monastic life are conditions that contribute to the fi lm’s accumulation of national group characteristics. As in the case of Aleijadinho, this fi lm documents the long and great transformation of a character and thus can say much through him about Brazil. When Cirino and João arrive after serving the republic, Cirino declares, “No more fighting, no more marching . . . no more sergeants or mud. We’ve already paid the master’s price. Now, João, we are free!”47 He explicitly brings up issue of liberty and, by association, their former enslavement as well as the continued oppression under the colonel after abolition. Now the protagonist is a free man, and hard-won freedom is linked through him to the nation as a fundamental characteristic. During this stage of worldly endeavors as the protagonist emerges from enslavement, the fi lm emphasizes several other of his attributes. João manifests concern for family, while Cirino focuses on sex. The fi lm underscores João’s nonviolent character when his mother asks him to confi rm that he did not kill anyone while in the military. When his mother asks what side they were on in the confl icts in which he was participating, the protagonist responds, “We’re upside down, Mother,”48 in this way incarnating a nonconfrontational disposition. As João looks for work in the city, the fi lm continues to expose key parts of the protagonist’s character, some of which anticipate his nature during his spiritual stage. When João later visits Levinda and begins to work with her in the house of a white couple, he demonstrates patience and diplomacy rather than her direct resistance in the face of injustice and racism. His strategy will evolve into a different sort of resistance, consisting in proposing an alternative to the oppressive social reality and inviting all to join. Levinda expresses her frustration with the injustice she experiences in this house, a microcosm of the city and the existing national community for which it stands, when she says that in a white person’s house blame is always cast on blacks. Viewers see the man of the house fondle her and the woman insult her. When Levinda shows

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her outrage, João urges caution, and when she takes her revenge by fi lling the pot of food João is preparing with the jar of peppers, he plays no part; in João’s retelling to the young Natalino in town, it is clear that he does fi nd her prank amusing. The fi lm reinforces its suggestion that João stands for peaceful solutions even in the face of injustice with his attitude of concern over two men angrily confronting the mine manager they will later kill. Toward the end of his worldly stage, after the fi lm has exposed a number of the attributes that will characterize João as a religious protonational model, it shows the protagonist at his lowest point, drunk and dispirited, which may be seen as making room for temporary human weakness within what is acceptable in the fi lm’s conception of the nation. Still in reference to the character traits manifested prior to his spiritual stage, Nossa Senhora Aparecida praises the protagonist for his humility. Her endorsement adds this quality to those the fi lm favors in its definition of Brazilianness. At the commencement of Camargo’s spiritual stage he sees a vision of the dead Soares, and the priest entreats the protagonist to embrace several other qualities. In so doing the priest adds layers to the fi lm’s vision of the nation: “You’ll devote your life to help[ing] others. Easing pain, curing illness.”49 Much later, the protagonist is released from prison and confi rms his incorporation of what Soares had said, telling Cirino that what he wants to do is “help others.” He is thus portrayed as a good and selfless person. Earlier, Camargo finds Cirino during the patriotic lighting ceremony and says he no longer drinks, thus incorporating sobriety into the list of approved attributes. After the church has grown to maturity, Camargo shows compassion and generosity even among those who have not believed in him, such as telling the woman whose son is sick how to fi nd new herbs to cure him because she threw away the ones he had given her. Finally, he returns from the prison to the church and removes people hocking goods outside, angrily declaring, “Our Lord does not trade. The house is holy, the medicine is free, and we do not sell it!”50 Cafundó more than once encourages indifference to money, here privileging instead honesty and integrity. Besides favoring certain personal attributes in its proposed rendition of the national group, Cafundó, like the other fi lms studied in this book, in part defi nes national identity by connecting it to differing degrees with European-derived and African-derived cultures. The fi lm reserves a privileged place for a mixture of these two broad influences that weighs more heavily on the African side. The fi lm thus suggests an

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Afrocentric, Afro-European, syncretic conception of a prototypical Brazilian population. From early on, the fi lm hints at the several African and Catholic religious inspirations for Camargo’s church and shows how they combine to form the cultural syncretism favored in the fi lm. The nighttime scene before João and Cirino leave to fight for the republic plants one of the seeds of the protagonist’s eventual spiritual awakening. João has followed Rosário, who fl irtatiously ran off after they fi rst noticed each other. A long shot shows the dimly lit white façade of a modest church, and Rosário running in front of and past the closed door as the bell tolls. She turns to see if João is coming and then runs behind the church. João is about to follow her, but then the door of the church opens and the sound of bells emerges. Those watching the fi lm see him silhouetted against the bright, open doorway to which he is drawn. A medium shot from the front shows João now inside the church door, gazing captivated before him as he proceeds into the church. The protagonist rubs his eyes as if trying to figure out if this is some sort of a vision. The fi lm then cuts to the interior of the church: the priest, Soares, with a golden scepter raised, flanked by his acolytes, approaches the entrance of the church and João. The bells continue and are joined by the apparently extradiegetic sound of chanting monks as well as instrumentation that is used throughout, often in association with Afro-Brazilian culture; it is heard as João and his mother are being welcomed into the quilombo but also in the first moments of the flashback to the main narrative. Inside the church, the fi lm cuts back to João’s spellbound gaze and then to a medium shot of the priest looking with intensity at João. No words are exchanged, only this suggestive visual engagement, which proposes a sort of transcendent connection between the two men. This is the initial spark of inspiration, grounded in European religious culture, that will set João eventually on his path of spiritual pursuits. The blending of musical elements alludes to the cultural mixture that will guide the emergence of Camargo’s church. In the scene of João fi nding his mother at home, the fi lm continues to emphasize Christian influences. She sees her son and says, “May Jesus Christ bless you, Son.”51 During their walk, however, João’s mother begins freely to blend European- and African-derived religions. They reach the Christian cross that commemorates the boy who died, Al fredinho; João’s mother summons the boy’s spirit and recalls for her son the story of how he perished. The fi lm shows flashbacks of the inci-

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dent, which the fi lm depicts with washed-out tones, brief shots, and jump cuts. The mother says, “Sad things happened here, but this can be a place of great happiness.”52 She approaches the cross, where viewers see that many candles have been burned on its base, and she continues: “Pray, Son, pray. He’ll come back to help us.”53 As she says this the camera follows a red streak that emanates from the base of the cross and turns into a tiny stream of the “red water” (água vermelha) that inspires the name of Camargo’s church, Igreja da Água Vermeia (Church of the Red Water). This second inspiration for the eventual founding of the church is again connected, as in the case of Soares, to a white person. Yet here the fi lm foregrounds substantial mixing of religious influences. The protagonist’s words anticipate skepticism about the fi lm’s amalgam of European and African elements. He asks about the child who died, “But wasn’t he white?”54 And his mother, standing before the Christian cross, responds, “Alfredinho is a child-spirit [ibeji], and they have no color.”55 Her comment about ibejis demonstrates that she has incorporated the boy into an African-derived belief system. This moment previews Camargo’s spiritual stage even more clearly than the encounter with Soares does. His mother teaches him some of the key lessons that will be at the core of his church: racial inclusiveness and syncretism. What is more, given that this will be the site on which Camargo founds and builds his church, Cafundó begins to link these lessons to the fi lm’s most privileged space. A few minutes later in the fi lm, as João leaves his mother, an exchange with the young Natalino focuses a bit more on the implications of João’s desire to return to the city. Natalino asks, “And aren’t you well here?”56 João replies, “I am, but there has been an itch itching me for a long time.”57 Up to this point the space of the city has been associated with such characteristics as injustice and racism, but the urban stand-in for the nation also is home to the diverse population that Camargo will eventually attempt to reform in his image. At this early point, the fi lm shows João to be drawn to the city for what are generally individualistic and mundane concerns. However, in the patriotic lighting scene halfway through the fi lm, right after his enlightenment, the fi lm reveals his attraction to the city to be motivated by selflessness, spirituality, and a desire to consolidate his congregation. The isolated, hidden, culturally homogeneous, and favorably portrayed African space of the quilombo is the counterpoint to the primarily European city. The mixture of elements from these two spheres helps to defi ne the equally isolated space of Camargo’s church, which constitutes

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an alternative to the city and the nation for which it stands. As João and his mother are walking in search of a place to settle, they, and then Natalino, who appears suddenly, exchange these words: Mother: There must be a beautiful place, a corner of the world for us. João: Mother, the world has no corners. Mother: It does. Ask that boy. João: Where’s the corner of the world? Young Natalino: It’s in Cafundó.58

His mother’s hidden utopia at the end of the world is not the solution that João seeks. The fi lm casts the quilombo and its Afrocentric and culturally homogeneous isolation as a once good but now fading social solution. Social isolation is portrayed unfavorably if it is not linked to religious or political alternatives like those of the quilombo and Camargo’s church. The fi lm emphasizes this general disinclination toward isolation with a curious parallel that emerges through Rosário. The day after they are married, as Rosário is waking from her participation in an Umbanda ceremony, she says to João, “Take me to some hidden place.”59 And later on their farm, she complains: “This is the end of the world!”60 This hidden-away space at the end of the world is shown to be less viable than the quilombo. This is the place in which the fi lm shows the protagonist to have reached his highest point the worldly stage, a point from which he will soon fall when he finds Rosário with another man. Here the fi lm puts on display the standard means through which Brazilian cultural mixture—Afro-European but initially and often indigenousEuropean—is typically promoted in understandings of Brazilianness as the romantic union of representatives of different races. The fi lm’s alternative to traditional discourses of mestiçagem is to recast the cultural mixture in a religious context. The sequence in which João and his mother are fi rst in the quilombo consolidates the African influences on the shape of the protagonist’s emerging religious group. As they arrive, João’s mother, previously the voice of Christianity and Afro-European religious fusion, shifts her focus entirely to the African side by mentioning two orixás: “Oxalá and Oxóssi receive us.”61 And when João later departs, she exhorts Oxalá to protect her son. This contrasts with her earlier blessing of him in the city through Jesus Christ. The initial shots of the settlement and the fi rst actions there underscore the non-urban and non-European nature of the

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quilombo. Audience members see from behind João and his mother approaching the village, where bullet-shaped earthen huts are visible beyond. The instrument that fi rst sounded at the end of João’s fi rst encounter with Soares is heard extradiegetically. A crane shot shows concentric circles of people around the protagonist and his mother in what the fi lm later reveals to be a ceremony that begins the acceptance of the two into the community. Also in this sequence the fi lm shows several brief scenes that seem aimed at underscoring the non-European culture of the quilombo, among them two people practicing capoeira, João’s mother curing a young person with non-European methods, women walking with big vessels on their heads, and several women preparing food outside a hut. While still in the context of the quilombo, the fi lm incorporates an implication of cultural syncretism. A conversation between Natalino and João anticipates the ultimately failed symbolic union between the protagonist and Rosário. After asking several other questions, they discuss women. Natalino asks, “And have you been with a woman?”62 João replies, “I don’t know.”63 The protagonist’s response is said as the fi lm cuts to a boyhood memory João has of playing in a field with a young white girl. The fi lm implies here that the protagonist’s commitment to looking beyond race is long-standing. The marriage with Rosário fails. Rather than contributing to the defi nition of the national community as part of a mixed-race couple, Camargo, much like Aleijadinho, defines Brazilianness through his role as a sexless, Jesuslike model to which others might aspire. Nonetheless, the fi lm does reserve a persuasive role for interracial unions. In the context of the revised religious protonational group crafted within the space of Camargo’s church, the fi lm casts such alliances as symbolically viable through the romance between a lightskinned musician and the dark-skinned young woman who arrived to the church sick, brought by her father. After leaving the quilombo, João is in the factory, where the fi lm symbolically juxtaposes its materializing syncretic proposal with nonsyncretic Christianity. The dark interior shown in the fi rst shot is cut with the bright yellow-orange of molten metal. It is a close-up of the source of the flow, and the camera follows the liquid to where it is pooling within the mold of a Christian cross. The fi lm cuts back to show fully the source of the metal and then to a view of the whole cross lit up with the molten metal as João looks on. The next shot is a close-up of João smiling, fascinated like a boy. A man begins to question him and suddenly and inexplicably becomes angry that João is there; he has João physically removed. Through color and proximity and movement

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of the camera, the fi rst shot of the liquid metal recalls the shot that follows the red liquid flowing from Alfredinho’s cross. In this way the fi lm invites a contrast. The fi rst shot was a respectful, Afro-European, syncretic reference associated with João’s mother. Here the flow of red liquid is associated with Christianity and a cruel, racist, white man. The fi lm thus may be seen to add nonsyncretic Christianity to other qualities of the status quo national group that are put into question, such as the white-dominated economic power structure embodied by the man who ejects João. Before Camargo’s spiritual illumination, the fi lm regularly reminds viewers of the cultural homogeny and sort of cultural fusion that it does not favor and the kind of syncretism that it does recommend. Cafundó previews the Afro-European nature of the cultural fusion that Camargo’s church eventually represents when it refers to both sides of one syncretic precursor. Early in the fi lm Cirino suggests to his friend that they attend the Congolese Kings festival (“festa de Reis Congos”) that day. João responds, reminding Cirino of the Catholic side of the syncretic event: “Our Lady of the Rosary’s too.”64 If this comment anticipates the combination of racial or ethnic influences in the protagonist’s religious protonational community, at the ceremony that night among white and black participants the fi lm alludes to what will be the inclusive disposition of Camargo’s church toward its congregation. Although Cafundó makes it clear that neither African nor European religious practices by themselves are the answer, both are often favorably referenced in the fi lm inasmuch as they are inspirations for João’s syncretic belief system. We see one of the seeds of the Christian elements of Camargo’s church when the protagonist, drunk on the street after the split from Rosário, fi rst meets Soares: João: Ain’t this all God’s punishment? Soares: God doesn’t punish. João: Why is life so miserable, then? Soares: Secrets of God’s face. João: What is God’s face like? Soares: It must be disturbing, Son, as it carries all the mysteries of the universe.65

Mystery and mercy are thus associated with Camargo’s emerging protonational group. Soares’s death soon after João meets him marks the lowest point in João’s prespiritual stage and creates a void that he will fi ll with his own utopia, one that reserves a place of reverence for Soares. João stands before Soares’s grave while people fi ll it, and the fi lm

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flashes—as if following João’s thoughts—to the shot from the fi rst moment the protagonist saw the priest inside the church walking with the scepter raised. In this way the fi lm reminds the audience of how it early on primed the impact this Catholic priest will have on João and confi rms that his influence is sinking in with the protagonist. Just before João experiences his spiritual awakening during the vision, dream, or hallucination sequence, the fi lm indulges in its only incorporation of indigenous elements in recrafting the national community. An indigenous man is chanting “ibi soroc” on the covered porch of an isolated bar as rain falls; he stops before the inebriated João standing in the doorway and repeats with intensity as he looks directly into the eyes of the protagonist, “ibi soroc” and then what sounds like “terra rasgada” (roughly, torn or cleft land).66 The land—or Brazil, in the fi lm represented by Sorocaba—is damaged, and the fi lm implies that João must fi x it by offering a new way to understand identity. The indigenous man blows white dust on the protagonist as he leaves the bar, and this seems to be what leads to his vision, the catalyst for his spiritual awakening. This little gesture brings the indigenous part of the identity triad in Brazil into play in the fi lm’s definition of Brazilianness but only minimally. The spiritual enlightenment sequence recalls the syncretic Alfredinho story, emphasizes a mixture of umbanda and Afrocentric Catholicism through João’s interactions with orixás and the black Nossa Senhora Aparecida, and fi nally returns to the spirit of Soares. Through these scenes the fi lm compresses much of the essence of the Afrocentric syncretic vision of the national group that it communicates through Camargo’s religious group. Camargo awakens, and Soares arrives and tells him he must build a church and help people: “Come on, get up, Son. Get up! You have a lot to do. You’ll build here a chapel in honor of the Lord of the Bonfi m.”67 The place where João collapsed and hallucinated and wakes now to Soares is the space of the syncretic Alfredinho cross. It is on this spot that the next scene shows Camargo conducting the ceremony through which he founds his church. The juxtaposition of all of Camargo’s chief European and African influences just prior to this moment underscores the syncretic nature of the community he will build. The Afrocentric nature of the syncretism is communicated in part by the protagonist’s characterization of the church during his ceremony as a black church: “Here will be born the black and mysterious Church of the Red Water. In honor of Lord Jesus of the Bonfi m and all the saints. Amen. Founded on water, on rock, and on truth.”68 After the church

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is built and Natalino arrives there from the quilombo bearing a cross, the fi lm reinforces the Afrocentric inclination of the syncretic community by implying that the African associations of the quilombo are being transferred to the religious community that Camargo is forming. As he approaches the church, members of the audience hear Natalino before seeing him as he sings the same song he sang when João first met him outside the quilombo and later in the town when he came there with others from the quilombo. The repetition of the song announces Natalino as the one walking and, since he joins the congregation immediately, suggests that the church inherits the Afro-Brazilian cultural associations of the now faded quilombo. The scene in which the priest, the Juiz, and others criticize Camargo also emphasizes the Afrocentric syncretic nature of his church. The priest claims that their practice is not a religion but rather witchcraft. Because the priest is a clearly nefarious character, his condemnation primarily of the African side of Camargo’s church carries the weight of an endorsement of the church for audience members. The scene following the one in the jail, of the Juiz and the Ministro talking after the opera, widens the implications of the fi lm’s vision of syncretism. The Ministro reinforces the validity of Camargo’s utopian religious protonational group by predicting that the sort of syncretism the protagonist embraces will be the future of Brazil. Juiz: That Carlos Gomes is a fake. I prefer Puccini, Verdi, the masters. Ministro: But why? “O Guarani” is a beautiful opera. Juiz: Sung in Italian? Ministro: Yes, but sung by an Indian, a Brazilian Indian. Juiz: In love with a white woman. Ministro: This is progress, novelty. Indians, as well as blacks, can have noble feelings too. One day all those races will make up a single Brazilian people. Juiz: Your Excellency is a dreamer. Ministro: Have you heard of Allan Kardec, the Frenchman? He is white and claims incorporating spirits is something natural. You are the judge in this district, aren’t you? Juiz: A very zealous and law-abiding judge, Ministro. Ministro: Based on which laws do you keep João de Camargo in jail? Juiz: These blacks want to turn religion into a savage celebration. Ministro: Restrain yourself, Mr. Judge. Obey the order.69

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The Ministro celebrates a biologically and culturally mixed Brazil and does so in part through a spiritual reference, a discourse that coincides with Camargo, whom the Ministro implicates in this discussion by defending him at the end. Notably, at this late stage the fi lm also acknowledges the role in understandings of Brazilianness played by indigenous Brazil. If the discussion among the Juiz, the priest, and others puts on display attacks on Camargo’s brand of syncretism by the white establishment, the jail scene is used by the fi lm to defend the protagonist’s understanding of his religious protonational community from assaults by those who would seek to hierarchize an unadulterated African ethnic social group in Brazil. One of the cell’s occupants says he is going to Aruanda, and Camargo blesses him with European and African religious references. When the aggressive man confronts him for turning his back on the orixás, Camargo justifies his view of cultural combination: Camargo: This is not Africa, Son. There’s an ocean in between. To live here, you must be able to put everything together. Man: Lies, it’s all lies! The slave house was closed, but we still have the jail. Camargo: We’re not slaves and we’ve never been. There are no slaves in the Kingdom of God. There are no chains that capture the soul. And no riches that enlighten.70

Here a man chooses a path of Afrocentrism and separatism. His physical attack on the protagonist alienates his position and suggests by contrast Camargo’s inclusive, syncretic vision. The man who criticizes the protagonist embodies those who would sacrifice harmony among a heterogeneous population because it includes influences from the white oppressors. Camargo, on the other hand, fosters reconciliation. The fi lm rejects an Afrocentric, exclusive defi nition of the national group and delineation of clear ethnic groups combined with low hierarchy for the national group. Camargo is imprisoned by those in power, the white government, and certainly does not defend that social model. Nor does he prescribe the status quo understanding of Brazilianness. Instead, he argues on behalf of the society that he imagines to be possible: a proud and diverse, culturally mixed national community. Camargo’s suggestion to understand the fundamental social phenomenon of slavery and its aftermath through religion indirectly bolsters the way the fi lm is urging a reconsideration of national identity through religious identity. In a scene late in the fi lm, Camargo is alone in the canyon and says

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the following words to himself that underscore what he had told a man in jail: “White and black cannot be separated. We’ve already won and happiness is inevitable. All are the same: life and death .  .  . wake and sleep, young and old. God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace . . . plenty and starvation.”71 Camargo here emphasizes attributes favored in his understanding of the group, such as the importance of interracial harmony. By declaring that they have already triumphed, he goes beyond imagining the unification of the heterogeneous Brazilian population through cultural syncretism. Camargo wills it to be so, not only for his fictional universe in Brazil’s past but also for that of presentday audience members watching the fi lm.

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Chapter Three

Multiple, Provisional, National Identity Models in Quilombo (1984)

The fact that Quilombo is based on historical facts doesn’t mean that it is a movie about history. It is, first of all, a movie. It’s a very specifi c and original way of seeing the world, of seeing reality, of seeing things. Ca r los Di egu e s, w r i t e r a n d di r ector of Qu i lom bo

I

n a be h i n d -t h e -sce n e s docum e n ta ry by R e nata Almeida Magalhães, Quilombo writer and director Carlos Diegues reveals a goal that we can infer from all of the fi lms studied in this book: to redefi ne Brazilian national identity. The epigraph above1 suggests that the object of Quilombo, which recounts the efforts of a maroon community in the Northeast of Brazil to retain autonomy from European colonial powers during the second half of the seventeenth century,2 is not so much to contemplate history as to use a story to help viewers experience “a specific and original way of seeing the world.” The fi lm makes clear that the concrete, revised understanding it offers has much to do with Brazilianness. As with the other fi lms, I see in Quilombo an intent to model persuasively, in a historically remote setting, a new way that present-day Brazilian audience members can understand the national category of their social identities. What Quilombo projects is an alternative way of seeing Brazil at the time the fi lm was released. Diegues says in the documentary, “Quilombo is a movie about utopia.”3 Coinciding with the other fi lms I consider in these chapters, the possible, idealized nation that Quilombo proposes that viewers embrace as a guide for how they each think about Brazil is Afrocentric. However, that protonation is also ethnically, racially, and religiously inclusive. One of the characteristics that distinguish Quilombo from the other

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fi lms I examine in this book has to do with the role the fi lm assigns to its protagonists in its redefi nition of national identity and in the call for viewers to embrace that vision. The fi lms that I study in other chapters tend to emphasize that their protagonists are enduring. Often they do this to highlight the present-day relevance of the figures. Quilombo, in contrast, for the most part suggests that the population of Palmares—the protonational Brazilian community that it postulates—is what has lasting value.4 All of the fi lms potentially change ideas about the national group by way of the relationships they encourage between members of the audience and the protagonists, but a presumption in this one appears to be that a lasting change in the minds of viewers cannot depend exclusively or even primarily on continuing recollection of the characters and qualities they embody. As we have seen, Cafundó and Aleijadinho tether their prospects of durable change in viewer social identity to continuing and reverent recollection of a single protagonist through which the fi lms defi ne Brazilianness. Though Quilombo shows some signs of this strategy, especially with regard to Zumbi, one of the leaders of Palmares, the fi lm gradually shifts cinematic-self status from one character to another and toward the end makes a point of indicating that the continuing embrace of the ideas embodied by the cinematic selves among those of the community can remain independent from the protagonists or their status in the minds of the population of Palmares as Brazil. One of my chief interests, then, in the following pages is Quilombo’s rotating, temporary, national metaphors or cinematic selves alongside its salient, enduring, possible, national community and how these tactics collaborate in compiling the fi lm’s defi nition of Brazil. Before moving on to those dynamics, I address the two other principal elements in the way this fi lm, like the others, redefi nes national identity in a potentially persuasive way: tying the past to the present and hierarchizing the fi lm’s version of the national population.

A Prou d, A f r ica n, a n d Con t e m por a ry Br a zi l Quilombo’s musical soundtrack and extranarrative elements such as opening and closing intertitles play fundamental roles in underscoring the present-day relevance of the temporally distant story the fi lm tells, communicating that the fi lm is about Brazil—more specifically, contemporary Brazil—and delineating the extension of the fi lm’s ideal protonational community, or those it highlights as prototypical members. The opening credits do much of the work to establish the link be-

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F igu r e 3.1. As Gilberto Gil’s theme song for Ganga Zumba plays, Palmares residents dance to the extradiegetic music.

tween the past depicted in the fi lm and the present of the audience and to alert viewers that the fi lm is about Brazil and Brazilianness. The fi lm’s writer-director and its producer are briefly listed over a black background and accompanied by the muted sounds of birds chirping, and then the fi lm cuts to a dark silhouette of a mountain backed by an unnaturally red sky. The instrumental part of the fi lm’s title song begins as we see this long intertitle: The fi rst Europeans to arrive in Brazil in 1500, the Portuguese brought blacks from Africa to work enslaved on the sugar plantations, the colony’s greatest wealth. Absolute masters of life and death of their slaves, the white owners subjected them to forced labor without rest and punished and tortured them, often fatally. Some slaves, however, escaped and hid in the virgin interior of the country, forming free communities called “quilombos.” The most famous of these was the “Quilombo of Palmares,” founded at the end of the sixteenth century in the northeast of Brazil.5

The opening intertitle’s contextualization of the story to be told helps lay the foundation to give primacy to a revised version of the national group. It mentions Brazil twice, thus drawing attention to the national category of identity. At the same time it provides the fi rst hint

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that it will offer up a revised understanding of the nation by juxtaposing that geographical and political space with another, Palmares, the fi lm’s protonation. The text underscores slavery and race as a means to anticipate how the fi lm will revise an ideal extension of the national community. Like Aleijadinho, from the start the fi lm stresses an opposition between whites and blacks—Portuguese white owners versus black slaves—through repetition. It contrasts the suffering of the blacks and the cruelty of the whites, the absolute masters of life and death who subjected the blacks to labor without rest and who punished and tortured them. Perhaps most importantly, it associates the white slave owners with Portugal and the black slaves with Brazil. Merely contrasting Brazil with Portugal would tend to make the national category of viewers’ social identity—their membership in the Brazilian national social group— more salient. However, the fi lm goes further by aligning Brazilian viewers with the slaves and thus starting to place Afro-descendant people, exemplified in the narrative by the community of Palmares, at the center of the fi lm’s revised extension of the national group. The group the text treats as national representatives, the slaves, are suffering as a result of the actions of the outgroup; slavery evokes an ingroup threat, which also would tend to increase the relative importance of the Africanized, protonational group within the social identities of members. After the intertitle, the fi lm’s title appears and along with it the title song, “Quilombo, the Black El Dorado” (“Quilombo, o eldorado negro”). Here are the lyrics sung at this point: In Brazil a black El Dorado grew. In Brazil when freedom’s sun fl ashed through There glowed a light divine, Olorum’s fiery sun. A utopia was reborn, one for all and all for one. Quilombo, all built, while saints dispelled all fears. Quilombo, washed in the water of so many tears. Quilombo, built of love and toil untiring. Quilombo, which even now, all of us desire so greatly. In Brazil a black El Dorado grew.6

In terms of the proposed extension of the Brazilian group, the references in this song to blackness and to the orixá Olorum underline the centrality of Afro-descendant people in the fi lm’s vision of the nation. This song ties the topic of the fi lm not just to a revised understanding of the nation but to contemporary Brazil and plants the idea that audience

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members already recognize the analogy through the verses describing the quilombo even now so greatly desired. What is more, these lines suggest that the population at the time the movie came out already longed to embrace what Palmares stands for, a new definition and extension of the national group. In general, the musical part of the soundtrack plays an extraordinarily important role in this fi lm. Diegues says as much in the DVD liner notes: “Without any doubt, Quilombo became a true musical once this soundtrack was recorded.”7 Gilberto Gil’s recognizable, modern arrangements help tie past to present, and the lyrics often clarify ideas to which the narrative part of the fi lm only allude. For example, the link between the fi lm’s Afrocentric political and cultural utopia and the present-day Brazilian nation is implicit in the story told, but the lyrics in Gil’s soundtrack plainly declare the connection. As we will see, the lyrics in Quilombo’s soundtrack advance all five communicative elements in the slavery fi lms I study in this book. The songs connect past to present, hierarchize the national category of viewer social identities, portray protagonists as metaphors of the nation and the population, stimulate identification with certain characters so that they can act as models of social identity, and articulate the fi lm’s revised defi nition of Brazilianness. The soundtrack in this way primes and reinforces much of the narrative’s communicative strategy. The chief way Quilombo associates the past portrayed and the viewers’ present is through Gilberto Gil’s modern-sounding, extradiegetic songs, which predominate over music produced by characters within the world of the fi lm.8 In a 1986 interview in the journal Cineaste, Diegues commented on the role of music in bridging past and present in Quilombo: “Insomuch as I was not interested in just looking at the past, I was trying to come up with a soundtrack that could comment on the images. The images are in the past; the soundtrack is in the present. I would even dare to say that the music is the real teller of the story” (14). The fi lm enhances the transhistorical fusion that the soundtrack consistently suggests by dissolving the barrier that distinguishes the world of the narrative from the context of contemporary Brazil rather than merely juxtaposing these spheres. Zumbi’s homecoming to the quilombo from which he was seized as a boy illustrates this technique. As the young man struggles to reach Palmares by ascending a steep cliff, the instrumental opening of the theme song of another Palmares leader, Ganga Zumba, begins. Audience members hear the fi rst lyrics sung by Gilberto Gil as the fi lm cuts to the populated center of Palmares with dozens of its residents dancing to this modern, extradiegetic song (figure 3.1). More than the

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standard syncing of a musical soundtrack in some way with the action, in this case the characters actually hear and dance to Gil, thus opening a historical passageway that in effect constitutes an invitation for viewers to recognize the interconnectedness of their context and the historical one portrayed. A similar if less radical intersection of the soundtrack and the action takes place when Zumbi prepares for war to avenge the killing of Acaiuba, one of the most prominent residents of Palmares. A shot of Zumbi’s burning lance cuts to a close-up of his face as he screams on the battlefield. Rather than the synchronous sound of the protagonist’s voice as he opens his mouth, audience members hear the long, opening vocal note of Zumbi’s own theme song, “Zumbi (A felicidade guerreira)” (The warrior’s joy), as if Gil’s voice were emanating from the mouth of Zumbi. The protagonist is not uncannily aware of the soundtrack as were the people dancing in the earlier scene in Palmares, although the fi lm does once again perpetrate a relatively unusual incursion into the realm of the narrative here. The fi lm’s playful and inauthentic intermingling of past and present in Ganga Zumba’s theme song opens up space for the fi lm to adopt a liberal take on realism and, in line with this perspective, to freely reshape understandings of national identity. Far from indulging in an illusion of historical authenticity, the role of the song as well as Quilombo’s bold and stylized makeup and costumes clear the way for strategic rewritings of the past. The closing credits inform viewers of the attempt to secure license in depicting events: “Research loosely inspired by the books Palmares, a guerra dos escravos (Palmares, war of the slaves), an essay by Décio Freitas, and Ganga Zumba, a novel by João Felício dos Santos.”9 Simultaneously, the credits importantly emphasize that research was done, even if one of the sources was a novel, and that the story is grounded in a historical figure who likely already resided in the memories of viewers before they saw the fi lm. Such a tactic tends to legitimize the story told. The dual message of the credits thus enacts the potentially effective push and pull that I have characterized in terms of the strategic commingling of history and legend and that here we might see as authorization alongside transfiguration. The fi lm follows up on the first steps taken in the opening intertitle and the soundtrack to Africanize persuasively the prototypical national group member. The initial image of the main narrative is an extreme long shot of two dilapidated buildings onto which another, shorter intertitle is projected as audience members hear the screams of a suffering man: “1650—a sugar mill, Pernambuco, during the Luso-Dutch War.”10

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Like the opening text, this lends authority to a narrative that will sometimes conspicuously and strategically depart from realism. Quilombo grounds the tale it is starting to tell in historical specificity, in a concrete time and place. The fi lm then cuts to a medium shot of the back of a kneeling man being tortured, blood streaming down his back. A subsequent long shot frames the torture on the left, an older black woman holding a baby in the middle, and an obese white woman to the right alongside a pregnant black woman. The white slave owner reads an instruction manual that explains how to torture slaves presumably without killing them. As she speaks the fi lm intersperses among other shots close-ups of the face of the black slave to her side, Gongoba, who audience members will learn is the mother of Zumbi, with whom she is pregnant at this moment, as she looks toward the scene of suffering and silently cries. The white woman continues to read, and we see a long shot of a white boy sitting on the back of a black dwarf, placing further emphasis on the general context of callous exploitation and indifference introduced here. After the slave dies from the torture, the white woman epitomizes cruelty and insensitivity by expressing anger that the slave dared to die; Gongoba rubs her belly and continues to weep and gaze at the dead man in the rack. Perhaps the fi lm implies here that the man who has just expired is the father of Zumbi or at least someone close to Gongoba or maybe that the woman is imagining the sort of life that awaits her child. This scene reinforces the priming done in the opening intertitle in relation to confi rming, through opposition and ingroup threat, that the slaves are the group with whom Brazilian viewers should feel aligned and to making salient the national category of the social identities of audience members. The likely indignation in the face of such oppression constitutes an ethical alignment between audience members and AfroBrazilians generally and the mother of the future leader of Palmares specifically. This reaction would tend to consolidate the sense that the slaves are worthy and central stand-ins for the national population and to plant the seed of Zumbi being embraced as one of the most important proxies for the people. Nonetheless, it is important to note that although the fi lm suggests that Brazilian Afro-descendants form the core of the utopic social group, the composition of that protonational group extends to others as well. The fi rst shot in the fi lm of Ganga Zumba is a close-up of him in a field holding an overseer in a headlock from behind who we will soon learn was beating to death an elderly slave. The overseer is also black, which tweaks the extension of a postulated social group. The ideal, pro-

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tonational community is not determined by being Brazilian and black but by being good, even if blackness is indeed favored. We see here that the internal outgroupers are diverse racially. The fi lm quickly makes the point that the utopic national group the fi lm is postulating and the group of Afro-descendant Brazilians do not overlap entirely. The fi lm emphasizes that some of those who fall outside the boundaries of the group extension are black. This elevates the nation by putting greater emphasis on the emerging protonational community and less on the racial or ethnic one. What will emerge instead as important within the new group is not so much blackness but the issue of oppression, specifically the commitment of the oppressed to achieving freedom, realizing group consolidation and power, and not becoming oppressors themselves. After their uprising Ganga Zumba and the other escaped slaves encounter a homesteading Jew and his indigenous wife and their children during their trip to Palmares in a scene that also does its part to call attention to Brazil. During their conversation, the man says that if he is kicked off the land, which he does not own, he will simply find another piece of land, declaring that “Brazil is very big.”11 Brazil is evoked here in a way that often is associated with patriotism, such as in the national anthem lyrics, some of which are sung diegetically in Cafundó. In the scene with the Jewish settler and his family, however, the attitude toward Brazil is not patriotic. Pride in a space and in a population is reserved for Palmares. Shortly after leaving the family, Gongoba gives birth to Zumbi. When a man shows up to lead them to Palmares, Ganga Zumba cries out “Palmares!” and audience members see a closeup of his hands holding Zumbi up to the sky. Ganga Zumba arrives in Palmares and has an audience with Acotirene, the leader of the community; here he draws attention two times not just to the place and political entity of Palmares but to the people (“o povo”) of Palmares, thus encouraging Brazilian viewers to contemplate specifically the group itself. These scenes together constitute an important strategy in the fi lm: fi rst they evoke Brazil for the audience, making the national category of their social identities more salient; second, the scenes promote what will emerge as a protonational group, the population of Palmares, even if the narrative itself does not openly make that connection. Once viewers infer the link between Palmares and what Brazil could be and by extension appreciate a vicarious membership in the group as a result, each time Quilombo emphasizes Palmares it also elevates and refi nes an understanding of the Brazilian national community. In this way, the fi lm gradually encourages viewers to embrace its revised definition of Brazilianness. At key moments Quilombo reminds viewers that its referents are mod-

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ern Brazil and national identity. Shortly after Zumbi’s arrival to Palmares, for example, he walks around the village and witnesses and stops to contemplate the ostensible invention of soccer. The presence of an activity that many already would consider an essential attribute of Brazilianness elevates the national category of viewers’ social identities and solidifies the link between Palmares and the national context of the audience. The soundtrack makes complementary contributions, such as in the song “Zumbi,” which corresponds to Zumbi’s vengeful rampage following the funeral of Acaiuba. The song hierarchizes Brazil and the modern period by evoking a twentieth-century national commonplace, samba schools, in “the dancing of the samba leader” (“o sapateado do mestre-escola de samba”).12 The lyrics call attention explicitly to the Brazil of the present-day narrative voice and manifest as an affective and functional disposition toward the country. These last verses are heard a second time, in the closing moments of the fi lm, thus driving home the importance of Brazil and underscoring the fi lm’s assertion of Zumbi’s relevance in that context. Gil’s song characterizes today’s Brazil as a space of comfort and refuge but also implies that the population remains enslaved and that freedom and safety are enhanced through the influence of this figure from the past. In relation to the overarching effects of the fi lm, these concluding lines remind viewers that the fi lm has defi ned for them a Brazil in which they can believe. Pride in Brazil has been encouraged—but even more than that, pride in the proto-Brazil that Palmares represents. While the verses of Zumbi’s theme song are sung for the second time, a fi nal intertitle appears on the screen that underlines the link between Palmares and the future nation. The text refers to the inability of the Portuguese “to exterminate Palmares completely” (“exterminar completamente com Palmares”), which endorses the fi lm’s protonation by recalling the opposition of the Portuguese and the Brazilians as well as an ongoing threat to the group. The reference to the impossibility of exterminating Palmares suggests durability, which can be seen as alluding to the eventual convergence of the quilombo with what Brazil will be. As the credits roll, the song with which the fi lm began, “Quilombo, the Black El Dorado,” returns and reinforces—through lines about Brazil’s desirability among its people and “Quilombo, now, yes, you and I”13— the connection between past and present and the assertion of Palmares’s durability that the intertitle and Zumbi’s song have offered. Throughout the fi lm and especially after it has had ample time to establish the analogy between Palmares and Brazil, the assertion of the durability of Quilombo’s protonation participates in elevating the com-

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munity. Ganga Zumba returns from Recife with the Portuguese king’s proposal for peace in return for displacement of his people to Cucau, and a comment by Dandara, a woman who is one of the chief members of the Palmares group, is meant to provoke pride in Palmares by recalling the resilience of the community up to that point: “Palmares is still here!”14 Toward the end of the fi lm, Zumbi visits Acotirene in a dream at night after the fi rst day of battle with Domingos Jorge Velho, a paramilitary leader from São Paulo who is sponsored by the colonial government in Recife. Acotirene says to Zumbi in the dream, “Palmares is eternal. Palmares will never end. Never!”15 And during the second day of battle, the specter of Ganga Zumba echoes the other former leader’s words when he says, “Palmares will live forever even without us.”16 The fi lm complements its use of durability with other techniques of nationalization—opposability, saliency, functionality, and affectivity— that converge in making viewers more conscious of the national category of their social identities and often encouraging them to feel especially concerned about national group membership vis-à-vis other groups, such as their particular religious or ethnic affiliations. For instance, a little more than halfway through the fi lm Ganga Zumba poisons himself in Cucau in order to rally his people so they might rejoin Zumbi in Palmares; his act calls to mind several of the nationalization techniques. The calculated reaction of Ana de Ferro, a white woman who joined the Palmares community—“The people of Palmares are no longer divided. The people of Palmares are united again!”17—lays bare the outcome that Ganga Zumba and she desire and achieve. They hope that the death of the leader of Palmares will appeal affectively to the people who witness it and increase their attachment to the group he represents. Because Ganga Zumba and Ana have colluded in attributing the poisoning to a visiting military representative of the governor, the protonational community is promoted by the impression of ingroup threat and the reminder of the opposition between the Palmares ingroup and the Portuguese colonial outgroup. Finally, Ana’s exclamation after the fact reminds the citizens present of the superordinate group of Palmares, at that time divided between those who remained in Palmares with Zumbi after rejecting the Portuguese monarch’s offer for official manumission and those who accepted it and left for Cucau with Ganga Zumba. Behind Ana and Ganga Zumba’s plan is a recognition of the functional benefit of group consolidation, their only chance of resisting the colonial efforts to dissolve their community. She clarifies this for the people with a declaration that additionally makes Palmares more salient. To the degree that viewers recog-

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nize analogies between Palmares and Brazil and between the citizens of Palmares and those of modern Brazil, this scene presumably would have a similar effect: the hierarchization of Quilombo’s revised, protonational community. Near the conclusion of the fi lm Dandara perpetrates a comparable sacrifice, though with slightly different connotations. Domingos Jorge Velho’s conquering force corners her and a man at the edge of the cliff that Zumbi previously triumphantly scaled; rather than surrender, they choose to jump to their deaths. Their act pays tribute to a fundamental attribute assigned to Palmares that Zumbi articulated when he declared, “Only those who fear death will become slaves again.”18 The values of Palmares, this scene implies, are worth dying for. Dandara’s demise reminds viewers yet again of the cruelty and threat of the outgroup. The revised Brazil that this community represents, therefore, is elevated through affectivity and opposability. The fi nal scene of the fi lm returns to a similar approach to nationalization with the representation of the death of Zumbi, the fi lm’s other main conduit for influencing understandings of identity. Domingos Jorge Velho’s men surround Zumbi, who had escaped wounded the previous night from the scene of a battle, and shoot him along with others; the mortally wounded protagonist screams and throws his spear to the sky. The fi lm then cuts to the same strange, red sky that appeared during the opening credits, a visual recollection that reinforces the ideas primed during the opening moments of the fi lm; among these are the connection between past and present and the promotion of the national social group. The visual reinforcement complements Zumbi’s death at the hands of Portugal’s representative that like the death of Ganga Zumba would tend to make the national community for which he stands more salient and valued through an affective reaction and the opposition between the cruel Portuguese and innocent citizens of Palmares and Brazil put on display here. Quilombo elevates the protonational category of identity perhaps most often by underscoring ingroup-outgroup differences. Patrick Hogan includes highlighting the differences within the technique of nationalization that he calls opposability. Forty minutes into the fi lm, Fernão Carri lho and his small army, who have been contracted by local plantation owners to do battle with Palmares, seek out Ganga Zumba to strike a deal to not attack. They reach an agreement to give Carrilho gold in exchange for arms and his promise to not wage war on Palmares. The fi lm contrasts the bellicose people of colonial Brazil with the protonational group to the distinct advantage of the latter. Their encoun-

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ter contributes to revising the extension of that group. In the first scene they meet, and the opposability derives from Carrilho, who comes off as somewhat frivolous. Shortly after this scene, the fi lm fortifies the opposability suggested in Carrilho’s fi rst meeting with the people of Palmares. The plantation owners, having discovered the officer’s ruse, ask for proof that Carrilho has truly conquered the maroon community. They travel to the area, where the officer attempts to perpetuate his lie by killing the fi rst Palmarense he sees, Acaiuba. His cruel act elevates the protonational community by making clear the distinction between the faultless people of Palmares and the evil others. The fi lm’s elevation of the protonational group is reinforced variously in the second half of the fi lm through the continuing threat to Palmares from the attacks of Domingos Jorge Velho, an internal outgrouper. A particularly poignant use of this nationalizing tactic, which recalls Carri lho’s killing of Acaiuba, occurs the night after the first day of battle when Domingos Jorge Velho executes several slaves whom he suspects of spying for Zumbi. The slaves are tied to the fronts of cannons, and as the cannons are fi red, viewers see a medium shot of Zumbi and two men flanking him, the former with a determined gaze and the latter with horrified looks on their faces. This shot affectively aligns viewers with these three men, inviting those watching the fi lm to share their emotions. Viewer alignment with these members of the community and its leader confi rms once again the proposal to understand Palmares as analogous to modern Brazil and viewers as members of the same group. The horror and related reminder of threat that audience members experience vicariously help to extol Palmares and the possible Brazil that it represents. The fi lm uses the opportunity of scenes highlighting opposability to nuance the revised extension of the possible national community proposed through Palmares. One key example is the scene in which Carrilho negotiates the truce with Ganga Zumba. Several white people, including Ana de Ferro, declare that they would like to join the community of Palmares, while a black soldier decides to stay with Carrilho. They model for audience members, and in particular the white ones who might recognize an ethnic or racial social identity alignment with the white group joining Palmares, the possibility of finding Palmares and the community to be particularly valuable. In the few moments in which those present discuss the defection to Palmares, it becomes clear that the four leaving Carrilho are good and willing to contribute to life in Palmares, while the black man staying with the mercenary manifests undesirable qualities, namely his demand to retain Ana as his property,

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which Ganga Zumba rejects. In this way the fi lm complements its ingroup-outgroup distinction with a confirmation that the extension of the Palmares group is multiracial and that inclusion depends primarily on one’s character. Quilombo hierarchizes here a heterogeneous and Afrocentric Brazil. The understanding of who belongs in this protonation is reinforced during Acaiuba’s funeral when one of the white Portuguese men from Carri lho’s party and an indigenous man participate, the former dancing and the latter playing an instrument. Their overlap in terms of practical identity—the knowledge and abilities that contribute to one’s selfconcept—mark their membership in the Palmares group. Quilombo perhaps implies that their ceremonial participation may even help to cement in their minds the modification of their social identities. In a subsequent scene Ganga Zumba has just arrived in Cucau, meets with the soldier representing the governor, and begins to realize that the new arrivals lack the promised freedom in this new place; the situation makes explicit the fi lm’s inclusive revised extension of the Palmares community. He insists to the soldier that the indigenous people and whites must stay with them in Cucau, that they are “our brothers” and “the same as us.”19 His stated position reinforces the gestures earlier regarding inclusion and diversity. The converse of Quilombo’s description of what Brazil could look like is its attention to what it should avoid or, the fi lm might be implying, undesirable aspects of the Brazil of 1984. In the shots after Acaiuba’s funeral we see Zumbi killing the black man who works with the Portuguese and claimed Ana for his own. As in Cafundó and Aleijadinho, the positively portrayed ingroups and the negatively portrayed outgroups have members from different races or ethnicities. The comparison to Cafundó is particularly germane. It and Quilombo contrast a remote ingroup space, Camargo’s church and Palmares, respectively, with an external outgroup space, Sorocaba and Recife; the ingroup spaces contain the revised extension of the proposed national group and the outgroup spaces the raw Brazilian demographic foundation from which the new group draws. With regard to the extension of the fi lm’s possible Brazil, the nonPalmares residents—those in power within Brazil as it was/is—are more relevant than the Portuguese outgroupers. The new Palmares residents of Brazil dominate a flawed national community, but with respect to Palmares, a microcosm of a utopic Brazil, they represent internal outgroupers, people who could potentially be part of the new nation but at this point are unworthy. When Domingos Jorge Velho arrives

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with his army, its diverse composition—black soldiers, a woman who may be perceived as the descendant of Europeans and indigenous people, many white, poor-looking soldiers—confirms that race is not what distinguishes one group from the other. Here we have a confrontation between the Afrocentric but diverse Palmares and the Eurocentric and diverse exterior. As we will see, the proposed extension of its protonational community that I have reviewed above are inextricable from the understanding of that group that Quilombo favors or, in other words, the fi lm’s proposed defi nition of national identity.

Se lli ng a n d Speci f y i ng t h e F i lm’s Nat iona l M eta phors Next I examine how Quilombo positions select characters as stand-ins for both the national population and the protonation that the fi lm proposes. I also consider how the fi lm encourages viewer identification with the various stand-ins for the nation and the defi nition of identity that emerges through the national representatives. Quilombo regularly rotates among various characters the role of national stand-in. Sometimes the fi lm allows more than one of the protagonists to share this stature simultaneously. Other times it spotlights

F igu r e 3.2. Zumbi is saluted with spears by citizens of Palmares.

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F igu r e 3.3. Citizens of Palmares show reverence for Ganga Zumba after he has won a battle.

how a character diverges sufficiently from the attributes of Palmares to lose viability as a proxy for the community. Although the fi lm casts other characters in some ways as stand-ins for the protonation, Ganga Zumba and to a somewhat greater extent Zumbi are special cases. The soundtrack makes the distinction of the two characters plain. The most important songs in terms of lyrics are “Quilombo, o eldorado negro,” “Ganga Zumba (O poder da buginganga),” and “Zumbi (A felicidade guerreira),” which suggests the prominence of the two men with regard to the quilombo, the space and political entity that the fi lm associates with the nation. Nonetheless, as we will see, Quilombo pointedly deemphasizes the metaphorical association of individuals with the nation even as it uses the tactic to strategic advantage, thus creating a degree of tension, especially in the concluding minutes. When one character or another embodies or advocates for favored attributes of the utopic national group that the fi lm has encouraged audience members to consider an analog of their own, such as resistance to oppression or racial tolerance or social equity, the fi lm can be understood to propose viewer alignment with the character. Depending on the extent to which the attitudes and beliefs of the viewer already coincided with those of the surrogate national community offered by the fi lm, he or she might identify with a protagonist in terms of social iden-

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tity, ethics, or ideology. With some exceptions and nuances, the fi lms that I study in the book typically expend much energy in promoting identification with only one character through these and other sorts of alignment. In contrast, Quilombo systematically encourages and then discourages identification with its protagonists inasmuch as their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors coincide with what the community of Palmares esteems and therefore what the fi lm urges members of the audience to esteem. The fi lm shifts from older to younger the chief champions of the core values of the protonational community, the characters most likely to garner identification among viewers. The conspicuous adoption of favored attributes by the younger character normally accompanies the manifestation by the older character of what would be for Palmares degraded standards. Quilombo implies that the younger generations have the appropriate solutions. Those solutions involve fighting, not compromising or dithering, as the leaders are shown to do as they grow older. Here, as in Cafundó, the proposal is clearly one of renewal: only apart from the political and physical confi nes of the existing power structure can a utopia be crafted. Outside the boundaries of the Brazilian republic in Cafundó and beyond the reach of Portuguese colonial rule in Quilombo, the fi lms essay a fresh, possible nation and reject political compromise and transformation of established structures. Quilombo associates such a strategy with youth and encourages audience members to privilege and embrace a youthful disposition. Ganga Zumba embodies the younger generation vis-à-vis Acotirene. Earlier as well he represents forward-thinking youths when he leads the rebellious slaves to the quilombo, while the older Aroroba rallies some freed slaves to return to Africa. Although Ganga Zumba represents the more progressive leader compared to Acotirene, he later comes to occupy, with fi nal and fatal regret, the role of the older, misguided ruler in relation to Zumbi. Zumbi retains throughout his cinematically portrayed life the same youthful, bellicose associations, while upon his death he too passes the responsibility for embodying a resistant identity to the next generation. The new leader is Camuanga, a young man who appears toward the end and, a text at the end declares, continues to fight for years, until his own death. The fi lm thus models the gradual and ultimately lasting adoption by the protonational community of a definition of Brazilianness most consistently but not exclusively embodied by Zumbi and characterized in part by uncompromising resistance to oppression as well as by other qualities. These favored attributes of Brazilianness that the youthful leaders of the fi lm’s protonational community

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embrace also include Afrocentrism with some amount of cultural syncretism and inclusiveness of diverse ethnic, racial, and religious groups. It is worth noting that even as the fi lm passes from leader to leader its most powerful endorsement, it reserves respect for all the leaders and their values even as their currency fades. Similar to the strategic relevance of the role of the soundtrack and the intertitles at the beginning of the fi lm in tying past to present and in giving primacy to the national category of social identity, these elements anticipate and reinforce the defi nition of the nation that Quilombo offers through its protagonists. The paragraph before the opening scene anticipates, for example, how the fi lm will present its possible Brazil in a remote space in the “virgin interior of the country,”20 separate from the colonial power structure. This characterization of the region of Palmares has distinct rhetorical advantages. The description of the interior area of the country as virgin suggests mutability. It casts Palmares as a national tabula rasa and in this way prepares viewers for the redefinition the fi lm will carry out in that context. The intertitle then begins to specify freedom as one of the favored attributes of the protonational community in forming quilombos made up of free people. The fi lm’s title song, which plays during the opening credits, continues to outline the values that the fi lm will favor in presenting a vision of national identity: liberty and divinity, “freedom’s sun” and “a light divine”; collaboration, “utopia, one for all and all for one”; willingness to sacrifice for an ideal, “washed in the water of so many tears”; love, “built of love”; bellicosity in defense of the ideal, “toil untiring”; and the centrality of Afro-Brazilian culture, “Olorum’s fiery sun” and “a black El Dorado.” The intertitle and the opening song contribute to ensuring that what is suggested about the fi lm’s protonational group through the characters and their stories will be well understood by audience members. Because of the interconnections among the characters and the changing parts they play in the fi lm’s overall national redefi nition—gradual and interrelated ways that the fi lm associates various characters with Palmares/Brazil and provokes varied cinematic-self relationships with them among viewers—the remainder of the analysis is chronological. The fi rst scene of the fi lm, in which Gongoba, pregnant with Zumbi, watches as a white woman orders the torture of a man who eventually dies, initiates the process of proposing the future leader of Palmares as a sometimes model for viewer self-concept. The patent cruelty of the slave owner aligns viewers ethically with her victims. The opening scene without delay puts audience members on the side of the slaves gener-

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ally and the unnamed victim, Gongoba, and the unborn Zumbi specifically. The fi lm will build on this beginning of ethical alignment with Zumbi, often showing him exposed to flagrant injustice and later mercilessly combating it. The combination of plot and characterization enhances identification with him among viewers who share his interpretation of injustice as well as the preferred reaction to it. Since Zumbi will be cast as one of the metaphors of Palmares and its people, his engagement with injustice will also participate in sketching resistance, a key attribute of the community. Together, viewer identification with the protagonist and his intimate association with the protonation combine to cast him as a possible cinematic self for Brazilian members of the audience, a model for how to understand the national category among the social identities. In general, Quilombo looks more to ethical alignment than to other identification-producing tools. With respect to the fi lm’s recommended alignment with and allegiance toward certain characters or the population of Palmares as a whole and, in some cases, casting of characters as cinematic selves, Quilombo depends less than some other fi lms on visual alignment, such as is achieved through point-of-view shots. Nonetheless, there are some early, salient examples of visual alignment. Somewhat more common but still not predominant within the fi lm’s identification strategies is the tactic of lending the viewer access to the private moments of the favorably portrayed characters, which implies epistemological alignment, a viewer knowing what a character knows. Often, even if a bit less, viewers share private moments with the unfavorably portrayed characters too, which also involves epistemic alignment. Audience members may experience motivational alignment, or being privy to the negative characters’ motives. Such approximations of the audience members to the antagonists of the people of Palmares do not seek to reduce allegiance toward the heroes of the fi lm. On the contrary, typically such tactics give access to nefarious motives and provide knowledge of dastardly plans, which indirectly enhance a positive disposition toward Palmares. Following the torture scene the fi lm introduces viewers to Ganga Zumba and begins to establish him as a leader among people who were already and will be citizens of Palmares, and through him Quilombo contributes to introducing the group values that it will continually celebrate. Ganga Zumba kills the overseer in the fi rst moments of the scene, and one man calls into question what he has done and recommends that he consider the consequences. Ganga Zumba explains to the slaves gathered there that the man had been about to kill the elderly Aroroba,

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thus implying that in his view his own action was just and necessary. As he speaks, a deep-focus long shot centers the protagonist; behind him stand other slaves, all looking at Ganga Zumba; in front of him, partially visible at the right side of the frame, is the man who questions Ganga Zumba’s action. We share the perspective of the skeptic, and he and the ones behind all model rapt attention to Ganga Zumba, though perhaps the fi lm does not yet suggest that their attention is characterized by reverence. At this point, while viewers might feel an ethical alignment with Ganga Zumba for showing compassion for Aroroba and a willingness to defend those weaker than he, the man who questions him and with whom viewers are briefly aligned visually is apparently not convinced. This framing may help to engage audience members who are inclined toward ethical alignment with the cautious observer. The man insists that Ganga Zumba will suffer for his actions. While viewer attention is on the protagonist, he proposes that they flee. He invites the people in this way to follow and embrace an ideal, part of the definition of the Palmares community that has been emerging since the intertitle— the fight for freedom. Ganga Zumba looks around at the others and says, smiling, “We could run away.”21 He initiates the move toward the space associated with liberty, among other characteristics. The skeptical man seems intrigued and asks, “Run where?”22 The fi nal shot of this scene documents a shift in the attitudes of this eventual partial cross-section of the community of Palmares. Now a medium shot shows Ganga Zumba looking around at the men fanned out around and behind him. All of the men continue to focus their gazes on Ganga Zumba as he says, pensively, “Maybe if we joined forces.”23 Their disposition models reverence toward him for viewers, even those initially disinclined toward ethical alignment with the protagonist, and the men’s attitude alludes to acceptance of him as a leader. This shot crystallizes typical steps in the process of proposing a character as a cinematic self for viewers. To the extent that Ganga Zumba will be represented as a metaphor of the community of Palmares when he becomes its leader, this scene begins to suggest that some of the treasured characteristics of the protonational group are unity, resistance, and violence in service of a cause. And to the extent that audience members will embrace Ganga Zumba as a cinematic self, his actions guide them to incorporate such attributes into their understanding of the Brazilian national category of their social identities. The scene that follows reinforces Ganga Zumba’s consolidating leadership among the group that will soon escape from the plantation to Palmares and the values that will define that group. Ganga Zumba ap-

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parently organizes the ambush of the group of white soldiers arriving after having attacked Palmares and taken several captives. The leader of the soldiers is talking to the plantation owner, who is accompanied by Dandara; she is now a slave but will become one of the most influential members of Palmares. Until Zumbi comes of age later in the fi lm, Ganga Zumba plays the role of the youthful flag bearer of the bellicose ideals of Palmares. After the ambush has begun, he appears in a long shot from the perspective of the battling slaves. This shot recalls the one in which audience members see from the point of view of the skeptic, but here viewers share the perspective of the battling slaves as Ganga Zumba merrily challenges the leader of Santa Rita, the plantation. Once again, the fi lm visually aligns audience members with those who would become the subjects of Ganga Zumba as he carries out a violent rebellion to achieve freedom for the community he leads. Regardless of the point of view from which we see his act of revolt, those who find it justified would experience ethical alignment with him. Taking into account the perspective of the shot, viewers might also undergo affective alignment with those who owe their safety to the leadership of Ganga Zumba and as a result vicariously feel allegiance toward the protagonist. In the rebellion scene the fi lm begins to share with other characters the role of cinematic self that it has been initiating with Ganga Zumba. Dandara, who will throughout the fi lm be one of Palmares’s strongest leaders, arrives with the soldiers as one of the slaves of the leader of Santa Rita. We fi rst see her when the Dutch are marching a few captives they took from Palmares through Santa Rita’s cane fields. The owner of Santa Rita fi nds himself confronted by Ganga Zumba outside the main battle and calls to Dandara for his sword. The camera frames her from Ganga Zumba’s perspective as she grabs the sword and walks with determination toward the landowner. The fi lm then shows Ganga Zumba in a medium shot as he smiles, enchanted, and says with reverence and apparent desire, “Dandara.” The fi lm then cuts to a medium shot of Dandara entering the frame from the right as she walks toward her owner with the sword drawn and, with calm resolution, runs him through. The camera moves in closer to her as she watches the man fall and looks up decidedly to Ganga Zumba. Beforehand the fi lm had urged respect for Ganga Zumba by aligning audience members with those he leads and by highlighting worthy actions. Here the fi lm exploits any allegiance viewers might feel for the protagonist in order to enhance reverence toward Dandara, who participates in this scene in similarly rebellious actions. The mutually respectful exchange of glances with Ganga Zumba as she kills her owner approximates her to viewers and suggests

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to them that she too is worthy of emulation. As the fi lm progresses, it casts Dandara as another of several models for how audience members might understand the national category of their social identities. While Dandara reinforces the association of armed resistance with the Quilombo’s protonational population, another principal character who arrives as a captive of the soldiers, Acaiuba, introduces an additional concept of the community: religious syncretism. After the initial uprising, Acaiuba pulls a cross from a fallen soldier and smiles. In contrast to Zumbi’s later rejection of a Christian cross, Acaiuba dons the appropriated cross and wears it always, even as he demonstrates a belief in African religious practices. In a subsequent scene, Ganga Zumba will, as leader of Palmares, express the view that Acaiuba is the best among the protonational community. Ganga Zumba encourages viewers to feel allegiance toward the character and view him as a good model. In this way he proposes the character as yet another cinematic self to whom viewers might look in reevaluating the part of their self-concepts that have to do with membership in the Brazilian national group. The values Acaiuba embodies and embraces, such as religious syncretism in this scene or unfailing love and respect for those who lead Palmares later, constitute his contribution to the fi lm’s unfolding definition of national identity. Even if few of the key characters share Acaiuba’s embrace of cultural and religious fusion, his position enables the fi lm to associate religious tolerance and plurality with the definition of Palmares by way of how other characters react to him. After the battle with the soldiers and the plantation owner, the surviving former slaves discuss their options. Their dialogue, which I quote below, reinforces the fi lm’s proposed alignment with and allegiance toward Ganga Zumba but distributes respect among others. The conversation also continues to essay the values that will be most esteemed among those of Palmares. In this case, the fi lm promotes values by way of a negotiation between cultural and linguistic syncretism and African orthodoxy, to use the term Hogan employs to describe favoring one’s native culture and rejecting influences from the culture of colonizers. One of the captives of the soldiers: The news will get out soon. We have to get away quick. The man who earlier showed Ganga Zumba skepticism: Where to? Aroroba: To the sea, back to our home. Dandara: I was born here. This is my home. Africa’s too far away.

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Another of the former captives of the soldiers: Right. We came from Palmares and we’ll go back there. You can come with us if you like. Ganga Zumba: Palmares? First captive: The land of free men. Where black men run who don’t want to be slaves. Dandara: We have to go. Palmares. Aroroba: I’m going home, across the sea. I’ll cross the sea. If you want, come with me! Ganga Zumba: Aroroba, I think I’ll go with them. Aroroba: Iboakua ale, chialafia ni. Acaiuba: Talk white man’s language so we can understand. Ganga Zumba: He wished us a night full of blessings.24

The majority of those present demonstrate both respect for Ganga Zumba and for adopting the plan he proposes, the designation of Palmares as their preferred destination. The man who earlier doubted Ganga Zumba’s proposal to escape verifies his new allegiance by rolling his eyes at Aroroba’s decision to return to Africa. This man stands for those who change their views of the protagonist. More broadly, the confi rmation here of Ganga Zumba’s leadership role by the other former slaves, characters with whom the fi lm has aligned viewers visually, constitutes the first clear proposal that audience members also emulate him. It is important to note, nonetheless, that although the fi lm favors Ganga Zumba’s way, it does not criticize the path that Aroroba proposes. About a half-dozen people get up when Aroroba says, “If you want, come with me!” Ganga Zumba goes out of his way to show respect for Aroroba’s path and for him as a leader, a reaction that also adds respect for elders to the attributes esteemed by the protonational community he increasingly represents. His respectful attitude toward Aroroba works in conjunction with his reverence for Dandara earlier and underscores the fi lm’s endorsement of leadership shifts and plurality. Similarly to how Cafundó characterizes the strategy of Afrocentric isolation in a quilombo as valid but of fading relevance, here a transatlantic voyage following liberation is acceptable for some and unfeasible or undesirable for others. The fi lm’s disposition in this regard contrasts with its condemnation of cooperation with the Europeans in power as a strategy for achieving durable liberty. Nevertheless, if the fi lm rejects political compromise in favor of absolute resistance, through the comment of cross-bearing Acaiuba, “Talk white man’s language so we can

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understand,” this scene suggests that cultural or linguistic compromise, the adoption of the language of the oppressor as dominant, is a practical solution that may enhance the possibility of social group cohesion among the Palmares population. Such compromise is thus worthy of being incorporated by individuals into their understanding of that group’s defi nition. Although Ganga Zumba does not promote, as Aroroba does, exclusive Afrocentrism, he understands and respects both that position and Acaiuba’s syncretic one, which previews his, as well as Palmares’s favoring an Afrocentric but inclusive culture. The fi lm underscores its characterization of Ganga Zumba as honored leader of his people through an implicit comparison of him with Moses. Following the group’s decision to depart for Palmares, the fi lm cuts to a nocturnal scene in which a Jewish man tells his children the story of the parting of the Red Sea as his indigenous wife works by his side: The pharaoh let Moses leave with his people in search of the Promised Land. As soon as Moses had left, the pharaoh regretted it and sent his army after the Jews into the desert. When the Jews arrived at the Red Sea, God divided the waters, and the Jews passed over on dry land. But when the Egyptians tried to follow them, God sent the waters back and they were all drowned.25

Much like Aleijadinho and Cafundó associate their protagonists with Jesus, the evocation of the topic of Jewish exodus from Egypt as Ganga Zumba leads his group from captivity links him with a religious figure from the Judeo-Christian tradition. I should note that while Quilombo advocates for tolerance for Christianity and Afro-European religious syncretism, it differs from the other two cited fi lms in that it avoids lending Christianity a prominent role, even within the Afrocentric nature of Palmares. As we will see later, Zumbi does coincide with Jesus in his asexuality, and this condition certainly derives advantage in terms of the character’s relationship to viewers. However, Zumbi patently diverges from what Jesus represents in that he advocates for violent solutions. Indeed, Zumbi explicitly rejects the church. The choice to link Ganga Zumba to Moses has some of the benefits that other fi lms derive from tying their protagonists to Jesus while still allowing Quilombo to maintain Christianity at arm’s length. The analogy might bolster determined adhesion to the protonational group that Ganga Zumba represents among those who also are members of a Jewish or Christian social group. It suggests as well that Ganga Zumba, like Moses, is worthy of reverence and emulation and that the protagonist enjoys divine support.

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When Ganga Zumba and the others in his party reveal themselves to the family, their interaction adds more layers to Quilombo’s proposed understanding of national identity. Ganga Zumba and his companions ask the man for food. The man declares, “We don’t have much, but enough to share.”26 Ganga Zumba suggests that the white man go live in Palmares, but he responds that he is happy with his family in this place. The African leader begins to negotiate on behalf of Palmares and proposes, in this case, that they travel together to Palmares to form an intergroup alliance that would help the man stand up to the landowners, whose authority is grounded in Portuguese colonial rule. Acaiuba, however, declares that Acotirene, who currently leads Palmares, might not like for a white man to go there. In this brief exchange the fi lm foregrounds and favors Ganga Zumba’s and the Jewish man’s complementary gestures of solidarity for members of other social groups. Ganga Zumba’s words and actions esteem interreligious, interracial, and interethnic contact and cooperation. His version of Palmares is Afrocentric but also inclusive of people with whom many in the community do not share key group memberships. Ganga Zumba, whose subjective ingroup is broad and flexible, can thus be seen as manifesting and promoting social identity complexity, which correlates with intergroup tolerance. This scene contributes as well to efforts to provoke identification with Ganga Zumba among audience members. It anticipates that the wouldbe alignment among modern-day vicarious members of the Palmares population will culminate with his taking the place of Acotirene at the head of the community when she realizes that he, more than she, incarnates the essence of the community. Shortly before the conclusion of their journey to Palmares, a scene that chronicles the birth of Zumbi adds more attributes to those the fi lm suggests that the community values. The scene also begins to promote identification with Zumbi, to link him to Palmares, and to remind viewers that ultimately the character should be interpreted as a proxy for Brazil. After flashing on the mountain near Palmares that in the opening credits was backed by a deep-red sky, the fi lm cuts to several brief shots of birds that the editing suggests are listening to Gongoba pant as she prepares to give birth to Zumbi. Following a long shot and a medium shot that show the woman in labor, the men surrounding her begin clapping in apparent solidarity with or reverence toward her. The emphasis on Gongoba’s suffering during the birth of Zumbi helps to establish sacrifice as an attribute valued by those of Palmares. Other principal Palmares characters, in particular Ganga Zumba, will later confi rm the central importance of self-sacrifice within the com-

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munity. The birth scene may also suggest that the new path these former slaves seek—one symbolized by the birth of the future leader and one that they are forging for the analogical benefit of viewers—is a path that requires hardship. The men’s collaborative gesture might be read not only as privileging a certain kind of collective social interaction but also as a spontaneous reverence for the child who is about to be born. The fi lm bolsters such an interpretation in more than one way. After Zumbi is born, Ganga Zumba shows hyperbolic joy and pride toward the infant when he raises him to the sky and cries out “Palmares!” This moment proposes reverence toward the child and links him to the protonation directly. Significantly, in the shot of the baby in Ganga Zumba’s hands, nature is shown to respond in the form of lightning flashes. The fi lm anticipates the apparent interest of nature in Zumbi at the beginning of the scene when the birds appear to listen to Gongoba. The engagement of nature with Zumbi reappears throughout the fi lm. This association may help to link Zumbi to the land and the nation and to reinforce the connection between Palmares and Brazil. In addition to solidarity and self-sacrifice, this scene proposes intergroup contact through culture as a favored group value. Upon Zumbi’s birth, one of the men sings a song in an African language, and the others accompany him with clapping, a moment that helps to tie Zumbi to African culture. The Jewish man, who up to this point has remained at a distance, rises and tentatively joins in the clapping, much as one of the Portuguese men during Acaiuba’s funeral will start to dance with the mourners. Here the fi lm briefly acknowledges intergroup contact, which has broader implications with regard to syncretic integration of ethnicities within the superordinate, Afrocentric, protonational group of Palmares through cultural participation in music, dance, and ceremonies that is made possible through adopted practical identity. When Acotirene meets Ganga Zumba, she recognizes that her way no longer corresponds to the group’s youthful spirit and favored values. Ganga Zumba’s support for armed resistance, along with his emphasis on alliances beyond Palmares, signify that he more than Acotirene embodies the youthful spirit of Palmares. Their encounter does much to solidify Ganga Zumba as national metaphor and potential cinematic self as well as to confi rm the qualities that defi ne the protonational group. The first scene in Palmares shows Ganga Zumba and the Jewish man in an audience with Acotirene. Just as Acaiuba predicted, the matriarch is displeased with the presence of the person who has accompanied Ganga Zumba. She asks, “Why did you bring a foreigner to Pal-

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mares?”27 The African man—in a comment that might provoke further ethical or ideological alignment with him among those who embrace the view of Brazil as a land of immigrants—responds, “We are also foreigners here. In a land where everybody is foreign, who is the foreigner?”28 Acotirene’s word choice has several interesting implications. Her use of the word “foreigner” to refer to Ganga Zumba’s companion asserts Palmares’s status as a sovereign state, which bolsters the analogy between this community and Brazil. Acotirene’s instant acceptance of Ganga Zumba may imply a proposal to conceive of the Palmares political group as overlapping naturally and entirely with a racial group or perhaps one characterized by social status such as former slave or one who might be enslaved under certain circumstances. Her disposition toward Ganga Zumba and his companion can be understood as a proposal for low social identity complexity. Ganga Zumba’s more complex social identity is privileged in the understanding of national identity that the fi lm promotes. He recognizes that Palmares/Brazil is largely a country of immigrants. Whether their presence in the region was voluntary or forced, he implies that all are just as Brazilian. Even if he supports the centrality of African and Afro-descendant people in the Palmares social group, he also encourages tolerance, inclusiveness, pluralism, and appeals for solidarity among members of the superordinate group toward members who also pertain to other social groups such as religious or racial ones. Ganga Zumba and his Jewish companion propose a strategy for building the strength and size of Palmares that is grounded in combining forces. The visitor points out to Acotirene, “Many people live in the valley like me. They can help, if you help them.”29 Ganga Zumba adds that they need to take advantage of the war between the whites— the Portuguese versus the Dutch—in order to make Palmares stronger. Ganga Zumba suggests that Palmares embrace among its values cooperation, alliances, and intergroup solidarity. He implies that these are now more appropriate attributes for Palmares and that the vision Acotirene promotes is no longer viable: “Acotirene knows the ancient truths and leads the people of Palmares with kindness. But Acotirene fears the new truths, and this is not good for [the people of ] Palmares.”30 He draws attention to the rotation of leaders that Quilombo showcases as a central aspect of its redefi nition of Brazilian national identity: a representative of the younger generation, one whose values at a given moment coincide with the enduring values of the group, assumes the role of proper leader. Still, as is typical in this fi lm, Ganga Zumba shows respect for the older generation even if its ideas must be left behind. Now, in addition to co-

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operation, the values include resistance to oppression or to the threat of aggression, both qualities that from the beginning of the fi lm Ganga Zumba has embodied. Acotirene turns over leadership to Ganga Zumba as soon as he points out to her that she no longer embodies the needed values of the group and implies that he does. As the prototype of the community, he can be taken as a model for member understandings of that social group. To the degree to which Palmares is interpreted as a stand-in for the nation and its people as a proxy for the national population, Ganga Zumba may at this point be interpreted as a cinematic self, a guide for how Brazilian audience members might conceive of their national group, a cinematic model for that part of the viewer’s self-concept. The respect that Acotirene shows for Ganga Zumba may act as a catalyst for group members and their vicarious, present-day counterparts to emulate him. Acotirene attributes the choice of Ganga Zumba’s leadership of Palmares to the orixá Xangô. After the man asserts that Acotirene’s disposition is not good for the people of Palmares, a close-up reaction shot of Acotirene’s face introduces an eyeline match cut to a medium closeup of Xangô in Ganga Zumba’s place. She says, “You are the chosen one. You are Ganga Zumba.”31 This first moment in which the name of the well-known historical and legendary figure is articulated in the fi lm drives home Quilombo’s suggestion that this protagonist is a national metaphor. For those who are familiar with the orixá and his attributes, this link helps to expand and crystallize what Ganga Zumba and through him Palmares/Brazil stand for. In director Renata Almeida Magalhães’s documentary Filme sobre filme about the making of Quilombo, one of the people interviewed comments, “The Ganga Zumba character represents this social Orisha, uniting the community, spreading the idea of living as a community, creating a new nation, because that is the main goal of Xangô.”32 More broadly, the connection asserted by Acotirene favors religion and African culture within the fi lm’s proposed defi nition of Brazilianness.33 Ganga Zumba demurs when Acotirene initially names him during his audience with her: “No, Acotirene. I’m just Abiola, son of the king of the Arda. I come from a far off land. I was lion hunting near my village when they caught me. They sold me to the white men as a slave. That’s how I came here, to my new land.”34 And later, during the leadership transfer ceremony, he declares, “I’m frightened. Am I able to?”35 The character here shows humility, though he claims he is “only” the son of a king; his humility may induce personal identity alignment in those who appreciate or embody that attribute, and it demonstrates a

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reluctance to embrace power, which may produce ethical alignment among those viewers who value such a disposition. Ganga Zumba’s comment about his background has another potential effect. Earlier he was associated with Moses, a religious figure worthy of reverence. Now the fi lm reinforces the suggestion to interpret him as a leader by establishing that this character was part of a ruling family in Africa. Consonant with the implication that Ganga Zumba possesses some sort of natural inclination to lead, during the protagonist’s declaration of partial humility, the white man spontaneously reveres the character as a consequence of an apparent epiphany. He slowly and with awe says, “Ganga Zumba,” which models allegiance for audience members. Because he is not black, the man’s words constitute a proposal for reverence among Brazil’s diverse population. At the conclusion of this scene, Acotirene echoes this character’s admiration when she closes her eyes and intones “Ganga Zumba” just before a cockatoo in close-up squawks with apparent solidarity, which recalls the nature’s implied affirmation of Zumbi’s importance at birth. An intertitle declares that five years have passed, then a short sequence shows the kidnapping of the child Zumbi, the murder of his mother, Gongoba, and Ganga Zumba’s vengeance for the acts but not the recovery of the boy. It is at this point that the fi lm intensifies its efforts to cast Zumbi, alongside Ganga Zumba, as a possible cinematic self. At the start of the fi rst scene in this sequence, several Bahian white men passing by stop to spy on Gongoba and a group of children. They decide to abduct at least one of the children to sell. At fi rst the kids take the men’s efforts as a joke. The scene depicts the kids resisting through play by jumping together on the men and putting hot pepper in their eyes. Upbeat extradiegetic instrumental music gradually emerges in the background and reinforces the lighthearted tone of the scene, a tactic we can describe in terms of what Jeff Smith calls “affective congruence” (160–166); given the tragic outcome in the scene, though, the music is probably better understood as ironic or bait-and-switch affective congruence, for it helps to intensify by contrast the shock of what comes next. The leader of the invading group loses patience, grabs Zumbi, and shoots Gongoba dead. Members of the audience are likely to experience ethical alignment with the Palmarenses and as a result, allegiance. For about two minutes before the men’s arrival, viewers witness the harmless and collaborative daily activities of a happy community that is minding its own business. The baseless cruelty of the Bahians and the undeserved victimization of the community with whom viewers have been aligned further ap-

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proximates them to the latter group and, through opposability, distances them from the outgroup representatives. The children’s choice of a nonviolent reaction to the men’s aggressive presence would augment ethical alignment with them. Alignment with Zumbi, the principal victim of the attack along with his mother, would promise to be even stronger. Later, during an ambush of a group of soldiers led by Ganga Zumba, the fi lm underscores its proposal to feel allegiance toward Zumbi and once again links Zumbi to Palmares, though more explicitly than when Ganga Zumba held him up as a newborn and cried out the name of the community. Acaiuba, undercover with the soldiers and playing the part of a guide, leads them to the place of the attack. At the end of a shot that shows men dropping from trees, Dandara rises into the frame. A medium shot shows her, defiant and bellicose, yelling words in an African language. The fi lm starts here to highlight her role as one of the main leaders of Palmares and begins to share at least some cinematic-self status with her. During the battle, the Xangô version of Ganga Zumba arrives and dances. One of the soldiers seems to see what we see—Xangô rather than Ganga Zumba—and asks Acaiuba who the person is. Acaiuba beams respect, says it is Ganga Zumba, and declares, “Saurê, my Ganga Zumba.”36 When Ganga Zumba as Xangô defeats the soldiers, the community representatives all cheer. Ganga Zumba says when he arrives to confront the soldiers, still dressed as Xangô, “They’ve killed Gongoba, but I want my godson in my arms again. Palmares will grow and wait for him, for he will return. He will be the sun for us!”37 The camera shows the deferential reaction to his speech among the men flanking Ganga Zumba and how they look to him as the person who guides their community (figure 3.3). Ganga Zumba, however, has begun to transfer some of their allegiance and some of his status as chief representative of Palmares to Zumbi. The several times that the fi lm foregrounds the rotation of leadership, there is invariably shared respect: Acotirene for Ganga Zumba, Ganga Zumba for Zumbi, and much later Zumbi for Camuanga. Reminiscent of the historian’s comment at the end of Aleijadinho that the protagonist is a symbol of the people, Ganga Zumba’s suggestion that Zumbi will be like a sun to Palmares links the boy intimately and prominently to the community and implies his eventual ability to enlighten the people, to show them the way. Ganga Zumba’s words propose that those present and their present-day analogs begin to esteem Zumbi and consider that he might have the potential to influence understandings of the protonational community. About thirty minutes into the fi lm—now fi fteen years after the kid-

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napping in the narrative—the primary focus turns to Zumbi, the relationship the fi lm seeks for him with viewers, and his role in redefining Brazilian national identity. The fi rst shot of the segment shows a comet streaming across the sky as the intertitle announcing how much time has passed appears on the screen and Gilberto Gil’s song “O cometa” begins. One of the subsequent nocturnal shots of a colonial town is a medium close-up of an adult Zumbi looking up contemplatively at the celestial event as Gil sings the following verses: “The comet is a knife / that [. . .] accentuates division. / For the black people it is welcome, blessed, beautiful.”38 The lyrics anticipate Zumbi’s imminent departure from the white-dominated society in which he is captive and allude to a motive intertwined with the achievement of freedom: membership in a different superordinate group, that of Palmares. Because he soon leaves, the fi lm suggests that the comet does act as a catalyst for Zumbi to hierarchize his pertinence to the fi lm’s protonational community and to want to make it functional and physical rather than merely abstract. The reference to a black social group implies that the division that Zumbi perceives is grounded in race, which reinforces the Afrocentric nature of Palmares and deemphasizes the inclusive attitude of the group toward other racial, ethnic, or religious groups that some characters, like Ganga Zumba, favor. He will model the path of someone familiar with a society dominated by whites who rejects it for freedom and for a society with blacks at the core. After entering the building where Zumbi’s owner, a priest, is ministering over a dying black man who rejects the value of the white man’s Christian beliefs, Zumbi returns to the doorway where he had regarded the comet and presumably race-based divisions. The priest emerges to fi nd Zumbi staring off into the darkness and comments that he is “[very] far away” (“muito longe daqui”). At this point the fi rst notes of Gil’s Ganga Zumba song begin. Zumbi closes his eyes, and as the lyrics begin the fi lm cuts to an extreme long shot of the people of Palmares dancing to the song. With the editing, the song implies a profound and perhaps supernatural connection between Zumbi and the community. Perhaps ironically, as we see Zumbi coming of age away from Palmares and as the fi lm starts to concentrate on the figure of Zumbi and anticipate his eventual leadership of Palmares, it emphasizes Ganga Zumba and his prominence within the community. The simultaneous respect for two figures and association of them with the protonational community are part and parcel of Quilombo’s strategic proposal of a new defi nition of national identity. The fi lm offers up, with changing intensity, various social identity models. This may signal a proposal to audience members

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for understanding the Brazilian national group to survive regardless of the short- and long-term impressions that individual figures like Ganga Zumba might leave on them. The day after the sighting of the comet, Zumbi prepares to escape captivity. His journey home and his homecoming further solidify Zumbi as cinematic self and bolster and advance in several ways the fi lm’s definition of identity. As we see Zumbi preparing to leave, there is a closeup of a machete, a somewhat larger cross, and a basket of food. Zumbi grabs all of the items, then tosses back the cross. Through the action of one of the fi lm’s identity stand-ins, Quilombo deemphasizes Christianity within its proposed defi nition of Brazilianness. The protagonist may be seen here also as promoting a social identity with low complexity. He seems to envision, at least for himself, a relatively homogeneous Palmares social group, one in which the religious group and perhaps the racial or ethnic groups of its members overlap entirely. The film begins to imply here that the subjective ingroup for this character extends only to non-Christians and perhaps only blacks living in Palmares. Nonetheless, as we have seen, Ganga Zumba’s promotion of a comparatively complex social identity acts as a counterpoint for Zumbi’s different vision of Palmares. The fi lm implies that Ganga Zumba’s subjective ingroup is more inclusive and extends to all those with whom he shares one key group membership, that of Palmares, regardless of race or religion. In this way, Quilombo recommends both cohesion within the national social group and tolerance for diverse groups within that superordinate group. Zumbi’s arrival in Palmares as an adult enhances the proposal for the audience to feel allegiance toward him. A close-up shows Zumbi approaching the top of the cliff on one side of Palmares that we soon learn no one previously had been able to climb. As Zumbi climbs, the Ganga Zumba song begins again, and when he reaches the top, the fi lm cuts to the daytime scene of the community dancing to Gil’s song. The fi lm returns to the area of the cliff where we see Ganga Zumba with the young woman Namba as they lie on the ground and kiss. Ganga Zumba notices the collapsed man at the edge of the cliff, and Namba, who is closer, goes to him fi rst. Zumbi asks for Ganga Zumba, who then approaches him. During a close-up of Ganga Zumba’s profi le backed by a bright, white sky, with the instrumental part of the Ganga Zumba song having returned, the leader smiles and exclaims, “It’s him, Namba. He’s come back!”39 This moment combines the underlying proposed reverence for Ganga Zumba through his theme song with Ganga Zumba’s celebration of Zumbi. The fi lm then cuts to an interior shot where others from the community, including a bird of prey that Acaiuba places

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on Zumbi’s head, celebrate the return of their estranged son. Ganga Zumba, beaming, cries out to Acaiuba, “He’s back!” (“Ele voltou!”). Acaiuba embraces Zumbi, and a medium close-up shows an indigenous man who recently joined the group looking at Zumbi with solemn respect. These scenes reinforce in various ways the main thrust of the sequence: to show and promote reverence for Zumbi while stressing simultaneous respect for others. Soon after Zumbi arrives and Fernão Carrilho comes with his soldiers to Palmares to strike a deal with Ganga Zumba not to attack, the fi lm returns to the topic of the ethnic and racial inclusiveness of the community and stresses once again that the group extension hinges on ethics rather than race. As I discussed earlier, several white Brazilians with Carrilho request to stay in Palmares, among them Ana de Ferro.40 Like an indigenous man and his people had done earlier, these men and women model for viewers fi nding the redefi ned group appealing and worthy of being embraced as a new primary political group. These outsiders give no indication that they feel drawn to Palmares because of Ganga Zumba. Rather, here and elsewhere Quilombo displays the appeal of the group for potential members more than that of the protagonists, a position the fi lm emphasizes throughout by way of multiple and provisional identity models. Ana de Ferro attempts to persuade Ganga Zumba to accept the new members, claiming that they are willing to learn whatever is needed to contribute to the society. Her appeal recalls Ganga Zumba’s socialist disposition. From the viewer’s perspective, at stake here is the consistency of Ganga Zumba’s ideals, ones that have helped to shape the defi nition of the protonational community. Based on Ana’s comment, the people petitioning to join Palmares represent the sort of citizens the community values. If they are excluded at this point, the implication might be that race or ethnicity determines the group’s extension. Much as Ganga Zumba did in his fi rst audience with Acotirene, Ana goes on to issue a related and more explicit challenge to the leader with regard to the group’s values: “If you don’t let us stay, it’s because you’re the same as they are, they who decide who can be free.”41 Ana presses Ganga Zumba here to clarify the protonational group’s extension and its definition: Are all who meet the ethical standards allowed to stay, and is freedom for every person an attribute of the group? Another moment in this scene further problematizes the issues of ingroup extension and definition. As Ana de Ferro is making her case to Ganga Zumba, a black soldier declares his opposition: “Ana belongs to me!”42 Ganga Zumba is faced here with someone in a state of bond-

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age, which up to this point has been a clear justification for inclusion in the Palmares community, as when Acotirene unquestioningly accepts Ganga Zumba upon his arrival. However, up to this point those formerly enslaved people seeking asylum in Palmares have invariably been black. Here, the person being held against her will is white. Ana is a member of colonial society, the analog of the existing Brazilian national population, just as Palmares is the proxy of a possible Brazil. Like Aleijadinho, this fi lm suggests a parallel between enslavement and living under what it portrays as the oppressive conditions of colonial or contemporary Brazil. Indeed, all of the fi lms that I examine in this book treat slavery as a metaphor for oppression in general and slaves as analogous to present-day Brazilians, thus implying that the fi lms depict current Brazilian society as at least to some degree inherently oppressive. Each of the fi lms in its own way promotes some form of emancipation, as it were, from society as it is. Such liberating change depends on the assumption among citizens of the revised understanding of Brazilianness that the fi lms present. Ana de Ferro’s whiteness helps to justify the racial breadth of the analogy. What is more, even if Ana seems to be the only one being kept against her will, her challenge to Ganga Zumba suggests that the several men who want to join Palmares are subject to exploitation or undesirable living conditions. We may infer that Ana is reminding Ganga Zumba that he was once enslaved and that he should not now control people’s lives in similar ways. In this sense, she evokes one of the core proposed values of the leader’s social group: solidarity with those who are mistreated whether or not their social identities overlap with the majority of Palmares in terms of ethnicity, race, or religion. Later, when Zumbi reaches Recife during his campaign of conquest sparked by Carrilho’s murder of Acaiuba, the fi lm reinforces a similar point. He expresses a concern that their new protonation, once dominant, risks repeating the same sort of oppression. In the end, Ganga Zumba does allow the people to join the group and insists that Ana be allowed to stay, underscoring the diverse and inclusive—if still Afrocentric and Afro-dominant—nature of the group that the fi lm links to Ganga Zumba. At the funeral for Acaiuba, the fi lm once again confi rms the Palmares community’s commitment to the ethnic inclusiveness of the Afrocentric social group as well as to syncretism. The community sings a song with non-Portuguese lyrics and dances in mourning. One of the white Palmarenses starts to dance, tentatively at fi rst and then with greater ease, and the indigenous leader who joined the group participates in the mu-

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sic in an ethnically distinct way—still in his own, different clothes, he squats on a boulder with eyes closed and plays a percussion instrument that no one else seems to be playing. The actions of the white man may allude to an emerging sense of membership in the new group deriving from partial integration into the dominant ethnicity by way of a shift in practical identity, the addition of a new ability and practice. In this case the ability is dance, but it could very well be language or religious practices, for example. This character models for audience members one path to bringing to fruition the fi lm’s revised national identity proposal: reinforcing the embrace of abstract attributes associated with the Afrocentric social group through participation in practices that are linked to some aspect of Afro-Brazilian culture. While the white man suggests the value of assimilation, for his part the indigenous man evokes ethnic fusion. The fi lm anticipates this allusion to the acceptance of syncretism in Palmares at the beginning of the scene when Ganga Zumba picks up the cross from the chest of Acaiuba and holds it to his cheek with eyes closed as he laments his friend’s death. As it happens, Acaiuba’s death is treated in the fi lm as the principal catalyst for the fi nal stage of Zumbi’s ascension to national metaphor and cinematic self. Still during the funeral Ganga Zumba says, “Acaiuba. They killed the bravest. The purest. The best of our brothers.”43 According to Ganga Zumba, Acaiuba embodies fundamental attributes of the protonational community, which he characterizes here as bravery and purity. These qualities add to the syncretism that Acaiuba has already contributed to the fi lm’s defi nition of the Palmares group. The scene also ties to the community the celebration of armed resistance toward colonial society in general and thus the imperfect and oppressive present-day Brazil. Zumbi expresses frustration and ire at Acaiuba’s murder and asks Ganga Zumba for permission to take revenge, which as the audience will see is not limited to the specific perpetrator of the crime, his comment evoking how the fi lm underscores the rotation of leadership to younger generations: “Will no one pay for this? Ganga Zumba, my time has come. Let me avenge Acaiuba. Give me permission to fight for him.”44 Immediately following his request, the fi lm cuts to a ceremony in which Ganga Zumba names Zumbi. It is here that Quilombo cements the younger man’s role in redefi ning the protonational group. The English subtitles translate what Ganga Zumba says, which at first is not in Portuguese: “Ogun Ogunhe! Ogun, protect thy son and teach him the secrets of war. Look after him every day and protect his body when he goes to war. Bless thy son. Teach him not to be afraid. Ogun Ogunhe!”

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He continues, now in Portuguese: “Send thy greatest warriors from the Valley of Death to protect thy son. Teach thy son the wisdom of war!”45 Ganga Zumba names him again: “You are no longer anyone. You are your people!”46 Here the fi lm explicitly characterizes a protagonist as a stand-in for the population. This protonational metaphor status promises to enhance social identity alignment among Brazilian audience members who have accepted the analogy between Palmares and Brazil, which in turn would tend to lead to embracing the character as a model for identity. After Ganga Zumba’s comment, Zumbi’s attributes can be interpreted as those that the fi lm favors in the understanding of national identity it endorses. The principal quality is bellicosity. Ganga Zumba continues: “You are born again, your Father Ogun bids you be called Zumbi Alakijade, to whom the colors of war were given. You are Zumbi, who never dies!”47 Zumbi, with apparent awe, assumes this new facet of his personal identity and says, “Zumbi.” The scenes of Zumbi in battle after the ceremony scene confi rm this emphasis on his role as warrior. To the extent that viewers recognize the connection between Zumbi and Palmares/ Brazil, the reference to his not dying elevates the national category of viewer social identities through the suggestion of durability. At the conclusion of the scene declaring him a warrior, Ganga Zumba expresses and provokes allegiance for Zumbi through the salutation used in the fi lm to address leaders: “Saurê! Zumbi of Palmares! Saurê!” At this point Zumbi holds his lance above his head, and it bursts into flame (evoked in one of the fi lm’s posters, figure 3.4), which reinforces the centrality of African culture within the Palmares community by repeating the manifestation of supernatural intervention in the fi lm’s generally realistic context. This quality of the narrative lends cachet to the spiritual practices featured in the fi lm. In the next scene Zumbi, Dandara, and others do battle in a field in daylight, reinforcing Ganga Zumba’s call for allegiance toward Zumbi. Before the lyrics of Zumbi’s theme song begin, viewers see him kill the bad black soldier who claimed Ana de Ferro and the now older, respected Dandara showing reference for Zumbi by repeating, “Saurê, Zumbi of Palmares!” The warriors surrounding him raise their spears in a salute that models for viewers their acting on Dandara’s proposal of allegiance toward Zumbi. Just as Acotirene passed leadership to Ganga Zumba, Ganga Zumba has willingly begun to transfer some power to Zumbi; in this way the fi lm promotes an increased allegiance toward the character among audience members. The fi lm’s promotion of allegiance toward Zumbi continues during the sequence in which he carries out his plans to avenge Acaiuba

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F igu r e 3.4. A publicity poster for Quilombo bears a stylized image of Zumbi.

with Dandara and other fighters from Palmares. Quilombo does this in part by associating Zumbi and Jesus. One of the slaves whom Zumbi frees from ownership under the colonial regime cries out, “I’m free! Thank you, good Jesus! Thank you, Zumbi of Palmares!”48 Other people whom the fi lm shows during Zumbi’s liberating rampage—a con-

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spicuously diverse group in terms of race and ethnicity—model reverence and allegiance toward the protagonist. One medium shot features two white men with hands eff usively clasped before them presumably to thank God for Zumbi’s intervention. This moment constitutes another appeal to all sectors of the Brazilian population to feel a respectful disposition toward Zumbi and eventually come to embrace him as an identity guide. Zumbi’s theme song lyrics soon underscore the fi lm’s promotion of allegiance toward the protagonist: “Brazil, my own Brazil” and “Zumbi, protector, guard, and patron send freedom into my heart!”49 The lyrics explicitly remind viewers to connect in their minds Zumbi and all that he now represents to Brazil. They also model reverence toward the character and suggest that looking to him as a guide promises to lead to improved conditions. At the end of the revenge sequence, Zumbi and Dandara and others arrive on the outskirts of Recife, and she proposes to Zumbi that he take the city. The attitude of this female leader of Palmares continues to prescribe bellicosity. Zumbi’s response, however, adds restraint and wisdom to the national identity mix. He says that if they do that they will end up having slaves as well. His injunction to not reproduce the mistakes of the system one is battling once the power dynamic changes recalls Ana de Ferro’s insistence to Ganga Zumba that he not hypocritically enable an oppressive system. Zumbi’s position reinforces the distinction between Brazil as it is and Brazil as it should be, which the fi lm ties to the spaces of Palmares and outside of Palmares. Again, Quilombo advocates a fresh start with regard to national identity rather than the modification of existing notions. Up to this point, the fi lm has communicated through Ganga Zumba and Zumbi intersecting and generally compatible yet sometimes distinct understandings of the protonational community. Now, halfway through the fi lm, the paths forward that the two promote clearly diverge. Quilombo ultimately prefers the resistant, independent spirit of the younger Zumbi and characterizes Ganga Zumba’s disposition with regard to Palmares as increasingly decadent. Early on, the fi lm cast as fair and effective Ganga Zumba’s insistence that the superordinate group of Palmares welcome or at least collaborate with people from ethnic, racial, and religious groups that are not dominant in Palmares and who are marginalized in colonial society. Now Quilombo exposes the consequences of taking Ganga Zumba’s attitude too far. What was tolerance has now become capitulation. At the beginning of this two-paths sequence Ganga Zumba receives a letter from the governor of Pernambuco inviting him to Recife to dis-

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cuss peace. Under his breath, Zumbi implies that Ganga Zumba’s negotiation with the governor amounts to treason: Zumbi: That’s treachery! Ganga Zumba: On whose part? [Zumbi with a downcast, guilty gaze.] Dandara: Zumbi is giving you peace through victory in war, Ganga Zumba. Ganga Zumba: We need some time without war. [. . .] To grow so Palmares becomes invincible. [Ganga Zumba rises, looking old, like Acotirene when she relinquished power to him.] Ganga Zumba: I’ll go to Recife. I’ll see what they want from us.50

Quilombo suggests here that the time has come to pass the torch to the younger generation. But rather than recognize that his values are no longer those of Palmares, as Acotirene did, Ganga Zumba allows for that disconnect to broaden and his status as cinematic self to dissipate. By this time the fi lm has done much to align audience members ethically with Zumbi, and many would likely consider his campaign of vengeance and liberation for the oppressed as justified. This presumed character-viewer relationship would tend to predispose those watching the fi lm to appreciate Zumbi’s perspective. Thus his defiant comment would begin to undermine the probable understanding of Ganga Zumba as a guide for understanding the favored values of Palmares that the fi lm has been building since the beginning. In Recife, during Ganga Zumba’s audience with the governor, we hear Ana de Ferro reading the agreement proposed by the colonial government aloud. It states that Ganga Zumba would go with all of his people from Palmares to the Vale do Cucau, where they and their descendants would be free. However, the agreement would prohibit them from accepting runaway slaves and stipulates that if anyone living in Cucau leaves the place assigned to them by Portugal, he or she will be enslaved. The content of this proposal clearly indicates to viewers that Ganga Zumba’s acceptance would betray the fundamental tenets of the Palmares value system that the fi lm has well established. What is more, Ana—a white member of the group who consistently embodies esteemed group attributes and acts contrary to them only when fidelity to Ganga Zumba overrides fidelity to Palmares—anticipates that likely interpretation by advising him not to sign. Ganga Zumba’s cooperation goes against the grain of the established

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understanding of the protonational community. Ganga Zumba agrees to the terms of the governor and returns to Palmares to make his case that they all travel to Cucau. Only a few of his people accompany him into exile, though many of those who stay at Palmares manifest continued respect for Ganga Zumba. It is at this point that Zumbi begins to become the chief cinematic self, for his behavior and manifest attitudes are consistent with the youth-driven, progressive, resistant disposition advocated in the defi nition of that group. The consequences on Ganga Zumba’s community of his disconnect from Palmares’s values and his eventual reconciliation with the predominant understandings of the group—implying a confirmation of that defi nition for viewers—take place during the short time that Ganga Zumba’s splinter group is in the Vale do Cucau. Notwithstanding Ganga Zumba’s divergence from Zumbi’s more favored perspective in relation to whether to compromise with the enemy that led to the group’s division, the fi lm retains a balanced portrayal of the older leader. Even during his period in Cucau, Quilombo allows Ganga Zumba still to embody fundamental attributes of the Palmares community such as ethnic and racial inclusivity of an Afrocentric superordinate group, unity, and self-sacrifice. Shortly after the group’s arrival in Cucau, a captain representing the colonial government claims that the agreement they signed applies only to the blacks of Palmares, a qualification that evokes once again for audience members the issue of the protonational community’s extension. The soldier implies that from his perspective, Palmares is contained within the group of nonenslaved blacks. Ganga Zumba reminds viewers that affi liation with the group is not racially determined when he says white and indigenous people are their brothers and equals. In this regard he remains true to key attributes that he helped link to Palmares and that we might understand in terms of inclusivity, diversity, or multiculturalism. This is perhaps the most direct statement about the racial and ethnic diversity that the fi lm proposes. Soon Ganga Zumba confirms several other Palmares attributes and brings himself in line once again not only with those he initially sponsored but also ones principally advocated by Zumbi. Salé, the one leader who had expressed support of Ganga Zumba’s plan to cooperate with the colony and abandon Palmares, informs the leader that the soldier has closed off the valley and that it is as if they were prisoners. “That’s what we are,”51 Ganga Zumba responds. “We have to leave here, and now. But for that, we need him [Zumbi].”52 Salé leaves, and Ganga Zumba tries to embody Xangô. He declares to Ana de Ferro, however, “Xangô

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no longer hovers over Ganga Zumba’s head. Xangô has left me. [. . .] I made them come here. Now my people are divided, and it is my fault.”53 Ganga Zumba emphasizes the importance of unity for the community of Palmares, suggesting that those watching the fi lm hierarchize the national group that Palmares represents by pointing out the functional advantages of a cohesive group. Yet his ability to directly realize the unification of the people is limited due to his disassociation from the core values of the community. His failed invocation of the orixá when contemplating his people’s dilemma underscores his distance and reconfi rms the centrality of AfroBrazilian culture for the group. The fi lm suggests that the older protagonist’s only recourse to reunite Palmares is self-sacrifice, which esteems the attribute of sacrifice within the group and substantiates the renewed intersection of his values with those of Palmares. This in turn leads to the desired reunification of the community. Quilombo thus implies that the survival and prosperity of the group depends on the consistent embodiment by leaders of the group’s chief attributes. Ganga Zumba realizes his plan by taking poison that Ana carries to him in a drink. He convinces his people, as he dies, that the soldier perpetrated the crime. He champions the Palmares protonation by emphasizing ingroup-outgroup distinction, or opposability, by recognizing that in spite of their recent alienation, they are all part of the Palmares community: “Salé, my brother. Do you see? They are not our friends. Take the people back, Salé. Take them back to Palmares.”54 Ana kills the captain in front of the gathered people. She models following Ganga Zumba, who once again stands for Palmares and its values, for she carries out his wish to prepare the poison for him and cements the leader’s deception by killing the supposed murderer. Ana is similar to Dandara in that she is a female leader who does not vie for supremacy with Ganga Zumba or Zumbi but rather bolsters the men’s standing. As the people are mobilizing, Ana verifies the success of Ganga Zumba’s tactic by insisting that the Palmares community is once again united. And Salé reaffirms Ganga Zumba’s former status has revered leader and transfers some of that status to Ana through the salutation reserved in the fi lm for its leaders: “Let’s go! Ganga Zumba has ordered it! [. . .] Saurê, Ana de Ferro!”55 The fi lm exploits here and elsewhere the nationalizing advantages of a heroic and a sacrificial narrative prototype through the suffering of the protagonists. With his act, Ganga Zumba likely reignites some identification among audience members through personal identity or ethical alignment deriving from his self-sacrifice for the good of the group, as Salé’s comment implies. The fi lm again sug-

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gests that Ganga Zumba might be embraced as a cinematic self. Namba, as she holds Ganga Zumba and sings to him while he expires, reinforces the appeal for renewed appreciation of Ganga Zumba as a cinematic self for viewers. This good and innocent character manifests love and respect for the protagonist. Likely ethical alignment with her promises to influence viewers to feel her pain and as a result to intensify their presumably renewed allegiance toward Ganga Zumba. Following the next chronological leap in the narrative—this time for eleven years—Quilombo indulges in a stylized distillation of some of the principal qualities it has associated with the protonational community. A theatrical performance that may serve as an interpretive guide for viewers appears to reproduce aspects of Zumbi’s story, such as the torture and death his mother witnessed when he was in the womb and Zumbi’s vengeance on Acaiuba. The scene begins with a series of medium shots of young and old members of the community—proxies for the fi lm’s viewers—gazing soberly at the performance taking place in the center of the room. The fi lm cuts to the object of their attention, revealing children in whiteface with straw wigs whipping a doubled-over, kneeling youth. Dandara reminds those present that resistance is an esteemed attribute of the group and suggests that dependence on Zumbi, or one might suppose, the memory of him, is essential for the community’s survival: “Zumbi said, ‘You only become a slave if you’re afraid of dying.’”56 She says that with him, Palmares will last forever. This association of Zumbi with the durability of the protonation will be downplayed later. However, the fi lm will return to this link at the end, in part through his theme along with the concluding intertitle, even if the intertitle emphasizes the lack of need for Zumbi specifically. During Dandara’s speech the fi lm cuts to a boy in the play with a spear who opens his mouth and screams silently as he feigns the impalement of one of the blond-wigged children in a sequence of shots that recall the fi rst moments of Zumbi’s campaign when his own silent scream converges with Gil’s singing just before he kills one of the enemy. Through representation and commentary the fi lm synthesizes its lessons and shows a group of people learning those lessons. Dandara provides one provisional guide for interpretation: Zumbi is essential for Brazil’s survival, and he stands for violent resistance. A group that embraces him as a model for how to reconceive of Brazilianness will endure. The riveted attention of the cinematic viewer stand-ins during the performance may enhance the effectiveness of this interpretive model and may influence audience members to consider more carefully the commentary of the fi lm. If the apparent aims of the scene succeed, au-

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dience members would possibly scrutinize more carefully the allegorical social commentary that Quilombo has so painstakingly compiled. The remainder of the fi lm chronicles the sustained and ultimately successful siege on Palmares by Domingos Jorge Velho. All of what Palmares has come to embody, the sum of attributes that make up this possible Brazil, is put symbolically to the test in this final stage of the narrative. Much as Ganga Zumba strayed from essential, esteemed values and fi nally found redemption before his death, so will Zumbi. However, the fi lm will reconfi rm its understanding of the protonational community and suggest that the defi nition retains perennial value, independent of any particular leader or even of the utopic national allegory, Palmares. The fi lm soon begins to expose, through the disconnection of Zumbi from core values of Palmares, the limitations of Dandara’s proposal for the group to depend primarily on this figure. A white man visiting Palmares says to a gathering of leaders, including Zumbi, who remains in shadows until end of scene, that Domingos Jorge Velho has been hired by the governor of Pernambuco to wage war on the community: “They want to put an end to Palmares. [. . .] The King has decreed that Palmares and Zumbi are the greatest shame for the Colony.”57 Zumbi surmises that because they are armed with cannons, Velho’s men plan to attack the capital first. One of the men of Palmares insists then that Zumbi leave, but he refuses. Zumbi issues orders to consolidate the people of Palmares and reminds those present, and viewers, of a primary group attribute: “From now on everyone is a warrior. All must be trained. Even the women and children.”58 An argument between Zumbi and one of the men, Katambo, ensues: Katambo (angrily): Zumbi hasn’t asked the people if they want this. Zumbi: I can’t force them to be like me. But I can make them do what’s best for them. Katambo: Unwilling people lose their imagination. People without imagination are no use at all. Not even in war. Zumbi: I am the king. A king must act, or he is not king. Katambo: Ganga Zumba was king too.59

After the conversation, Zumbi has Katambo imprisoned to prevent him from provoking unrest in the community. Zumbi himself echoes Dandara’s claim of his central importance for Palmares, but this desperate and hubristic grasping for status and centrality in the group merely highlights that he has lost much of it and would tend to result in social iden-

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tity nonalignment with viewers.60 The suggestion of a degree of tyranny or at least abuse of power would likely begin to ethically distance viewers from the protagonist. Through his paternalistic statement about forcing the people to do what is best for them, Zumbi exposes how he has diverged from what is esteemed in relation to Palmares. He has begun to dominate and manipulate unwilling citizens, a practice the community opposes with regard to colonial Brazil and by extension its modern stand-in. Katambo, by alluding to Ganga Zumba as another who went astray and lost power, alludes to the rotation of leaders when a younger generation better coincides with the values of Palmares. Zumbi’s comment about his inability to make people be like him reinforces the fi lm’s suggestion about the limitations of guiding the social identities of viewers through cinematic selves. Zumbi will eventually reconnect with the core values of Palmares as his release of Katambo signifies convergence, and as a result he will regain some capacity as a cinematic self. However, the lessons communicated through this emblematic scene with respect to the proposed viewer-protagonist relationship remain. Notwithstanding Zumbi’s partially diminished character, members of the community continue to show allegiance toward him, much as they did before Ganga Zumba left for Cucau. What is more, he continues to model one of the most esteemed attributes of Palmares: valiant armed resistance. As with Ganga Zumba earlier, Zumbi’s qualities often but not always coincide with what is favored within the definition of proto-Brazilianness. By compromising somewhat the viability of both Ganga Zumba and Zumbi as cinematic selves who model how to understand the national category of viewer social identity, the fi lm encourages viewers to think for themselves, to always reserve a degree of skepticism regarding revered leaders. Quilombo recognizes the limits of a cinematic self, even though at various times it exploits that dynamic. These representational fluctuations with Ganga Zumba and Zumbi help to remind viewers that the group is what should be remembered, not individuals. From here on, the fi lm gradually realigns Zumbi with audience members. In a nocturnal scene before the fi rst battle with Domingos Jorge Velho, we hear an instrumental version of Zumbi’s theme song begin just before a cut to a long shot with Zumbi in the center and in front of other leaders of Palmares. He holds a flaming spear at his side, which recalls Ogun’s real presence in the fi lm and thus underscores the centrality of Afro-Brazilian spiritual beliefs for the protonational group. One end of the spear is planted in the earth, and Zumbi’s four companions look upon him with sober and determined respect.61 As the music continues, a medium shot slowly pans past the gathered men and Dan-

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dara, then a close-up shows Zumbi in profi le. Zumbi’s song along with the solemn fidelity of his lieutenants reconfi rms his importance for the group and again models for audience members a favorable disposition toward the character. Just as Dandara suggested during the performance, Zumbi epitomizes crucial attributes of Palmares, and the survival of the group hinges on him: “Zumbi is stronger than everything. With him, Palmares will last forever.”62 The next day, before the battle begins, the fi nal verses of Zumbi’s song are sung, and through this means the fi lm phases back to the exploitation of the character as potential cinematic self. These concluding lines of the theme song emphasize the protagonist as protector of Palmares, allude to the analogy of that community with modern Brazil, recall the centrality of Afro-Brazilian culture for the protonational community, and underscore the core attribute of bellicosity. The battle scene reinforces ingroup/outgroup distinctions, the fi lm’s insistence that viewers identify with the community of Palmares, and Zumbi’s role as proxy for the group. As Domingos Jorge Velho and his army advance, rolling their cannons toward Palmares, the soundtrack accompanies the action with a grating, nervous music that may help to link negativity to the Brazilian colonial outgroupers through affective congruence. The soundtrack conversely promotes positive associations toward Palmares. Zumbi and others wearing masks rise, fi rst one at a time, then in different places, as single beats sound on a drum. Great groups of them begin to rise in rhythm with the extradiegetic soundtrack while a berimbau starts to play in clear musical contrast to the unpleasant sounds linked to the other side. There is collusion between the battling Palmarenses and the contemporary soundtrack that encourages audience members to feel affectively aligned with the Afrocentric protonational group. The way the fi lm here and elsewhere links Palmares to upbeat music from the soundtrack would tend to enhance its persuasion for viewers to embrace a particular vision of Brazilian identity. When the fi lm cuts to the invading army outside, the music stops. Domingos Jorge Velho, who fi nds his force for the time being halted by Zumbi’s preparations, says slowly and deliberately, “Zumbi. Zumbi dos Palmares.” He emphasizes the importance of Zumbi and treats him as a proxy for Palmares. Soon the fi lm again attenuates its renewed proposal for reverent allegiance toward the protagonist and underscores that the community can and should endure without its revered leaders. Quilombo will continue to emphasize this concept throughout the final minutes. On the night of the fi rst day of battle, Zumbi encounters Acotirene in a dream, and the

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former leader says Palmares will never end. He screams “Acotirene!” and then wakes up. Zumbi immediately hears the humming of Camuanga, the young man he will soon meet and who, the fi lm-ending intertitle indicates, will eventually replace him as leader of the Palmares resistance. Here Palmares the cooperative, utopic community is emphasized rather than any of its leaders. The fi lm will clarify that the cohesive community itself is what leads to its endurance. In another regard, the dream alludes to a slightly different way that the fi lm concurrently defines the nation, even if the core values imparted remain the same. There are subtle differences in how a cinematic self expresses his or her understanding of the national group, how the representation of a national metaphor protagonist defi nes the group, and how a fi lm shows what the national community—or at least a miniature, stylized version of it—might look. Quilombo engages in all three techniques to some degree. What is emphasized in this scene and beyond is the third one. The audience is urged to look to the community of Palmares and the values it embodies as a model for how to understand Brazil. During the battle Zumbi cries out to Acotirene: “Acotirene! Acotirene! Didn’t you say Palmares was eternal?! Where’s your power, Acotirene?”63 The illuminated specter of Ganga Zumba appears to Zumbi. Zumbi looks at him and says, in an awed voice, “Ganga Zumba. My Ganga.”64 His declaration recalls his own words when he fi rst arrives in Palmares, and it coincides in tone and implication of reverence with the times Zumbi and Ganga Zumba spoke the name of Dandara and characters said the name Zumbi. In an earlier conversation Ganga Zumba says, “Palmares will live forever even without us”; Zumbi responds, “We will never be slaves again. Never again.”65 Zumbi has become cured of the megalomania that compromised his association with the protonation, much as Ganga Zumba’s nonaggression made him for a time fail to stand for the community. The fi lm proposes that Palmares does not depend symbolically entirely on Zumbi or other leaders, including the deceased Acotirene when Zumbi calls on her. What is more, losing the battle suggests that even the destruction of the physical space does not matter; Palmares/Brazil is a way of thinking and being that has at its core fighting for freedom and equality. Disassociating the idea of Palmares/Brazil from the space of the quilombo—after the fi lm redefi ned the national group through that spatial distinction—makes it easier now to embrace by all viewers. Palmares can live in the hearts and minds of all, anywhere. Zumbi and Acotirene and Ganga Zumba have been combined by the fi lm here as a sort of collective cinematic self to model coming to terms with an understanding of the protonational community that is in-

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dependent from the place and from any one of them. First they acted as metaphors of the community and stand-ins for audience members, and now they demonstrate how to conceive, long-term, of the newly defi ned national social group. The implication of Ganga Zumba’s and Zumbi’s statements, which follow up on that of Acotirene, is that the analogs of the Palmares population—Brazilian viewers—should and will embrace a Palmares-like understanding of Brazilianness, and through that revision of national identity they will achieve an enduring society free from oppression. The fi lm reinforces the independence of the spirit of Palmares from any of its leaders through a conversation among those of the invading army after the conclusion of the battle. Soldiers are unable to fi nd the body of Zumbi, who was wounded during the fighting. One of Domingos Jorge Velho’s soldiers declares, “While Zumbi lives, Palmares goes on.”66 Though the soldier’s words tie Palmares’s durability to Zumbi, he is mistaken in the same way Zumbi had been in his interpretation of what Acotirene said and as Dandara had been during the community performance through her emphasis on Zumbi’s durability. Audience members learn the lesson about the autonomy of the group directly from Ganga Zumba and by way of the fi lm disproving this soldier’s hypothesis; after Zumbi dies, Camuanga continues and after him, the concluding intertitle suggests, others. This perspective on where the essence of the community lies lends more durability to the concept of national identity recommended by the fi lm. Near the end the fi lm shows Dandara and another character taking their own lives rather than surrendering to the invading force, thus confi rming the favored attributes within Palmares of self-sacrifice and unending resistance to oppression. Audience members would recall Zumbi’s declaration about the advantages of remaining true to the beliefs of the community, that the only people who will ever be slaves again are the ones who are afraid to die; Dandara then repeats the remark in the community performance. Their self-sacrifice also models for viewers group members with unfailing allegiance to the principles of the group. The fi nal sequence of the fi lm documents the transfer of leadership from Zumbi to Camuanga. Zumbi, badly wounded, is hidden in the mountains with Camuanga. Zumbi tells the young man, “Acotirene told me that Palmares is eternal. That it would never end. Acotirene can’t be wrong.”67 Zumbi asks whether several of his companions had died in the battle. The boy seems to assume a protective disposition by changing the subject to food rather than dwell on the tragedy, the fi lm perhaps antic-

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ipating how soon the torch will be passed. Zumbi tells the boy that he will need protection when he goes to look for fruit and offers his spear, the emblem of his leadership and connection to Ogun. Camuanga declines and instead picks up a machete that another character had given him. The choice of a mundane weapon rather than the symbol of divine power reinforces the implication of Acotirene’s spirit not coming to Zumbi’s rescue during the battle, as he desired, that godlike leaders are not needed for Brazil to thrive, just the widespread and lasting adoption of the fi lm’s vision of Brazil. Camuanga rises to pick up the machete, Zumbi asks the boy’s name, and the boy tells him. Zumbi says, “Saurê, Camuanga,” and Camuanga replies, “Saurê, Zumbi dos Palmares!” The salutation was what Ganga Zumba and Dandara had said to Zumbi when power was beginning to slide into his hands. Zumbi, shortly after showing reverence to Acotirene in a dream and to Ganga Zumba’s ghost, manifests this respect for Camuanga, which drives home the topic of a mutually respectful, regular transfer of power. Zumbi, in the end, is found by Domingos Jorge Velho and shot dead by a group of men as Camuanga looks on. Before expiring, the bloodied and dying protagonist returns his spear to Ogun by throwing it into an unnaturally red sky. The shot visually brackets the content of the fi lm through its relation to the image of the mountains and sky during the opening credits. As Zumbi launches the spear he cries out with the same open-mouthed scream as when he started his vengeful spree. His dying cry recalls the bellicose spirit communicated in that earlier sequence and the lesson of the performance when the young boy emulates Zumbi.68 What the fi lm has communicated through this character is reinforced in another way. Following the shot of the spear in the sky, a series of daytime shots show plants, a stream, and a bird—nature as ally of Zumbi— as Gilberto Gil sings again the last verses of Zumbi’s theme song: Black joy is a warrior joy Black joy is a warrior joy Black joy is a warrior joy Brazil, my own Brazil, my great sanctuary, my cradle and nation! Zumbi, protector, guard and patron send freedom into my heart!69

At the word “patron” we see a replay of the moment of Zumbi’s naming and ascension to future leader of Palmares, when the spears are raised around him and he rises among them (figure 3.2). This is a repetition

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of lyrics that were sung before, so it reinforces certain key points of the fi lm. The emphasis on Zumbi may provoke a degree of tension with the fi lm’s rotating and decentralized approach to protonational metaphors and cinematic selves. As we have seen, though, the fi lm’s approach to proposing that audience members embrace a revised understanding of Brazilianness does not depend principally on individual cinematic selves. The fi nal intertitle, which is displayed while the lyrics are being sung, reinforces the fi lm’s position on the autonomous group: “Camuanga became leader of the Palmares resistance until 1704, when he was killed in battle with the Portuguese. Other warriors took his place. The Colonial forces never managed to exterminate Palmares completely. Resistance in the area was last heard of in 1797, more than a century after the death of Zumbi.”70 A nameless proliferation of warriors carried on where Camuanga, the last of the leaders the fi lm names, left off. Quilombo invites Brazilian viewers to act as the leaders’ conceptual heirs and embrace their values. It suggests that leaders can help in many ways, such as to consolidate and defi ne a group, but they are ultimately interchangeable and not always essential for the group to thrive. When Zumbi’s song concludes and the credits begin, we hear again the title song. Gilberto Gil, as it happens, gets the last word. The song reinforces some of the chief attributes of the Palmares/Brazil community proposed in the fi lm: working together and resisting injustice even by violent means. The song emphasizes the provisional cinematic self by leaving out dependence on the protagonists, which meshes well with Quilombo’s insistence that they are not needed for their model of national identity to be embraced indefi nitely by audience members. Along these lines, the words “even now” and “now, yes, you and I” take up Acotirene’s and Ganga Zumba’s suggestion that Palmares, the protonation, can outlast its leaders; the revised national group can live on even today among viewers.

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C h a p t e r F ou r

Alternative Understandings of the National Community in Chico Rei (1985)

W

h i le t h e 1984 f i lm Qu i lom bo sugge sts through Ganga Zumba and Zumbi distinct positions on how their protonational community of Palmares should approach one key issue—whether or not to compromise with a dominant, oppressive system—the splintering that their disagreement causes is shortlived. Ultimately, Quilombo proposes a unified understanding of its possible Brazil, even if the attributes that it favors are varied and sometimes contrasting. Chico Rei, on the other hand, maintains two options for how to reconceive of the national group, and these distinct solutions do not converge. The character Chico Rei promotes the solution for which the fi lm shows preference. His son, Muzinga, encourages adoption of the other identity model, which the fi lm respects but does not advocate as forcefully and broadly. The fi lm suggests an embedded belief that these alternative visions of Brazil have certain values in common that distinguish them from existing, predominant understandings of national identity in the era in which the fi lm was released, allegorized by way of the colonial government of eighteenth-century Minas Gerais. Most importantly, both protagonists share the goal of eliminating the oppression enabled by the structure of society as it is, emblematized in the fi lm by the institution of slavery. Where they differ is in the strategies to achieve that end. Chico Rei defends working within the system, buying his freedom, and wrestling for status within colonial society. Muzinga, in contrast, rejects the system entirely, escaping from captivity and helping to build an isolated political entity in a remote quilombo. Even if the fi lm leans toward the former approach, it sustains a contrast of the strategies and implies that each has its advantages. Chico Rei avoids offering a single, cohesive revision of Brazilianness for viewers.

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In this chapter I underscore the tactics the fi lm uses to persuade viewers to consider the historical narrative relevant for their present, examine how it makes clear that the topic is essentially Brazil and Brazilian national identity, and consider how the fi lm uses characters as instruments to encourage audience members to embrace a distinct understanding of the national category of their social identities. I give special attention to the juxtaposition of Chico Rei’s distinct visions of national identity and the symbolic relationship the fi lm proposes between protagonists and the nation, as well as the interface the fi lm encourages between them and the viewing public. These dynamics constitute the nature of the fi lm’s favoring of one model over the other. In other words, it is because the fi lm positions Chico Rei as a national metaphor and cinematic self that the defi nition of Brazilian national identity he embodies is potentially more likely to be embraced by viewers, even though the fi lm depicts in quite positive ways what Muzinga represents as well.

A f r ica n i zi ng Dom i na n t, Sy ncr et ic U n de rsta n di ngs of Br a zi l Chico Rei challenges the long-standing image of identity characterized by happy hybridity in which the trunk of a racially tripartite tree is basically Christian and European and grafted with Amerindian and African branches. Instead, the fi lm centers the African constituent of the population within a similar triad, though Chico Rei, much like Cafundó, gives the indigenous element only a token reference.1 In the early 1980s Walter Lima Júnior’s Chico Rei responded to the political reality of Brazil by carrying out this inversion of a similar and still influential Eurocentric but ostensibly inclusive and syncretic understanding of Brazilianness, one most notably advanced earlier by Gilberto Freyre in Casa grande e senzala.2 Chico Rei offered a critique of the governmentsanctioned perpetuation of a Freyrean version of Brazilian identity.3 In the process, the fi lm was critical of the related notion of racial democracy still supported at the time by a Brazilian government in the process of transitioning from military dictatorship to democracy. And despite celebrations of Afro-Brazilian culture in diverse sectors of society, social and political conditions for Afro-Brazilians were only beginning to change.4 Political activist Abdias do Nascimento insisted on the small political space that opened up for Afro-Brazilians during the years preceding the production and release of Chico Rei.5 The fi lm’s reconfiguration of an Afro-European, syncretic, and inclusive conception of

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identity privileges an Afro-Brazilian racial or ethnic group within its proposal for how audience members might understand Brazil’s diverse superordinate national group. Chico Rei recommends the elevation of this new defi nition of national identity within viewer hierarchies of the categories of their social identities. The view of identity promoted by Lima Júnior’s fi lm coincided with countercultural or revolutionary voices at the margins of Brazilian society. Its resistant spirit is one of the key attributes of the definition of the national community the fi lm favors in both of the models of identity that it proffers. A key example of such voices was the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), which at the beginning of the 1980s was participating with others in debunking the myth of racial democracy and, like Chico Rei, in condemning the dictatorship. Abdias do Nascimento, co-founder of the MNU, called for a racially inclusive, Afrocentric, and revolutionary view of the nation that he synthesized in what he called quilombismo, an influential movement that found symbolic inspiration in the inherently resistant quilombos of slavery-era Brazil: “The Black, far from being an upstart or a stranger, is the very body and soul of this country. [. . .] Quilombismo being an anti-imperialist struggle, it articulates itself with Pan-Africanism and sustains a radical solidarity with all peoples of the world who struggle against exploitation, oppression, and poverty” (quoted in Guimarães 267). Nascimento calls attention to some of the underlying motives for the Afrocentric but inclusive revisions of traditional syncretic defi nitions of identity that this fi lm carries out. Much of Chico Rei’s reshaping of a proposed Brazilian essence involves encouraging pride in African culture and the history of resistance to the institution of slavery. At the same time, Chico Rei enhances the persuasive effectiveness of its commemoration of the struggles of those Africans and Afro-descendants enslaved in Brazil by attempting to guide interpretations of this aspect of Brazilian history. In addition to linking past to present through various cues, the fi lm coincides with other Brazilian slavery fi lms in suggesting that the enslaved characters, especially the protagonists, are viable proxies for the diverse and still in some way oppressed national population and, as such, appropriate vehicles to model a new way to understand the nation. Through its eighteenthcentury allegory of present-day oppression and the rebellious disposition it embodies through the slaves, the fi lm takes steps to inspire all racial constituencies to rally together around Afro-Brazilian culture and embrace a revolutionary spirit. The context that would seem to have led to Chico Rei’s invitation for viewers to revise their understandings of Brazilianness was Brazil under

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the military dictatorship. Chico Rei was released as the power of Brazil’s military dictatorship was diminishing, but it was begun several years earlier. From this timing and the emphasis in the fi lm not only on the suffering of slavery but also on political oppression, we can infer that the fi lm was intended to challenge the dominant political reality of its context of production and reception. It carries out the challenge by offering a revision of the understanding of Brazilianness held dear and exploited by the existing power structure.

E n h a nci ng a n I n h e r it e d Pot e n t i a l as I de n t it y Mode l Chico Rei capitalizes on the likely knowledge that members of the audience would have had of the main protagonist before watching the fi lm. It is not by accident that a protagonist was chosen whom audience members would already know, have feelings about, and associate with the nation. Such a status would tend to give the fi lm a head start in establishing its protagonist as a stand-in for the nation and its people and in proposing that audience members identify with the character as a self-concept model, a guide for how to understand the national category of their social identities. Like several other Brazilian slavery fi lms, Chico Rei conspicuously reminds viewers of the historical and legendary nature of the character being represented. This emphasis serves as a springboard to cast the protagonist as a national metaphor and cinematic self. The fi lm uses several tactics that emphasize that it is treating a figure who already enjoys a long history and has proven relevance for Brazilians today. Two examples include an early scene in which an elder from the quilombo, Quinderê, begins to narrate a story from long ago about Chico Rei (“Long, long ago, there was a king called Galanga”), and the concluding scene of the fi lm, which transports viewers to the present and calls attention to Chico Rei’s cultural legacy. The story Chico Rei retells has survived largely by means of the oral tradition of the region of Minas Gerais in Brazil’s interior.6 Lima Júnior’s version recounts the tale of Galanga, a Congolese king, who in the mideighteenth century is taken with his wife, his son, Muzinga, and much of his village to be sold into slavery in Brazil. But Chico Rei is not the fi rst retelling of the story. As with other Afro-Brazilian icons from the colonial period such as Zumbi and Xica da Silva, Galanga was revived throughout the twentieth century through various events and cultural artifacts. He continues to be evoked through the congada mineira, de-

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scribed by Mário de Andrade as “a dramatic dance, a royal procession that advances to the sound of song, that originated in the African custom of enthroning a new king.” The historical figure also has been the subject of at least one carnival samba pageant theme. He appears as well in the poetry of Cecília Meireles, a novel by Agripa Vasconcelos, and a musically syncretic piece for orchestra and chorus from 1933 based on an idea by Mário de Andrade. In this piece, O maracatu do Chico Rei, composer Francisco Mignone draws on a traditional Afro-Brazilian celebration from the Brazilian state of Pernambuco similar to the congada. Galanga is the topic of a slim pamphlet by Tanus Jorge Bastani from 1964 titled “Chico Rei.” Bastani’s 1964 rendering of the story of Chico Rei never made it to the screen as was intended. The provocative legend did eventually fi nd cinematic purchase in the 1970s as Walter Lima Júnior began to plan Chico Rei. Carlos Alberto Mattos has commented in his book on the director, “If Walter was looking for [. . . a] hero, there was also a hero in search of a director.”7 In the variant of Galanga’s story presented by Lima Júnior’s fi lm, following the Congolese king’s capture and before the slaving ship’s departure from the continent, a Catholic priest renames Galanga along with a host of other new captives. In a violent ceremony that correlates evangelization and the transatlantic colonial slave economy, the clergyman hurls drops of holy water on the king and screams repeatedly, “Francisco! Francisco! Francisco!” (Chico is a nickname for Francisco, and “rei” means “king.”) In fact, the naming and renaming of the protagonist punctuates much of the fi lm’s commentary and accompanies the fi lm’s use of Chico Rei as a vehicle to explain its revision of proposed Brazilian national identity. We might read this scene as preliminarily calling attention to diverse identity categories and to their mutability. The character of Chico Rei—proposed during the fi lm as a model for the self-concepts of viewers—is faced with forced reconfigurations of his social identity. Through his baptism, the priest is aggressively proposing that the character incorporate into his self-concept several shifts in social identity categories: religious, ethnic, and linguistic. Galanga reaches American shores as Francisco, nicknamed Chico, and is forced to work in a gold mine near Vila Rica, now Ouro Preto, an important eighteenth-century Brazilian mining town in Minas Gerais. There he eventually fi nds enough gold to buy his own freedom and that of many others. Once he is in the new geographical and political context of Brazil, the representation of such attempts at absorbing the protagonist into European identity categories and his own negotiation of his changing social identity will have implications with respect to the

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F igu r e 4.1. Upon Chico Rei’s release from prison, Seixas encourages a crowd of people to consider him worthy of emulation.

understanding of the national category of identity that audience members would likely infer from the fi lm. As Chico Rei comes to be associated with the Brazilian population, the degree to which he is Christian, African, European, or otherwise designated will constitute a suggestion that these social groups be considered essential within a possible definition of national identity.

Proposi ng a Possi ble Br a zi l t h rough Ch ico R e i Like other Brazilian slavery fi lms, Chico Rei makes clear that it is treating the topic of Brazilian national identity and elevates that category of social identity. The fi lm proposes that viewers lend the category particular importance in the hierarchy of social groups to which they belong. This hierarchizing step is essential to ensure that the fi lm has a chance of changing understandings of that category of social identity. One of the chief ways that Chico Rei exalts membership in the Brazilian social group for viewers is by stressing the difference between Brazilians and Portuguese and characterizing the former as good and the latter as nefarious. Sometimes it does so through dialogue, but more often it rallies the audience around Brazil by displaying the cruelty of

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the Portuguese and their collaborators toward the stand-ins for the Brazilian population: slaves and the white and free black insurrectionists. This tactic elevates the Brazilian category of identity through opposability. The early part of the fi lm highlights the vicious treatment of the slaves through several scenes—from the violent capture of Chico Rei and his people in Africa to the sometimes sexualized dehumanizing sadism of the captain and his crew during the Middle Passage to the beatings of slaves in Brazil. In one pivotal scene less than halfway through the fi lm, the protagonist witnesses, outraged, the strip-searching, racialized insulting, and beating of an enslaved mine worker by another black man. Besides adding to the tactics that enhance opposability in the fi lm, the scene emphasizes the nature of Chico Rei’s proposed, ideal protonational community. As in the case of Quilombo, the fi lm makes clear, through the black internal outgrouper, that race is not the determining factor of the extension of the Brazilian community it envisions and extols. Rather, ethics constitute worthiness. The fi lm’s proto-Brazil is a social group that reserves a place for nonoppressors only. Later, Chico Rei himself is the victim of the mistreatment of the colonizers. However, his abuse does not derive from slave status but rather from the political threat he poses to the government. The abuse he suffers helps to generalize the effects of cruelty toward a group member— namely, group hierarchizing through opposability and ingroup threat— to the whole Brazilian population. The same could happen to anyone, the fi lm would seem to suggest to modern-day audience members, not just to those who would typically be the objects of mistreatment. Chico Rei further emphasizes the point that all constituencies of the Brazilian population are subject to oppression under existing political circumstances; it does so through scenes that foreground the torture as well of the white insurrectionist Seixas. This aspect of the plot intensifies the promotion of the Brazilian category of identity through the shared subjugation of various constituencies within the protonational community depicted by the fi lm, but it also helps to make more viable the analogy between the colonial context and the audience’s own context. Sometimes the Portuguese outgroupers or their collaborators, that is, Brazilian internal outgroupers, through their words distinguish and elevate the proposed national social group. The former owner of Muzinga several times manifests cruelty, such as when he refuses Chico Rei’s offer to purchase the manumission of his already escaped son. He aids in drawing a line between two groups by calling attention to the former slaves who live in the quilombo and who, along with Chico Rei, partly stand for Brazil. The man levels what he considers to be an insult

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when he refers to residents of the quilombo as cannibals. The reference to cannibalism, however, would likely reinforce viewers’ association of the people of the quilombo with the nation and hierarchize the national group they represent; anthropophagy, in the modernist sense used by Oswald de Andrade in the 1920s, has been a key element in prevailing understandings of Brazilian identity. Through the display of white and black Brazilians resisting colonial rule the fi lm reinforces the ingroup-outgroup opposition that it highlighted through the behavior of the Portuguese and Brazilian loyalist characters and contributes to the promotion of the protonational group. The characters’ multiracial revolutionary actions call attention to the practical advantages of cohesion among members of a diverse superordinate group, thus promoting the Brazilian social group through the technique of nationalization called functionality. The proposed elevation of the national group through these varied tactics is stressed early in the fi lm when Seixas dubs the protagonist “Chico Rei” and contrasts him with “the other king, the king of Portugal,”8 thus alluding, even if in jest, to an incompatible political opposition. Later Seixas exposes his animosity toward Portugal in particular through the speech he gives upon Chico Rei’s release from prison in which he calls the colonial governor a tyrant (figure 4.1). Alongside making salient and appealing the Brazilian social group, the fi lm casts the protagonist as a national metaphor or a proxy for the whole population. Chico Rei associates the protagonist with the nation and the national community largely through his initially enslaved social status and his continuing subjugation even after gaining his freedom. The African and Afro-descendant figures of the fi lm exemplify a population faced with oppression, unwilling to accept such a state, and determined to achieve agency and freedom. As is the case in all of the fi lms I examine in the book with the exception of Cafundó, Chico Rei proposes multiracial unity by suggesting an analogy between the slaves’ struggle for freedom and the general attempt of the colonial territories to achieve independence, a process in the colonial Americas controlled primarily by the white elite. Through allegorical allusion the fi lm extends into contemporary Brazilian society this view of slaves as racially inclusive proxies for a still oppressed society and leads viewers to internalize a resistant spirit as an essential attribute of their understandings of the national community. Chico Rei’s present of 1985 was a time when the nation was finally emerging from two decades of military dictatorship. The fi lm presumes a population, in other words, that remains in a sense enslaved or at least

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not entirely free. The subjugating institutions of slavery and colonialism serve as a joint allegory for the military dictatorship, and resistance is modeled for the diverse modern population of Brazil through the cooperation of a racially diverse and unified populace in the fi lm. In the November 12, 1986, press book for the fi lm, Lima Júnior states, “We are still slaves, not just the blacks of that era.”9 Chico Rei’s implications with regard to the fi lmmaker’s context were more relevant when Lima Júnior began production in the late 1970s. Mattos points to some concrete allegorical correspondences between the fi lm and the fi nal years of the military dictatorship, such as when Chico Rei refers to the death of an old man in the mine and says, “One of our own has fallen!” (242).10 But the temporal distance between the fi lm’s conception and its ultimate release created a degree of disconnect in its political critique and its intervention on identity (254). The fi lm suggests that inasmuch as the country continues to experience oppression, audience members, regardless of race or ethnicity, are likely to feel a degree of social status alignment with the slaves and the colonized population. The fi lm treats the character Chico Rei as the primary representative of both of these protonational stand-ins. Another way that Chico Rei is connected to the nation and the population and thus proposed as a viable proxy for the Brazilian population is through his manifest attitudes and beliefs in his behavior. To the extent that these attributes overlap the understanding of Brazilianness that members of the audience already have in mind, the character would likely be interpreted as an exemplum and possibly a prototype of the national population. As in other Brazilian slavery fi lms, the protagonists tend to embody a mixture of qualities already associated with Brazilianness. This approach to characterization enables protagonists to seem like viable national stand-ins. The characters’ qualities diverge somewhat from prevailing group defi nitions that constitute a fi lm’s revision of prevailing defi nitions of the national social group. One of the typically Brazilian attributes that Chico Rei represents throughout the fi lm is Euro-African syncretism. He speaks Portuguese and an African language. He embraces Catholicism with African or Afro-Brazilian elements, such as through his association with the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos—a Catholic brotherhood for blacks—and the church he builds in honor of the African Santa Efigênia (Ifigênia). The fi lm has other characters point out attributes of the protagonist that are likely to be esteemed as part of viewers’ understandings of

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the Brazilian national group. Seixas’s comparison of Chico Rei to the other king constitutes a hint that the fi lm will be assigning the protagonist a role at the core of the nation. A concrete step in the direction of equating the protagonist with Brazil is his association with the subgroup that has been cast as standing for the nation: enslaved and free Afro-Brazilians. After Seixas expresses interest in the offer of Chico Rei and Hermes from the brotherhood to buy his mine and pay his debts to the crown, Hermes says, “Chico will be the natural leader of all of the blacks of this region.”11 The fi lm may be understood as tying the protagonist to the nation in general also when racially diverse sets of characters show reverence for him, and it suggests that he is someone Brazilians should strive to emulate. Such gestures begin to emerge toward the end of the fi lm when Chico Rei is imprisoned and a racially heterogeneous, if largely AfroBrazilian, crowd protests his imprisonment. Seixas’s speech to the crowd upon Chico Rei’s release proposes in the most direct way thus far that the protagonist be considered a Brazilian prototype. He declares that Chico Rei is a “man whom we should consider an example.”12 Even as the fi lm is beginning in earnest to associate Chico Rei with the nation as a whole, through Muzinga the fi lm continues to emphasize his role as leader of the black community as well. During Muzinga’s speech about the imprisonment of his father he declares, “The white people have arrested the king of the black people.”13 Although Muzinga’s comment emphasizes a white/black rather than Portuguese/Brazilian social identity opposition, Seixas’s support for Chico Rei when he is released preserves the fi lm’s promotion of the Brazilian superordinate category of identity being highly ranked. Chico Rei himself reinforces his role as representing black Brazil: “My people are going to be free. Santa Efigênia is going to help me.”14 It might have fallen flat for the narrative to push harder than Seixas’s comment in casting the protagonist as a Brazilian stand-in. Still, since the fi lm has alluded to an analogy between slaves and the heterogeneous colonized population of Brazil and by extension modern Brazil living under the dictatorship, the protagonist’s intimate link to the enslaved population serves the purpose of the fi lm’s proposition that Chico Rei stands for all of Brazil. As in the case of Quilombo, the songs about the protagonist bring into clearer relief the fi lm’s insinuations that Chico Rei be considered a proxy for the entire Brazilian population. Twenty minutes from the fi lm’s ending, just after Hermes has declared Chico Rei to be the natural leader of blacks, a modern song is heard:

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He who was not born to be a slave. The gold of the earth, coin that returns liberty. One by one he frees, one by one he reunites. The king remakes his people, the king remakes his kingdom.15

The present-day voice of the song suggests a paternal, unifying role for the protagonist. Although it makes reference to the people of his Congolese kingdom, the fi lm has made it clear that the disposition extends to all enslaved blacks in Brazil. His intimate association with the free blacks of the brotherhood and collaboration with the white insurrectionists extend what the song implies. The presentation of Chico Rei’s theme song for the fi rst time comes with less than ten minutes remaining and confi rms what has been suggested up to this point. Reminiscent of Jorge Ben Jor’s double-edged vocal celebration of the protagonist of Xica da Silva and Gilberto Gil’s theme song for Zumbi in Quilombo, Milton Nascimento’s Chico Rei theme song extols the protagonist. It represents the culmination of the fi lm’s gradual characterization of Chico Rei as a stand-in for the nation and as a national prototype, someone on whom citizens might model their understanding of the national categories of their social identities. Initially only the fi rst five verses are sung, and as the fi lm closes, the whole song is heard, with the fi nal verse: He who is king will always be king if his kingdom is planted in the heart of his people, Chico Rei, Chico Rei, our king will always be king.16

The poetic “I” of the song might be interpreted as a member of the protagonist’s African kingdom or another former slave living in Brazil, but because this is a patently modern song, the words “our king” (“nosso rei”) carry special value. The song suggests a central symbolic role for Chico Rei in the present day that might be understood as implicating all Afro-descendant Brazilians. However, the prevalence of the fi lm’s gestures toward racial inclusiveness enable a broader, national reading of the lyrics and culminate with Seixas suggesting that Chico Rei be considered exemplary. Through Chico Rei’s theme song, the soundtrack af-

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fi rms the protagonist’s link to the nation and bolsters other aspects of the fi lm’s redefi nition of Brazilianness, such as elevating the Brazilian category of identity and associating that group with a revolutionary spirit. Although it is near the end that the fi lm completes its association of Chico Rei with the Brazilian nation and the national population, from the beginning it aligns audience members with the protagonist in various ways. The likely identification with the character will coincide with his emerging status as national metaphor in such a way as to make him a viable model for viewer self-concepts or a cinematic self who guides understandings of Brazilianness. As with other Brazilian slavery fi lms, one of the ways Chico Rei appeals to a broad swath of the viewing population is by offering somewhat favorably portrayed American-born Europeans who sometimes share a degree of the slaves’ rebellious spirit and aid them in limited ways. This ethical or ideological alignment within the fictional world models a similar consonance between a heterogeneous group of audience members and the fi lm’s Afro-descendant characters and by extension with the primary representative of this broad group, Chico Rei. We have insurrectionists who conspicuously include in the fi lm blacks and whites who advocate for manumission if not abolition. Chico Rei also features a Spanish Jesuit priest who shares the role of narrator with an Afro-Brazilian member of a quilombo, a possible gesture toward a syncretic—and trans–Latin American—historiography. Moreover, he is one of the fi lm’s principal characters and one who abandons the sphere of European influence to attempt to join the quilombo with Chico Rei’s son, Muzinga. The fi lm in these ways would promise to implicate and not alienate more than one racial constituency in the message that it globally proposes and condenses in the protagonist, the viewer’s wouldbe cinematic self. The defi nition of identity offered by the fi lm, in other words, is characterized as viable for the entire population. The probable viewer alignment with this racially diverse, noncolonizing Brazilian population as well as the allegiance this protonational group increasingly shows toward Chico Rei guides viewers to feel identification with the protagonist and as a result to embrace him as a selfconcept model. Shortly after the protagonist’s arrival in Brazil early in the fi lm, a scene in which a white insurrectionist is hanged inaugurates the fi lm’s proposal that audience members feel generally aligned with the racially diverse, anticolonial Brazilians. Several people are shown in close-up, and we hear their thoughts about the event. As happens more than once, the fi lm aligns viewers epistemically with both unfavorably and favorably portrayed characters. The man who will be-

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come Muzinga’s owner derides Felipe de Freitas, the condemned man, for “imbecile” patriotism. Rather than provoking internal confl ict, the forced intersection with an unlikable character would likely lead to greater polarization of the ideal, protonational community and the internal outgroupers the man represents. Two free black men, in contrast, and the white Spanish priest show sympathy for the position of the rebel. One of the black men, in voice-over, praises him for daring to “dream a free nation” (“sonhar uma nação livre”). If viewers fi nd similarly distasteful the execution of the character, their exposure to the thoughts of emotionally moved, indignant, still rebellious characters would tend to provoke epistemic, affective, ethical, and motivational alignment with them. The fi lm consistently aligns viewers with black and white anticolonial figures. Audience members are given access to private moments with members of the brotherhood who express their thoughts and motives for participating not only in the liberation of slaves but of Brazil in general. The fi lm encourages identification with Seixas despite his status as slave owner. There is likely ethical alignment because of his active and sacrificial participation in resistance to colonial rule. Contributing to such a suggested viewer alignment is Seixas remaining true to his word to Chico Rei about buying his freedom. When Chico Rei is released from the prison where he was tortured and maimed, Seixas dictates his letter of manumission. The fi lm provokes viewer alignment with Chico Rei in part through diverse characters who model reverence for and emulation of Chico Rei. To the extent that Chico Rei embodies attributes viewers associate with Brazil and is cast as an essential leader of the Brazilian population as the fi lm progresses, Brazilian viewers would tend to feel social identity alignment with him. The fi lm also engages in some potential motivational and epistemic alignment when audience members are made privy to his motives and knowledge and affective alignment to the degree that they experience the same emotional response that the character manifests. Notwithstanding these tactics, the fi lm largely promotes alignment with Chico Rei in the ethical sphere. Audience members would likely take sides with the protagonist with regard to the unacceptability of his enslaved situation, his outrage at the cruel treatment of other slaves, and his nonviolent efforts to achieve improved social conditions for oppressed members of society. The viewers’ ethical alignment with the protagonist and other slaves promises to be particularly intense early in the fi lm, during the Middle Passage. The captain, in particular, shows utter indifference for the hu-

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manity of the captives, gleefully ordering that forty women be thrown overboard to their deaths to prevent the ship from foundering rather than allowing any of the goods they are transporting—or indeed any of the animals—to be disposed of. The white priest who will later go with Muzinga to the quilombo reinforces the certain ethical alignment that viewers would already feel for the slaves and for Chico Rei’s family, the focus of the narrative. “It made no sense to throw them in the ocean,”17 he says in Spanish-laden Portuguese. The always racialized cruelty becomes sexualized in a scene that would likely produce discomfort through solidarity. One of the white officers lecherously dresses up a female slave in a white wig and tries to powder her face before she starts aggressively to fight back, even appropriating his whip and using it, before his superior strength fi nally begins to dominate, and the fi lm cuts visually away while the sounds of the assault continue. Ethical alignment with the slaves and Chico Rei is increased as well when the sailors take joy in the gratuitous suffering they cause and the slaves’ reactions to them. One of the sailors taunts the men below, laughing as he insinuates that the women are being raped and killed: Sailor A: Your women are being treated very well. Sailor B: It’s a shame that you aren’t going to be able to see them again. [. . .] Sailor A: You’re really going to miss her, aren’t you. [. . .] You know when you’re going to see your wife? Never!18

The likely affective alignment is taken to a new level when the individual being addressed in the second half of the declarations—who seems to be Muzinga—lashes out and tries to attack the man speaking, thus providing vicarious release for indignation. Several of the slaves are taken above to be whipped, among them Galanga and Muzinga; while this is taking place, the camera gives viewers access to the private space of the holds where men and women who are being held chant in protest of the violence above. These shots align viewers with the slaves visually in a general scene, for the camera shares the space with them. They visually align audience members explicitly as well, as in a shot of the men being whipped from the perspective of the women through the crossed bars of their cell. Viewers see the pain on people’s faces and their insistent protests in close-ups, and medium shots likewise would tend to provoke motivational and affective alignment. The ethical alignment with Chico Rei and the enslaved characters

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in general continues in Brazil. I will refer to just one emblematic scene, the one in which Chico Rei sees a slave being beaten after attempting to steal gold from the mine. The protagonist is not just watching but holding onto the abused man and looking at his abusers. After the whipping, a medium close-up shows Chico Rei looking on with dread and awe. Audience members would most likely share his outrage. To the extent that viewers already feel aligned with him generally, they would interpret this scene from his perspective, a cognitive alignment that intensifies ethical and affective alignment. I should note that the character Galanga reaches a turning point here, as the events seem to galvanize him. Because this scene seems to be the catalyst for his taking action to combat enslavement, viewers are invited to experience motivational alignment with him. The fi lm carries out much of its proposal to feel alignment with and allegiance toward the main protagonist through other characters. Seixas plays a major role in broadening the fi lm’s proposed reverence beyond the black characters in the fi lm. He begins to guide Brazil’s diverse viewership in this direction early in the fi lm when he acknowledges the protagonist’s former royal status and names him Chico Rei, an act that hints at the respect Seixas will later demonstrate. The repetition of this name within and outside the narrative through the soundtrack is one of the main ways the fi lm guides viewers to adopt a reverent attitude toward the protagonist. Soon after Seixas names him Chico Rei, the protagonist is hammering in the mine and falls into a cavity below where he discovers a vein of gold and an apparition of Santa Efigênia gesturing toward the mother lode. One of the men above cries out with genuine esteem, “Chico Rei! Chico Rei!” to celebrate their simultaneous fi nding of a major vein of gold. The fi nal twenty minutes or so of the fi lm present most of the fi lm’s urging through other characters to feel alignment with and allegiance toward Chico Rei. Audience members might interpret Hermes’s declaration of Chico Rei as the “natural leader of all of the blacks of this region” as not only proposing reverence but also a social identity alignment with at least the modern analog of the subgroup, Afro-descendant Brazilians. The “natural” part is important: the narrative perhaps implies that the protagonist has some essential quality that lends him an elevated or prototypical status among Afro-Brazilians, a group the fi lm elsewhere conflates with the superordinate Brazilian group. The closing events of the main narrative, before flashing forward to the present just preceding the credits, complete the suggestion for viewers to consider

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Chico Rei a cinematic self through whom they might understand differently the national category of their social identities. The racial diversity of the population that protests his imprisonment chanting “Chico Rei!” extends the modeling of esteem beyond the Afro-Brazilian group in the fi lm. Now he is not just the natural leader of blacks but of all Brazil, the fi lm would seem to imply. They represent a heterogeneous population that has followed the lead of the protagonist, as the fi lm suggests that viewers do. The crowd models a unified, possible, redefined Brazilian community that is capable of mounting a resistance, even if there is no guarantee that the nascent revised protonational community will prevail. In his speech upon Chico Rei’s release, Seixas explicitly encourages people to consider the protagonist a self-concept model, a guide for how to understand the favored attributes within their protonational community: I want to propose a toast, a toast to the black man, Chico, a toast to Chico Rei, whose character exposed the tyrannical and incompetent nature of the governor. [. . .] What I am saying is of interest to each one of you, to all, but this is less important than the fact of my selling the Encardideira mine for a good price to a man whom we should consider an example, and who triumphed through hard work: Chico Rei!19

Importantly, he is suggesting that the racially diverse interlocutors— proxies for the modern Brazilian audience members—consider Chico Rei an example in relation to certain attributes he possesses. The cheering crowd models acceptance of the suggestion to think differently about the values of their group. The Quinderê voice-over, from some time in the future, bridges the speech scene and the flash-forward to the present. He implies that others did use Chico Rei as model and that a nation was formed: For many years Chico Rei worked to free his people. And all of them were freed, and they formed a great nation. [. . .] Those black people spread all over Brazil and told the story of their freedom. Chico lived many years, but no one knows for sure what happened to him. If he stayed around here, or if he returned to the Congo. All we know is that he once again became king, king of a festival that tells of his glory, king of the congada, which the blacks of Brazil still sing and dance today.20

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The tone and content of the voice-over have a mythical quality. This is not surprising, as national myths are one of the chief means through which a national social group is endorsed and defi ned. Inventing or embellishing a national past worthy of pride contributes toward an impression of durability, one of the techniques of nationalization that Hogan identifies. If the protesting crowd demonstrated the embrace of Chico Rei as a stand-in self, an identity model, this culminating, future moment etches such a disposition into the national tradition. Quinderê’s words may be understood as implying that the fi lm’s envisioned protonational group became a reality in the black community that Chico Rei unites. Taken as a whole, the fi lm proposes that audience members extend his symbolic leadership to all of Brazil.

T h e A rt icu lat ion of Ch ico R ei ’s Propose d U n de rsta n di ng of Br a zi li a n n ess As I argued at the beginning of the chapter, the fi lm explores two main ways to revise understandings of the national social group through the two protagonists, Chico Rei and his son, Muzinga. Through Muzinga the fi lm depicts a distinct, geographically separate, protonational population and elevates that possible Brazil. This microcosm favors a starting-over approach to articulating what an ideal Brazil would look like. This approach makes it perhaps somewhat easier to delineate the group’s extension—the sorts of people, ethically speaking, who are welcome members of the group—and the attributes the group would possess. The approach to redefining Brazilianness that the fi lm links to Chico Rei suggests that it is possible to modify Brazil as it is, represented in the fi lm by colonial society. Afro-descendant characters retain a prominent place, but the demographically diverse urban setting lends itself to promoting racial and ethnic inclusiveness. The fi lm fortifies in various ways the redefi nition of national identity that it communicates. It draws on the rhetorical advantages of both fact and fiction, a tactic that I have discussed in previous chapters. On the one hand, it authorizes its commentary by claiming a historical foundation for what it presents. On the other hand, the fi lm exploits the mythical or legendary overtones of the tale it tells. Such a well-worn sort of story, we can also observe, enjoys a practiced pliability that allows the fi lm to shape its presumably true story in the most convenient way to redefi ne efficiently the national community. In search of a persuasive formula, the fi lm fl irts with the ostensibly opposed categories of history

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F igu r e 4.2. A modern-day performance of the congada mineira is shown at the conclusion of the film.

and legend. The beginning of Chico Rei illustrates how the fi lm straddles fact and fiction. Before the fi lm’s action begins, an intertitle appears using statistics to highlight the historical basis of what follows, and one of the fi lm’s fi nal credits provides a bibliography of sources on slavery in Brazil. The implication that the action about to be presented boasts historical fidelity would tend to inspire confidence among viewers in the fi lm’s historiography but also, as a consequence, in the message inherent in its version of history. The fi rst window into the past that the fi lm offers primes viewers to value one of the qualities that Chico Rei comes to represent in the fi lm: liberty during continued oppression. The following text appears on the screen: “For three centuries close to two million Africans were transported as slaves to the Portuguese colony in Brazil. Divested of all rights, working without rest, and with a short lifespan, blacks did everything possible to keep alive their faith in liberty.”21 The initial images concretize the ongoing and sometimes successful pursuit of liberty under slavery. A traveling long shot follows in silence the fl ight of three chained men through a prairie as rolling hills are seen in the background. As the path of the men begins to converge with the traveling camera, the soundtrack overlays a contemplative melody that combines synthesizer effects with church bells—instrumentation that helps to link

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the depicted past with the viewers’ present. The men are seen in a medium shot before the camera cuts to a close-up of the lip of a cliff. After the fi lm’s title comes and goes—and with it, the melody—the same shot documents the culmination of a climb as the hand of one of the men rises above the cliff. As the man’s shackled neck and then the rest of his body emerge, the camera pulls back and reframes the scene in a medium shot while this fi rst man models solidarity—one of the chief attributes of this fi lm’s proposed understanding of Brazilianness—by pulling the next one onto the ledge. Later in the fi lm Chico Rei and other characters will reinforce this modeling of intragroup solidarity, such as during the Middle Passage when those in the hold chant as others are whipped on deck, in the successful collaboration between Chico Rei and the brotherhood to purchase Seixas’s mine, and by the overture of that urban Afro-Brazilian alliance to the men in the quilombo to combine efforts for mutual benefit. The fi lm complements intragroup unity with the foregrounding of intergroup cooperation among the attributes that comprise its proposed understanding of a new superordinate Brazilian group, such as through the revolutionary collaboration of the Irmandade and Seixas. After the man is pulled onto the ledge during the fi lm’s opening, a subsequent shot accompanied by the sound of howling wind pans slowly to the left and locates the three in a medium shot and begins an approach that ends in close-up as they methodically chop the chains from around their necks with a large, rectangular rock. The men rejoice and continue on their way to establish a quilombo. Once they reach their destination they begin to build their community of former slaves. These realist images of the mundane tasks of construction reinforce the claims of historical fidelity made by the intertitle. The quilombo-founding sequence inaugurates the fi lm’s alternative, secondary, social identity proposal that it condenses in the figure of Muzinga. As the initial three men cooperate with others whom they have apparently encountered in the quilombo, an extradiegetic music dominated by the berimbau merges with and is then replaced by celebratory drumming and dancing by the men in the scene. The fi lm correlates here African or Afro-Brazilian culture with freedom, progress, and collaboration. Chico Rei thus associates Afro-Brazil with attributes valued in the fi lm’s understanding of Brazilianness. Here and elsewhere the fi lm uses the soundtrack as a key rhetorical device. The fi lm recruits music—of European or African origin or some combination of the two—as one means of persuading audience members to reconceive the national category of their social identities.22 For example, the fi lm reinforces the opposition that it establishes between the strategies of Chico and

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Muzinga—a politically and culturally syncretic understanding of a protonational community or proud Afro-Brazilian ethnic separatism—with the kind of music it associates with the two characters: the more syncretic congada in the case of Chico and the more African capoeira music in the case of Muzinga. The music of capoeira, a crucial symbolic element in Chico Rei, has traditionally been associated with resistance (Fryer 9). And the congada—which combines “quite openly Western musical structures and instruments with Afro-derived rhythmic patterns”23—can be seen to embody and even celebrate syncretism but one that centers on African elements. Another example of the fi lm stressing the importance of cultural syncretism and the centrality of Afro-Brazilians within its proposed understanding of Brazilianness emerges through the editing. Near the end of the fi lm one of the members of the brotherhood is shown beginning to play a bassoon as the fi lm cuts to a nocturnal scene in which a black couple dances to drums and clapping. The two scenes are woven together and the two musical traditions intertwined by the perpetuation of the note of the European instrument at the start of the second scene. Robert Stam has written, “Brazilian cinema often does more than merely reflect a preexisting syncretism; it actively syncretizes, counterpointing cultural forces in non-literal ways” (“Flash of Spirit” 334). The coexistence in the fi lm of these two distinct strategies of activism and their interrelated aesthetics collaborate to achieve a message of politically resistant racial pluralism that nonetheless depends on Afrocentrism. Though it denotes distinct strategies, taken as a whole the fi lm’s soundtrack contributes to advocating Afrocentric, unified resistance. The members of the quilombo, which later will include Muzinga, insist on their separatist approach to liberation with a visiting free black man from the brotherhood, Hermes, who has come to offer them money to buy their freedom. They argue that their freedom is contained in their music and dance, a position the fi lm established early on: during the Middle Passage the African characters chant as Galanga/Chico is being beaten, thus associating music with resistance to oppression. In the quilombo during Hermes’s visit, as men practice capoeira to the sound of drums and berimbaus, one of the men present says, “We are not interested in the freedom of [as understood or conceded by] whites. We’re interested in the freedom of blacks.”24 Another says, “Exactly, freedom is here within us, in our music and drums, our dance.”25 Later in the fi lm, Chico Rei’s discovery of gold is emphasized in the soundtrack: the protagonist’s windfall, which leads to his and his compatriots’ freedom,26 is marked with the eruption of a modern song sung

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by Milton Nascimento about Santa Efigênia. The music that most often punctuates Chico Rei’s accomplishments is clearly contemporary, such as we also saw with his theme song, a tactic that further connects past to present. Praised, then, by current music that embraces Brazil’s diverse cultural traditions, Chico Rei and his message are pulled into the present. The fi lm insists on the protagonist as a perpetually relevant symbol of hope for a nation that would be bound together in an imaginary alliance of racially disparate representatives of the population in order to participate in a still urgent struggle. The cultural expressions that the fi lm displays through drumming and dance as the quilombo is being built at the beginning of the fi lm are additionally linked with the future and a fable-like recollection of the past, as viewers learn that the scene that they are witnessing takes place at some undetermined time many years after Chico Rei was taken from Africa. We may infer that the fi lm suggests in this way as well the ongoing currency of such culture as a site of needed ongoing resistance, one of the essential elements of how the fi lms studied in this book potentially influence understandings of Brazilianness among audience members. Soon the camera focuses on a man sitting on a boulder looking into the distance away from the building, while the music continues behind him. The fi lm now connects Afro-Brazilian culture with other favored qualities of the national group, cultural memory and hope, as the man on the rock, Quinderê, the akpalô, or communicator of oral history, begins to tell the story of Chico Rei: “Long, long ago, there was a king called Galanga,”27 which leads next to a flashback of Galanga’s capture in Africa. The fi lm favors certain attributes in its proposed revision of Brazilianness in part by buttressing pride in the history of African resistance to enslavement. For example, it underscores the cultural and linguistic differences among the Africans who were taken to Brazil through the specificity of Galanga’s origin in the Congo and through the cooperation within a population of African origin or descent in eighteenth-century Brazil consisting of free, escaped, and enslaved inhabitants. Chico Rei recuperates some of the history and contributions of Africans in Brazil also as a step in encouraging, within viewer understandings of Brazilianness, racial and ethnic inclusiveness, an indeed national unity through pride in a shared Afro-Brazilian cultural heritage. The fi lm contributes to elevating Afro-Brazilian elements within the syncretic set of attributes of the proposed national community by emphasizing the protagonist’s royalty. Chico Rei symbolically challenges the dichotomy of civilization and barbarism and concomitantly elevates

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Afro-Brazilian heritage within the favored attributes of Brazilianness to the extent that it has convinced members of the audience to associate the slaves portrayed, and Chico Rei specifically, with the national group. One tactic that depends on viewpoints that would value social hierarchies is emphasizing Galanga’s royalty in Africa. Such a position risks perpetuating the political and economic realities that enable the slaves’ continued internment and that, in their future iteration in the late twentieth century, bolster the military dictatorship in Brazil. Perhaps the fi lm’s rhetoric turns on itself when seen in this light. Or perhaps the fi lm is simply, like Chico Rei, not rejecting entirely the systems it is critiquing. The fi lm’s approach to influencing understandings of national identity is one that envisions a transformation of society as it is rather than imagining the crafting of a national community from scratch. The apparent attempt to inspire a sense of respect for and solidarity with the slaves through the celebration of African royalty is a tactic that engages viewers from within the system in which they, like the slaves, still live inasmuch as the kind of social hierarchy that royalty epitomizes continues to pervade Brazilian society, especially in the context of a dictatorship. Indeed, audience members may take issue with an oppressive social framework, but it has substantially determined their worldview nonetheless. The narrative framework of the fi lm grants the viewer access to the story of Galanga or Chico Rei through the oral tradition. Considered in concert with earlier claims to historical accuracy, this tactic endorses the credibility of oral historiography. Later Chico Rei complements and syncretizes the authorization of Quinderê’s historiographical voice-over with another by a Jesuit priest who, after expressing remorse concerning his association with slave traffickers, fi nds Muzinga during his escape and comes to live with him in the quilombo. The clergyman’s narration derives from a diary he keeps about his experiences there. His voice-over reading, as viewers see him write, recalls a standard device of historical fi lms: images materializing from a textual font of presumed truth. His voice-over slowly silences the capoeira music being played by characters, and it leads viewers through a tour of the village. Quick portraits in medium and long shots display the inhabitants at work as he lauds, in Spanish, “African tribal generosity” (“la generosidad tribal africana”). The fi lm seems aimed at bolstering viewer faith in Quinderê by tying the events in the fi lm to a source of knowledge privileged in Western societies, the written text, though this tactic may be interpreted as implicitly criticizing oral culture. Quinderê’s retelling of Chico’s tale, like all historiography, shapes the

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story around a narrative model, in this case of a fable or legend recalling a distant hero. The scene suggests that the memory of the Congolese king has already entered into the territory of legend and remains a source of hope for a present time still plagued with slavery or, the fi lm may imply, the social legacy of slavery in the context of the audience members. The fi lm confi rms the lasting relevance of this figure—evidenced by the numerous contemporary renderings mentioned earlier— at its conclusion by portraying a present-day Brazil infused with Chico Rei’s cultural influence. It is telling that the opening scenes begin by elevating a group that seeks freedom through escape rather than through a sanctioned purchase of letters of manumission—the strategy of the main protagonist—and yet the fi lm concludes by remembering Chico Rei as a symbol of resistance. Chico Rei stresses the compatibility of distinct paths to liberation and the importance of unity and solidarity. The scene of the protagonist’s arrival in Vila Rica likewise promotes multiracial unity among present-day Brazilians. The community—including Brazilians of both Portuguese and African descent as well as the newly arrived slaves—soberly looks on as a long snare-drum roll culminates in the hanging of the white insurrectionist Felipe de Freitas.28 This moment suggests for viewers an analogy between the slaves who long for freedom and the white and black rebels seeking independence from Portugal. The fi lm here clearly defi nes the common enemy as Europeans. In part it does this through the soundtrack’s use of military percussion at this point. The association of slavery and political oppression reinforces established cultural precedents such as that offered by Cecília Meireles in her Romanceiro da Inconfidência, which was first published in 1953. Meireles anticipates Chico Rei’s allegory by also specifically suggesting intergroup solidarity between the figure of Chico Rei and the white Brazilians in the colonial period (62– 63). The fi lm revisits the suggestive instance of resistant collaboration among Brazilians regardless of race. Chico Rei stresses resistance to oppression and a revolutionary spirit as key attributes within its proposed defi nition of the superordinate Brazilian group through, for example, clandestine meetings of black insurrectionists and between like-minded white and black Brazilians. Shortly after the hanging, viewers see a secret, nocturnal meeting between two free black men in which one of them says that their activities are “risks that are worth it” (“riscos que valem a pena”). This scene aligns viewers with them motivationally, epistemically, and probably also ethically and thus represents a proposal to embrace the attributes that they favor. Later, Seixas meets with a free black man in a public place, and they whisper about the execu-

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tion to similar effect. The fi lm lends special importance to the attribute of resistance through Seixas’s speech at the end of the fi lm in which he celebrates how Chico Rei defied the colonial regime. The sympathetic link in the colonial period between two of the nation’s three chief racial constituents may be seen to encourage national unity and collective resistance to governmental oppression present when the fi lm was being made. Toward the end of the fi lm Chico Rei reinforces and broadens its message of multiracial unity through a passing invocation of anthropophagy in an exclamation by one of the Portuguese colonizers who laments “that band of cannibals from the quilombo!” (“aquele bando de antropófagos do quilombo!”). He implicitly aligns Brazil’s indigenous population—notorious for the practice of cannibalism—with the AfroBrazilian population. His comment constitutes a token inclusion of indigenous Brazil as one of the ethnic associations of the fi lm’s defi nition of Brazilianness. What is more, audience members may infer from this apparently misplaced disparaging comment a discursive empowerment of the maroons. Cultural anthropophagy was embraced by Brazilian modernistas in the 1920s, in part as a means of coming to terms with their adoption of European avant-garde aesthetics. Because anthropophagy implies controlled syncretism, the alignment of the members of the quilombo with this strategy may designate them as champions of a proud and resistant and now revised and Afro-inclusive if not Afrocentric heterogeneous population. Notwithstanding this possible audience inference, we have seen that members of the fi lm’s quilombo do not embrace syncretism and cross-group inclusiveness as Chico Rei does. In a fi nal return to the narrative voice-over of Quinderê, a crucial element in crafting the fi lm’s definition of identity suggests the relevance of that understanding for a present-day audience. His narration emanates from a present in which slavery still exists. The fi lm suggests that his present is somewhere between the time of Chico Rei and that of the audience. At the same time, Quinderê’s context seems to blur with today’s Brazil. The ambiguity facilitates a reading of Quinderê as the proxy of director Lima Júnior, who would persuade us that late-1970s Brazil continued to experience oppression somewhat analogous to that of slavery. The narrator describes—and the fi lm presents—the significance of Chico’s cultural legacy in Brazil, which endures because his story has been passed on through the oral tradition. After the rise and fall of Chico’s efforts at achieving liberty for his people, the fi lm suggests that he has survived as a part of the cultural memory of Brazil. It emphasizes that he survives in the form of song and dance, cultural elements

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that the members of the quilombo say embody liberty. In spite of or perhaps in part because of the limited historical record, Chico Rei has remained a durable symbol of freedom. The narrator implies at the beginning of the fi lm that the protagonist’s value lies in promoting faith in the possibility of resisting ongoing oppression and gaining liberty. After displaying the congada mineira’s modern representation of the story of Chico Rei (figure 4.2),29 the fi nal shot of the fi lm, in a departing connection of past to present, fi xes on and zooms close to the solemn countenance of the actor Severino d’Acelino, who plays Chico Rei during the course of the fi lm as well as in this present-day reenactment of Chico’s story, perhaps suggesting that the historical Chico Rei has reached into the present to communicate with the audience. Chico Rei’s theme song is heard at this point, and through it the fi lm reinforces the tenuous division between past and present that it has crafted. The lyrics insist on Chico Rei’s enduring value: “King Chico, King Chico, will always be our king.”30 And as this song resumes, the shot of d’Acelino’s face fades out of focus, an effect audience members may understand as the fi lm disseminating and generalizing the symbolic value of the figure that the actor dually portrays. I h av e a rgu e d t h at Ch ico R e i pr e se n ts t wo m a i n approaches to combating oppression and reshaping one’s chief social group. Both Chico Rei’s group and the quilombo group can be interpreted as possible protonational groups and the approaches they embrace as potential models for Brazilian audience members. The fi lm suggests that both strategies have their place, for, the fi lm implies, any form of resistance is viable under unacceptable conditions. The main protagonist, Chico Rei, works from within the system, achieving wealth through legal means and purchasing the freedom of his fellow slaves through letters of manumission. The principal attributes Chico Rei embodies—such as diligence and the interconnected qualities of cultural syncretism, intergroup cooperation, change from within an imperfect system—begin to crystallize in the protagonist’s early conversation with Seixas, the man who purchased him. Indeed, it is this white character who proposes that the protagonist leave behind his name Galanga, calls the man Chico Rei, and declares that if he works hard and fi nds gold he can buy his freedom. In other words, he suggests that rather than taking the system head-on—a system that he obviously perpetuates as a slave owner even if he is also a political revolutionary—the protagonist can gradually improve at least his individual lot. Later in the fi lm a brief allusion to religious syncretism reinforces

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the proposal to embrace syncretism in general when Chico Rei asks one of the men from the brotherhood, after requesting to join it, “What did the Church do all this time to make you lose your beliefs?”31 The man responds to Chico Rei with an argument that a syncretic approach to religion—which viewers would likely associate with Chico Rei’s general cultural syncretism through exploiting a middle ground within a diverse milieu rather than seeking monocultural autonomy—does not represent necessarily a capitulation and that it can be Afrocentric and beneficial: “I most defi nitely did not lose any of my belief. If I am used, I can also use. I did not forget Zambi [an orixá]. On the contrary, I brought to the Church all of the orixás, simply transformed.”32 Seixas’s speech at the end also promotes the attribute of working hard within flawed contexts. However, it is unclear how viewers might interpret his proposal to celebrate that the protagonist “triumphed through hard work” (“venceu pelo trabalho”). It may be read as suggesting that regardless of race, in Brazil working hard is all one needs to do to alter his or her social status; such an interpretation might have the effect of downplaying consciousness of racially grounded social exclusion and buttressing the myth of racial democracy. Muzinga at fi rst, even after rejecting entirely the validity of the colonial system and the possibility of working within it to seek change, seems to share with his father at least esteem for intergroup cooperation and racial inclusiveness of one’s main political social group, which for him is the sovereign quilombo. When he arrives at the quilombo with the Spanish priest, Muzinga requests that the white man be allowed to stay, but those in charge refuse. With little delay, the fi lm confi rms this noninclusive quality of the social group Muzinga is joining. During the visit to the quilombo by Hermes of the brotherhood, one of the men insists that they do not want whites in the community. In this regard, the qualities that are privileged by Muzinga’s group diverge from those recommended by Chico Rei and ultimately, by extension, from those the fi lm suggests that the audience—members of Brazil’s heterogeneous national community—embrace. It is because of this divergence, too, that the character of Muzinga is likely not to be embraced by viewers as a cinematic self. Nevertheless, Chico Rei does suggest that there can be harmony and perhaps cooperation between the group understandings that Chico Rei and Muzinga respectively embody. In the scene in which Chico Rei is arrested, several people from the quilombo are visiting Chico Rei’s followers, who are working in the field. Muzinga shows respect for his father’s efforts: “We came [. . .] here just to see how you are doing all of this that everyone is talking about.”33

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The fi lm preserves a place for Muzinga’s philosophy by indicating that it and Chico Rei’s are not incompatible or mutually exclusive, as viewers see later when his father is imprisoned. Muzinga is visiting with members of Chico Rei’s group, individuals who have already embraced the fi lm’s way of conceiving of the superordinate group, in the contemplation of how to achieve his father’s release. His debate of the situation with them summarizes the nature of the division between his way and that of his father: Muzinga: Even knowing that you have enough gold here to free everyone, I don’t understand how it is that you do not go retrieve my father, who was taken prisoner by the soldiers. One of the men: We are not going to fight within the city. We picked the path. The right path to liberty. Muzinga: Well, in the quilombo, I learned to always fight for my freedom. [. . .] Whites want us to die! They took the king of the blacks, and they are going to take everything from the blacks: manumission, the mine, Zambi, everything! [. . .] If my father is not released soon, we are going to take him from the prison by force.34

Muzinga promotes separatism and stresses more strongly than ever his support of treasured quilombo group attributes. However, his presence here and his effort to strategize action with the group, as well as the comment about his father being “king of the blacks” and his apparent recognition of a “black” social group that includes the urban and quilombo groups, implicitly suggest cooperation among the two main groups of blacks in the fi lm and elevate Chico Rei as the revered leader of the two groups. Although the fi lm clearly praises Chico Rei’s approach, it does not conceal how his strategy hinges on the will of the slave owners. The fi lmmaker highlights Chico Rei’s lack of power in a scene in which he attempts to buy his son’s letter of manumission, an offer that Muzinga’s owner flatly refuses, preferring to hunt down and kill the escaped slave.35 The scene lends itself to being read as an allegory of Brazil in the early 1980s. It shows the potential drawbacks of respecting the rules of a system that limits political freedom for many and practices racial discrimination while still claiming the existence of opportunities for all to achieve a degree of social ascent characterized as sufficient. In this sense, Chico Rei’s exchange with his son’s owner lays bare the invalidity of so-called racial democracy, which would have held that Afro-Brazilians

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living in 1980s Brazil—or any other time—merely needed to work hard within a fair and unflawed system in order to reach a state of social equity. Abdias do Nascimento and others debunked such ideas when they pushed aside the optimistic veil of racial democracy by statistically demonstrating Brazil’s vast social disparity and racism.36 Chico Rei exposes the limited utility of following the rules of a faulty official structure while it still favors the cooperative efforts of Chico Rei. Thomas Skidmore describes the political intertext that we might infer from the protagonist’s oft-frustrated efforts to work in concert with a system that provides limited agency and capacity to exact change: post-1979, the “discontented were offered an expanded, but still elite-dominated, democratic ‘game,’ which they have embraced, while still denouncing the remaining arbitrary powers” (33). Overall, Chico Rei proposes that until dominant institutions are ultimately reformed, perhaps it is not enough for the elite or non-elite to play along. Chico Rei condemns no strategy that attempts to resist oppression. Indeed, the fi lm suggests that until the socially dominant values of an oppressive society change, more than one approach is justified. It insists that oppressed peoples must work both within and outside officially sanctioned structures for adequate results. Perhaps the fi lm’s favoring of Chico Rei through tactics that provoke identification with him and associate him with the nation suggests that as oppression gradually diminishes, more and more people should embrace his disposition toward Brazilianness. Chico Rei endorses cooperation through Chico, and it invites audience members to feel qualified optimism with regard to the efforts of its hero. Because we do not see the protagonist entirely triumph or fail, the fi lm seems to indicate, on the allegorical level, that in a Brazil transitioning to democracy even the best strategies of resistance have not yet entirely realized their proponents’ goal. Chico Rei was conceived under Brazil’s military dictatorship but completed during a period in which democracy was approaching. The fi lm proposes a utopia and values the preservation of hope while encouraging solidarity within a racially diverse Brazil in order to protest the lingering presence of an oppressive political regime. In general, the fi lm suggests that Brazil, when the fi lm was released, lacked national unity as well as adequate appreciation for Afro-Brazil. The new defi nition of the national group that Chico Rei proposes is grounded in a confluence of symbolic contributions from various racial groups into a whole. This proposal for how to understand Brazilianness follows but rearranges a traditional three-part composition in much the

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same way that the other fi lms I study in this book do as well. Such syncretic approaches to defi ning Brazilian national identity had for decades emphasized the central contribution of Europe and Christianity to Brazilian society. They also tended to act as unifying efforts that veiled the material conditions of inequality among racial groups. Even racially and ethnically inclusive Afrocentric aspects of Brazilian culture such as umbanda would be diluted within the prevalent, broadly Eurocentric definitions of Brazilian national identity. This fi lm, in a sense, suggests an understanding of national identity that has much in common with the syncretic, inclusive religious group of umbanda. Early twentieth-century Afrocentric iterations of identity like umbanda linger in the 1970s and ’80s alongside the more dominant and clearly Eurocentric ones.37 Chico Rei revises Eurocentric syncretic understandings of identity by drawing on and reinforcing ideas that emerged in the years before the fi lm was released, ones that brought into clearer relief racism and discrimination in Brazilian society. The result in this fi lm was a compromise, a revision of the standard, syncretic view of Brazilianness. Chico Rei champions Afro-Brazilian culture and proposes that the Brazilian national group is or should consider itself a cultural combination but also essentially African.38 Chico Rei’s preservation of a blended conception of identity might be seen to eliminate the distinctions of all racial or ethnic constituencies and as a result to argue against a multicultural vision of the nation. However, the kind of inversion the fi lm promotes may actually help to reveal the conventional leveling of traditional, syncretic, but Eurocentric Brazilian understandings of identity. Rather than representing the symbolic union of races or ethnicities and the implication of the elimination of race and inequality through eventual smooth blending, the fi lm reconceives cultural syncretism in terms of harmonic cooperation among distinct social groups that in this sense is perhaps better described as Afrocentric multiculturalism combined with syncretism.

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Chapter Five

Flirting with Viewers and Precariously Rethinking Brazilianness in Xica da Silva (1976)

I

conclu de t h e book w i t h t h e e a r li e st f i lm, X ica da Silva (1976). Of the five fi lms that I have examined, Carlos Diegues’s is the most tentative, muddied, and even at times contradictory with respect to the Africanizing of Brazilianness and inviting audience members to embrace a revised understanding of the national community. Some of what we might call hedging probably owes partially to the fi lm’s context of production during the military dictatorship. Never theless, it is likely that this box-office hit, seen by more than three million people (Ancine), inaugurated the trend in contemporary Brazilian cinema we have seen in Chico Rei, Quilombo, Cafundó, and Aleijadinho that is characterized by similarly syncretic yet relatively Afrocentric understandings of Brazilian identity as well as analogous approaches to changing the minds of audience members. The five elements that I see as converging to potentially influence the social identities of viewers—linking past to present, giving primacy to the Brazilian category of identity, casting the protagonist as a proxy for the population, encouraging the embrace of the protagonist as a self-concept model, and articulating a distinct understanding of the national community—are all present to some degree in Xica da Silva. The subsequent fi lms all gravitated toward these same tactics, surely due in part to similar intuitions about potentially effective ways to influence social identities. Nonetheless, the relative strategic consistency of this cluster of Brazilian fi lms leads me to think that Xica da Silva likely exerted some lasting, coalescing influence over the other fi lms. Together, these five fi lms from a single cultural context represent a valuable case study of a confirmed cinematic approach to engaging and redefi ning viewer understandings of national identity. While the chapter on Aleijadinho aimed to illustrate

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this trend due to the clear presence in the fi lm of the five elements as well as the broadly shared, Afrocentric, and syncretic identity defi nition, in the other chapters I have explored distinct means to carry out the general strategy. In the final chapter I look at this cinematic approach to influencing national identity in what I see as its embryonic form and under stress. Analysis from the previous chapters helps to pinpoint what is at work in this fi lm. Xica da Silva’s precarious approach will contribute toward identifying the tensile strength of these kinds of fi lm-audience dynamics or, in other words, the limits of the potential effectiveness of this way of attempting to influence understandings of national identity. Xica da Silva presents the opportunity to better understand specific aspects of the communicative strategies of the Brazilian slavery fi lms that I have studied here. The way the protagonist transforms her social identity as well as the widely shifting potential for viewer alignment and allegiance are both salient, and complex, characteristics of this fi lm. All of the fi lms portray changing protagonists, and the metamorphoses have a variety of effects, most prominently these: approximating the character more to prevailing understandings of Brazilianness in such a way that he or she might be interpreted as a national prototype; and once national stand-in status is proposed through that or other means, changing the character so as to accumulate within the fi lm’s suggested understanding of the national group certain attributes. Typically, this approach to redefi ning national identity is relatively safe and stable in the other four fi lms. The fi lms do not tend to put in question a protagonist’s association with the national community, for to do so would presumably risk the persuasive potential of the fi lms to guide notions of national identity through them. Quilombo is a partial exception; although both of its main protagonists at one point or another diverge from the proposed national prototype, the core values of the group are always clear and the characters who stray eventually reform themselves. Likewise, the fi lms consistently craft viewers’ allegiance and alignment with the protagonists presumably to similar persuasive ends. Again, Quilombo is a slight exception and for clearly strategic reasons that I have discussed in chapter 3. Although Xica da Silva does arguably put its protagonist through stages that eventually grow closer to a proposal for a revision of prevailing understandings of Brazilianness that is quite similar to the definitions of identity suggested by the other fi lms, for much of the fi lm there is little suggestion to interpret the protagonist as a proxy for the entire national population. Xica models various ways that certain people but not all, it would seem, might respond to oppressive situations. In Xica da Silva the viability of such individual solutions, even in the short

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term, is put in question. Even the culminating proposal for how strategically to change understandings of Brazilianness is ambiguous. Along with the fi lm’s explorations of diverse social identity strategies that are anything but focused, singular, and fully recommended, the relationship that it provokes between the protagonist and the viewing public is uneven. Rather than resolutely proposing a solution, this fi lm contemplates and problematizes diverse strategies through its protagonist. In this chapter I evaluate, then, how Xica da Silva gradually but unevenly and playfully courts Brazilian audience members to accept as a cinematic self its initially alienating and always transforming protagonist. I examine how she comes to embody diverse values over the course of her changing characterizations, which I divide into four stages, the allegiance and alignment that the fi lm proposes in each stage, and how the fi lm puts on display the possible advantages and disadvantages of revising one’s self-concept in the ways that Xica da Silva embodies. In general, the fi lm shows the protagonist adopting as survival mechanisms both shifting her group affi liations and modifying how she understands those groups. However, it also reveals the personal and, if widely emulated, societal costs of following the distinct paths that the protagonist models.

A N ew Sort of Br a zi li a n Sta n d -I n i n a Con t e m por a ry T i m e of Tu r moi l Xica da Silva represents a turning point in Brazilian cinema’s contemplation of national identity through the lens of the colonial past.1 The fi lm stands out largely for the kind of figure that it ultimately offers as a representative of the nation. Although there were a handful of other fi lms about slavery in Brazil, including Sinhá Moça (1953) and Diegues’s own Ganga Zumba (1963), Xica da Silva initiates a consistent production of fi lms about slavery that coincide in their Africanization of syncretic visions of Brazilianness and how they engage members of the audience.2 Xica da Silva resuscitates and retools the proven national symbolic appeal of an eighteenth-century female slave from Arraial do Tijuco, today Diamantina in the state of Minas Gerais. This historical figure achieved freedom, wealth, and prominence through, the fi lm suggests, seduction and sexual prowess. Francisca (Xica) da Silva was freed and empowered by João Fernandes de Oliveira, the man given the rights by the Portuguese crown to extract diamonds in the area.3 After João Fernandes was recalled to Portugal, the residents of Arraial do Tijuco, for uncertain

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reasons, attempted to erase Francisca da Silva from the historical record by burning documents related to her ( Johnson, “Carnivalesque Celebration” 217). Even so, the tale of Xica da Silva’s unprecedented social ascent survived and has been periodically reshaped to various ends over the years. Diegues’s fi lm draws on several of those retellings in his attempt to transform Xica into a site for reflection on colonial and contemporary Brazil, albeit one fraught with problems.4 I would argue that Diegues’s contentious presentation of Xica is what enables the fi lm to provoke vigorous and productive evaluations of understandings of national identity. In fact, Xica da Silva’s frayed and multivalent portrait of Xica and its capacity to elude unequivocal interpretation ultimately constitute a guidebook for viewer self-reflection rather than a persuasive prescription for how to understand the national category of viewer social identities, which became the norm for the later fi lms. In Diegues’s interview with Alex Viany, the director explains his view of the importance of the fi lm’s story and its main character, whose problematic nature he recognizes. He proposes that his protagonist be seen as a metaphor of an imperfect nation and makes it clear that the fi lm is about the nature of Brazil: “[Xica da Silva] can be seen as a fi lm about the relationship between Brazil and its colonizers. [. . . And] Brazil [. . .] would be Xica da Silva, with all of her defects, with all of her precariousnesses, but an extremely alive person, full of power.”5 Xica da Silva capitalizes on what the director saw as the title character’s symbolic potential and transforms her into a representative of an oppressed, heterogeneous Brazilian population. Diegues suggests an analogy between the conditions of slavery and of colonization. Although colonial Brazilian society perpetuated slavery as much as the crown, the fi lmmaker casts Xica as an imagined, if precarious, amalgam of all factions of eighteenth-century Brazil. This suggestion of broad capacity to represent a diverse population is most clearly implied through the protagonist’s collaboration with José, her former owner’s white son and an insurrectionist. In another interview, the director extends the analogy of slaves to colonized subjects transhistorically, as the other fi lms that I study in this book have tended to do, characterizing the protagonist as a stand-in for a still oppressed mid-1970s Brazil: “Xica da Silva was made during the most difficult period of military rule. We lived in a very difficult military situation, and Xica is a metaphor about survival” (interview with Coco Fusco 14).6 To the degree that the fi lm is successful in persuading audience members to recognize, even reluctantly, the protagonist

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as a proxy for the national population, her survival strategies represent proposals for Brazilian viewers to consider internalizing her approaches to confronting an oppressive context as attributes of their community, even if the tactics provoke uneasiness. The success of those various proposals—if success is measured in the adoption of the strategy rather than the conscious reflection on it—will be a function of whether the fi lm convinces viewers to feel enough allegiance and alignment with her beyond the essential social identity alignment that derives from her being Brazilian to embrace the character as a cinematic self or a model for the part of one’s self-concept that corresponds to how he or she understands the national category of his or her social identity. Xica da Silva, according to Diegues, is not an exemplary symbol of the nation nor, we might presume, of the national community but rather a defective one. Nonetheless, the fi lm at times urges viewers to embrace her example. Xica da Silva characterizes its protagonist in two occasionally conflated and even contradictory ways. In the fi rst part of the fi lm, by way of portraying Xica’s achievement of freedom, the protagonist embodies an individual and self-interested liberation but one that ultimately depends on and perpetuates the system of slavery and the tendency within that system to sexualize female slaves. The fi lm qualifies the value of this initial path of resistance as a model for how all audience members might revise favored attributes within their understandings of Brazilianness through both meager efforts to align viewers with the character and limited association of her with the nation. To the extent that viewers understand the slaves in the fi lm to be proxies for the Brazilian population, her lack of solidarity with and even cruelty toward other slaves would tend to provoke ethical nonalignment as well as social identity nonalignment since the character might be interpreted in opposition to the stand-ins for the population. Xica’s initial persona represents one possible way of confronting oppression but not a societywide solution. The fi lm shows the protagonist’s path to freedom to be in many respects flawed, however, such as through her sexual means to liberation, which also promised to lead to lessened ethical and even social identity alignment with the protagonist among audience members who would see such aspects of the narrative to perpetuate stereotypes of black Brazilian women. Still, the fi lm never completely condemns that path and would seem to endorse, under certain circumstances, any means of resistance. Rather than suggest that the qualities Xica embodies throughout the narrative should be linked to understandings of Brazil, for the most part the fi lm reserves that tactic for the second stage in the development of

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the protagonist. Here the fi lm links her more to the nation and recommends greater alignment with and allegiance toward her. In its second half, the protagonist transforms into a potentially more viable cinematic self, an increasingly effective and optimistic yet ultimately also vexed symbol of Brazil. By attempting to attenuate some of the character’s flaws and infuse her with new attributes, the fi lm proposes its imperfect national proxy as a representative of a more inclusive and, it seems to suggest, a more effective strategy to resist oppression. Through the representation of the protagonist’s second stage, in which Xica models the transformation of one’s self-concept, the fi lm crafts its favored understanding of Brazilianness and the vehicle through which to sell it. The contrast between the fi rst stage and the second, then, brings the fi lm’s proposal for how to strategically conceive of Brazilianness into clearer relief. Understandably, several critics have questioned the ethics of casting Xica as a symbol of Brazil.7 Others, while recognizing Xica’s symbolic “precariousness” in the fi lm, still fi nd value in Diegues’s exploration of the nation.8 Although Diegues’s version of Xica da Silva has given rise to heated debates over the fi lm’s portrayal of the protagonist, it has also enjoyed great popularity among audiences in Brazil, a combination of factors that compounds urgency for further study.9 Since critics already have dealt extensively with the issue of the fi lm’s ideology, the contribution of this study lies if not entirely elsewhere, then alongside their concerns. Rather than celebrate or censure the fi lm’s message, I untangle the fi lm’s complex proposal to consider Xica a representative of colonial and contemporary Brazil and its representation of her distinct approaches of resistance to oppression. Besides those elements, I look at the ways in which the fi lm fl irts with the possibility of viewer identification with the protagonist, that is, her capacity of becoming a cinematic self for audience members.

Li m it e d V i ew e r I de n t i f icat ion a n d X ica’s Status as I de n t it y Mode l One of the fi rst scenes of the fi lm highlights Xica’s muchdiscussed sexual prowess and indicates how she will deploy it throughout the fi lm as a means to wield influence over others. José, the son of Xica’s owner, calls out to her as if to an animal, which, she seems to infer, means that he wants to have sex with her. The camera shows her in a long shot from the higher vantage point of José, thus visually align-

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F igu r e 5.1. Xica engineers her introduction to João Fernandes.

ing viewers with the man. The protagonist slowly rises from her work, places her hands on her hips in a sign of exasperation. Even while her back is turned, the next shot shows José from the place where she is standing, which perhaps cancels whatever impact the initial alignment might have had on members of the audience. In a medium shot at eye level, from the side on which José is located but much closer to her, the protagonist is shown turning around to protest: “No, not today.”10 The man approaches, insisting, and in an act that marks his power over her and implies an imminent rape, rips the slave’s shirt off. Xica initially reacts with a gaze of anger and defiance, but she quickly displays that her resistance was feigned and smiles as she skips with a delighted scream into the basement of the house through an open door. This is obviously not the fi rst interlude for the pair. The sounds that viewers subsequently hear off screen as the camera slowly approximates and then fi xes on the dark doorway of the house will come to signal the moments in which Xica manages to modify her social situation. José objects to some action taken by Xica, as he cries, “No, Xica. Not like this!”11 His pleas finally end in an ambiguous scream, one that might suggest either pleasure or pain. The next shot resolves the mixed implication of José’s reaction to Xica. Audience members see at fi rst the protagonist in a medium close-up, sitting up, eyes open, sighing and contemplative as she looks off into the distance, while

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the next shot show her consort reclining in conquered satisfaction. The visual distinction may underscore for audiences an early inversion of positions of power and anticipate Xica’s later social ascension. The viewer’s exposure to a context in which Xica is awake and José is dozing causes them to share with her a private, lucid moment. This cognitive and visual alignment, in the absence of other factors such as a similar alignment with a villain in a fi lm who is doing an evil deed may contribute to early general viewer alignment with the character. In the aftermath of their intercourse, Xica declares to José that she covets a white dress. Her use of sex has led to this small realization of her will. The son of her owner, stopping the woman before she departs, promises her that when his father dies he will set her free. Xica’s apparent tactic here and one that she will continue to employ throughout the fi lm consists of recognizing the desire that she awakens in the men who surround her and turning it to her advantage.12 Xica has inverted a sexual paradigm that José begins to embody through his aggressive overture and Roberto Reis aptly describes: “[I]n accordance with patriarchal and masculine values still in vigor in the Brazilian imaginary, the woman should be ‘eaten,’ but not the man: the man who is ‘eaten’ is seen as effeminate” (53).13 Perhaps the fi lm suggests through José’s screams that Xica’s mysterious act represents a titillating yet emasculating inversion of sexual roles, which would seem to reflect the extended reasoning of Reis. In any event, the scene portrays Xica exerting power from a place of weakness. She appears to take control and even devour the man during the sexual act, yet Xica still works from within a social context that views her primarily in sexual terms. She does not subvert that system or modify it but rather capitalizes on it. Diegues presents a case of individual resistance to bondage or, by extension, any type of oppression by any available means. Xica models here an attribute that viewers could potentially link, through her example, to one of the groups within their social identities. Although the fi lm has not yet associated Xica explicitly to the nation, her being Brazilian might provoke a consciousness of social identity alignment among members of any Brazilian audience, just as her gender and color might lead to a sense of sameness with others. As I have discussed in other chapters, awareness of such intersections are not necessarily connected to allegiance toward the character. In fact, at times the fi lms play with a tension between alignment and nonalignment, such as when a fi lm compels viewers to feel a link to a despicable character, an ethical nonalignment, through a point-of-view shot. Some viewers likely experience a tension of that sort during the first half of Xica da

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Silva, for the fi lm does variously align viewers with the protagonist, yet she does not always embody commendable qualities. Indeed, the fi lm does not entirely reserve for the second half proposals for viewer alignment with the protagonist or the association of her with the nation. I would argue that not all of the suggested alignments toward the character are ironic or ineffectual. Members of the audience would likely feel some ethical alignment with her from the beginning due to her enslaved status and as a result of the fi lm’s highlighting of her exploitation or her resistant character. What is more, characters like José—to the extent that they are not loathsome—when captivated by Xica may be taken as guides to feeling allegiance toward the protagonist. In either case— uncomfortable, tension-provoking alignment and allegiance-provoking alignment—the fi rst half of the fi lm may have the effect of raising consciousness about a less than desirable national nature by obliging identification among citizens of that nation with a less than ideal character. The potential utility of Xica’s dreaded yet enticing sexual abilities as well as the way the fi lm reinforces their realization on screen through sound and visual orientation anticipate the process at work in the scene to which I will now turn. Shortly after Xica’s interaction with José, she snubs the advances (“Do that. Do”)14 of her owner, the master sergeant of Arraial do Tijuco, because he does not respond favorably to her interest in meeting the diamond contractor João Fernandes, who has recently arrived. The conversation with her owner and the scene that follows demonstrate Xica’s conscious and premeditated effort to improve her social status. Against the insistence of the sergeant, the protagonist appears in the contractor’s office, which is fi lled with important members of local society. The flamboyant Xica bursts in and immediately dominates the group’s attention, glancing continually, perhaps nervously, at João Fernandes. She claims some pressing reason for her presence and soon begins to allude to certain things that she does that her owner enjoys, which piques the interest of the crowd and in particular of João Fernandes. As she speaks, frolicking around while she describes the things that she does well—dancing, singing, giving massages—a long shot centers on the screen Xica facing the camera and the contractor, whom viewers see from behind, sharing his perspective. This image places João Fernandes close by on the right edge of the screen with his back to the camera. The audience shares João Fernandes’s perspective and views Xica along his line of sight until the fi lm cuts to a close-up of his interested, grinning reaction to Xica’s words. Through these compositional elements the fi lm encourages audience members voyeuristically to emulate João Fernandes’s contemplation of Xica and perhaps even to share

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his initial, enthralled fi xation on her. I describe the visual orientation of the shot because the culminating shot of this scene reverses, significantly, the placement of the characters and consequently the implications of the scene. After a male slave starts to escort Xica out of the room and João Fernandes allows her to stay, the protagonist meets the contractor’s gaze for an extended moment. In a medium shot that aligns viewers with the perspective of João Fernandes, Xica’s expression, which shifts from seduction to an alluring smile, implies that her efforts to shift, however slightly, the power dynamic through sex have found some purchase. The contractor models for audience members a shocked and impressed—and perhaps somewhat reverent—evaluation of the character. The camera placement reinforces this proposal for viewers to feel affectively and motivationally aligned with João Fernandes. The contractor’s protection of Xica and the suggestion of reverence toward her begin to encourage audience members to feel allegiance toward the protagonist. In the Brazilian slavery fi lms examined in this book, alignment and allegiance often accompany the association of a protagonist with the nation in order to cast the character as an appealing cinematic stand-in for the national category of viewers’ social identities. Even in early scenes Xica da Silva has begun to play with this process. Now serious, now smiling, Xica starts to address herself directly to the man in charge as she approaches João Fernandes, with whom audience members are visually aligned, until she is shown in a medium close-up. She insists that her current owner beats her and refers, in turn, to each place on her body that has suffered his abuse. After cutting away to the contractor’s reaction, the camera once again displays her from his perspective but this time in a series of medium and extreme close-ups of the slave. With a seductive smile, Xica rips the clothing from the areas that she mentions, the camera following her words and focusing on each successive fragment of her body. She soon leaves her breasts exposed and, fi nally, she cries out that her entire body is on fi re as the camera cuts to a shot of her lower legs as her remaining garments drop to the floor as the crowd and João Fernandes look on. As in the earlier scene with José, the aggressive removal of Xica’s clothing—an emblem of the dominating sexual system within which she operates—precedes the calculated appropriation of her objectification. However, here she amplifies her control of the discourse that João Fernandes echoes through his gaze by activating it herself. Rather than witnessing the enactment of domination, the viewer sees Xica’s narratological appropriation of the story of her abuse and, by extension, of the ideology that it signals.

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In the moment Xica disrobes, the scene is recomposed. In the ensuing long shot the camera once again centers the protagonist but this time places João Fernandes on the edge of the screen to the right facing the camera (figure 5.1). Now the viewer looks along Xica’s line of sight. With her back to the camera and standing naked before the contractor in a posture of proud defiance, she fi lls more of the screen than João Fernandes, who stands farther away and appears smaller as a result. Notwithstanding this visual alignment with the protagonist, which might add to whatever social identity and ethical alignment viewers have felt up to this point and allude to the fi lm’s later invitations to embrace her as a cinematic self, the shot also invites viewers voyeuristically to contemplate her. But it should be noted that audience members are not aligned with the perspective of other characters, as there is no one standing behind her. Her act manages to captivate João Fernandes and leads to his insistence on buying Xica, which will in turn lead to his freeing and enriching her. Such an end has presumably been her plan from the start. The advantages of embracing her liberating tactics are thus compounded, even if the possibility of groupwide adoption of it as a favored value seems limited at this point. The fi lm reinforces Xica’s successful bid for power—the near inversion of her social station—through an analogous inversion of the visual layout of the shot, one in which Xica guides the viewer’s gaze. Early in the scene she was principally an object of observation for other characters and thus for audience members through the camera, but by this point she herself directs the attention of other characters, the camera, and audience members. They are in this way further aligned with the character. Moreover, the size of the characters on the screen complements the inversion. Even when the camera subsequently swings in a circle around Xica, the character resists objectification and guides the interpretation of her actions by means of her unabashed and triumphant smile. As in the scene that she shared with José, Xica capitalizes on desire and takes control of her sexualization in order to gain some advantage. The camera subsequently distributes its attention among Xica’s mischievous look of confidence, João Fernandes’s mesmerized and conquered stupor, and the dumbfounded expressions of the onlookers visible beyond her and slightly out of focus. By fi rst aligning viewers visually with João Fernandes, the fi lm sets him up as a guide for evaluating the protagonist. The composition of the initial shot lures audiences into experiencing Xica’s appeal from João Fernandes’s point of view, which provides a contrast to the later, inverted composition. This second shot promises to wake viewers from

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the vicarious trance that they might share with the contractor by laying bare his initial, sexually saturated perspective before Xica strategically reorients it. The way the fi lm constructs the protagonist’s challenge and transformation of the man’s desire begins to promote an interpretation of the character distinct from the one João Fernandes manifests. Rather than proposing that viewers see her purely as the target of exploitation, the rearrangement of the shot as well as the success of her strategy suggest that audience members begin to envision Xica as a symbol of successful resistance and individual liberation. Whether or not Diegues intended it, the sequence I have described represents an exposure of and limited challenge to the colonial masterslave power dynamic that may be likened to the similar perspective with which colonial powers contemplated the indigenous populations of the Americas. This correspondence broadens the implications of the fi lm with respect to its commentary on national identity, for it aids in bringing the African population of Brazil into a critical realm previously occupied, at least in fi lm, more by indigenous Brazilians—a vital inference, since Brazilian cinema had historically turned a blind eye to the nation’s massive African population (Stam, “Racial Representations” 340). The earlier shot that highlighted João Fernandes’s perspective approximates traditional representations of a colonist/native encounter. These depictions are exemplified by Jan van der Straet’s much-discussed sixteenth-century drawing America, which portrays Amerigo Vespucci in the moment of his captivated fi rst contact with a feminized, alluring continent.15 In the second shot of the João Fernandes–Xica meeting, the fi lm can be seen both to emulate and to rework this kind of archetypal, sexualized scene of encounter. Although naked, Xica tellingly looms larger than the contractor, and she offers to a clothed man her body— one of her only resources—but she redefines the implication of the gesture by determining the outcome of her self-styled sexuality. She shows pride and defiance rather than greeting and invitation. She holds her arms out away from her body, palms facing João Fernandes, as if daring him to challenge her. Ironically, Xica’s nudity in the second shot recalls Van der Straet’s encounter scene and confounds the picture’s implications. For it is in that moment that Xica shrugs off her role as object and begins to guide the gaze of audience members and to invite the kind of broad alignment with her that will enable her to act as an identity model, at least once allegiance has been also fi rmly established. The soundtrack that accompanies these shots contributes to influencing viewer interpretations of the protagonist. Just as sound aided sub-

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stantially to mark the influence Xica wields through sex in the scene with José, from the beginning of the fi lm music is used to piece together Xica da Silva’s proposal for how to revise understandings of Brazilianness. In fact, the fi lmmaker primes the viewer to link music to social commentary in the movie’s fi rst scene. On his journey toward Arraial do Tijuco, João Fernandes encounters several musicians by the road and stops to accompany them with his own flute. One of them, displayed in a medium close-up, after a dramatic pause comments soberly that artists should stay away from politics. With a complicit wink to the audience, the fi lm exposes its own political engagement as well as the risks implicit in making such a fi lm under the military dictatorship. Music remains central and maintains its political connotations in the inversion scene described above. After Xica has stripped, an explosion of popular Brazilian music—a Jorge Ben Jor song that shares the fi lm’s title—highlights the shock and scandal the viewer sees on several faces in the background as the camera revolves around Xica. The music in this way participates in guiding how audience members envision her. Robert Stam writes of the music in this scene: “Even the theme song sexualizes her; Jorge Ben Jor’s punning and stressed repetition (‘Xica dá, Xica dá, Xica dá’) suggests in Portuguese that ‘Xica gives out,’ that is, fucks” (Tropical Multiculturalism 294). The hyperbolic and frivolous Hortênsia, a prominent white resident of the town, stands out when the camera cuts to her vacuous expression in a close-up before a lingering squeal that mingles with Jorge Ben Jor’s song. The disgust of this white internal outgrouper arguably suggests to views that they feel allegiance toward the proud and delighted Xica. Also, this fi rst of several presentations of the protagonist’s theme song, the main melodic theme of which is loosely primed during lyricless female vocals that overlay the opening credits, starts to infuse her with importance, which enhances proposals to revere her and therefore increases the potential usefulness of casting her as a national stand-in. Up to this point the fi lm has supplied audience members with only period music played and sung by the characters, with the exception of the title sequence. In this scene the 1970s groove that underscores Xica’s sexualization and marks her victorious seduction of João Fernandes hooks the story and pulls it into the present, one of the five chief elements that combine, in the slavery fi lms studied here, to potentially influence viewer national identities. Here Xica da Silva, like some of the other fi lms analyzed in this book, explicitly bares its allegorical nature with its intertextual reference to popular music:16 the song invites the viewer to

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associate Xica’s story and that of slaves and, more broadly, the population of colonized Brazil with the struggles of a nation in 1976 still living under a dictatorship. In this scene, the fi lm directs the gaze of audience members in order to expose a subjugation system and offers, through Xica’s appropriation of the rules of that system, an example of one set of survival strategies that members of a social group might adopt as favored attributes. Xica’s potential as a proxy for the Brazilian population and as a globally viable model of liberation strategies is substantially restricted for much of the fi lm. However, her rise to power—which is punctuated by the prefiguration of her downfall and both contributes to and detracts from likely viewer alignment with her—is constant throughout the greater part of the fi lm.17 Adding to the complexity of the fi lm’s representation of Xica, a conversation between José and his father, the owner of Xica, after João Fernandes obliges him to sell her anticipates Xica’s fi lm-ending upswing following her fall. The young man consoles his father: “She’ll go far, very far. She isn’t one to lose time. She must’ve started already.”18 His father responds, weeping, “In the contractor’s bedroom!”19 It is indeed through her fi rst sexual encounter with João Fernandes that Xica’s ascending path becomes solidly determined. As in the case of the early scene with José, her former owner’s son, the viewer hears, in a nocturnal long shot of the outside of the contractor’s residence, the man’s captivated complaint: “Not that! Xica! Xica!! Xica!!! Aaaaaaah!!!”20 Xica’s status has improved, as the fi lm soon indicates with her acceptance of a white dress and slippers, the gifts she had requested from José following their early sexual encounter, and by displaying her, to the dismay of the household slaves, seated at a formal table facing João Fernandes. One of the slaves, obliged by João Fernandes to serve Xica, intentionally spills soup on her. Xica then beats the woman and forces her to clean the dress. To the extent that audience members might consider the slaves the fi lm’s closest stand-ins for the Brazilian population, the actions of the protagonist here would likely lead to social identity nonalignment, for at this point she might almost be seen as an internal outgrouper, a Brazilian who collaborates with the Portuguese colonizers. The ethical nonalignment that would tend to derive from her despicable behavior might intensify that social identity disconnect due to ingroup bias that would favor the mistreated slave. Prior to this point, possible alignment with and allegiance toward Xica was relatively attenuated, and there was little to suggest that she

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be considered a national metaphor. This scene compounds these general tendencies and quite probably compromises what limited identification with her that audience members may have experienced. This low state, which we might consider Xica’s second stage—still enslaved but with increased power—provides a contrast that Xica da Silva exploits to highlight incremental gestures to suggest new and still greater alignment and allegiance toward the protagonist from this point forward. The effectiveness of the strategy lies in the idea that if the enslaved characters—here offended by Xica’s eager entrance into the system that has oppressed her—model reverence toward her, then their contemporary, allegorical counterparts certainly could and should feel the same way about the protagonist. The Jorge Ben Jor theme song resumes as the humiliated and now cowed slave begins to clean Xica’s dress. The music once again corresponds to a moment when Xica exerts influence over others in order to take control of her social situation, but it reworks the implications of her path to power, if not yet freedom, exposing its selfi shness. This song or hints of it will be a constant in the fi lm even as the character whom it celebrates metamorphoses. Typically, theme songs in the fi lms studied in this book aid in proposing that a character be revered, which tends to go hand in hand with invitations to consider a protagonist a stand-in for a social group worthy of emulation. In this case, however, the fi lm teases the viewer with a laudatory and not entirely ironic soundtrack coupled with questionable actions. Even if audiences might be inclined to condemn the protagonist, the song urges viewers to contemplate, perhaps uncomfortably, Xica’s limited, individual success. Nonetheless, by underscoring her cruelty the fi lm substantially diminishes Xica’s potential value as a broadly viable symbol of resistance; it likely reverses, at least temporarily, any early disposition that a diverse set of viewers might have had to embrace her as a cinematic self. This is one of the fi lm’s ambiguous and discrepant moments that seem oriented toward exposing social complexities rather than boldly and unswervingly proposing a single compendium of favored values. Xica, the slave who has gained an improved station, at fi rst shows no solidarity with the slaves with whom she comes into contact. In fact, once she holds a modicum of power, not only does she avoid undermining the system that supports her, she participates in the social infrastructure that maintains slavery even while she is still a slave, an aspect of Xica’s behavior through which the fi lm continues its portrayal of Brazil’s precarious nature.21 Just as the fi lm does not consistently attempt to turn the

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protagonist into an appealing prototype of a social group, it greatly limits in this scene what we might see as the fi lm’s partial endorsement of efforts to individually reduce an oppressive state.

A Pot e n t i a l Ci n e m at ic Se lf a n d t h e R econce p tua li zat ion of Br a zi li a n n ess The fi lm soon anticipates a shift in the attitudes of the slaves toward the protagonist, and it alludes to the fi lm’s growing proposal for audience members to change their views of her and eventually to embrace her as a cinematic self who might guide understandings of Brazilianness. The protagonist, having donned a blond wig and luxurious garb shipped from Lisbon, taunts Hortênsia’s husband, a white man who early on had crudely examined Xica’s teeth as if evaluating her for purchase. Xica asks if he still has an interest in her teeth. When he now tentatively probes her mouth she bites down, and the fi lm cuts to a medium close-up of four of the female slaves laughing heartily at her act of retribution. Xica has not yet gained her freedom, but now her joking vengeance against offenses when she was a relatively powerless slave is appreciated vicariously by the currently enslaved and still powerless. In the transition from this to the next scene, a short, instrumental, extradiegetic reminder of the protagonist’s theme song is heard; a single woodwind slowly plays a part of the melody as a young male slave moves, seemingly dancing in rhythm with the music. This tactic reminds audience members of Xica’s upward trajectory and hints at the increasing sympathy toward her among slaves, as this young man appears to participate in the fi lm’s celebration of her ascension. The fusion of a nonsynchronous soundtrack and the action of the fi lm links past to present. Still in the blond wig, the protagonist appeals to João Fernandes to grant her freedom. He indicates that if he does that he risks losing her. Interestingly, the success of her request for manumission does not seem to derive directly from seduction or a promise of sex as have previous elevations in status, a tactical transition that perhaps would lead to greater ethical alignment with her among viewers. She argues, “All those who really love must face that risk.”22 He immediately capitulates with a smile as the single-instrument version of Xica’s theme song briefly returns. An inspired Xica leads João Fernandes off screen to the left for a sexual liaison on the interior balcony of the building. The camera remains focused in a medium shot on an older male slave. We see this man walking to a doorway and gesturing for two young male slaves to

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F igu r e 5.2. Xica performs for the Portuguese inspector.

F igu r e 5.3. Xica seduces José at the conclusion of the film.

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leave. They soon reappear in the doorway, apparently to watch the couple. A medium close-up shows the delighted young voyeurs looking on. The fi lm cuts to a long shot of the dining room, where the contractor’s guests, including the man whose fi nger Xica had bitten, remain at the table while a cluster of female slaves gathers at a doorway also observing the two. When João Fernandes howls at the conclusion of the woman’s mysterious act, the slaves erupt in a cheer and jump up and down, first shown in the long shot and then in a medium close-up of a few of them. In contrast to the viewer’s experience of Xica’s previous sexual exploits, in this case other characters within the fi lm directly guide viewers’ evaluations of the scene. While they previously resented the protagonist, now the slaves model for viewers a rallying behind Xica, presumably due to her new significance as a symbol of potential liberation. We might consider that because the celebrating slaves will soon benefit materially from Xica’s freedom, the fi lm perhaps implies that the happiness they share with the protagonist is from self-interest rather than from satisfaction that an individual from among the enslaved has gained manumission. Nonetheless, the possibly increased social identity alignment promoted by the enslaved proxies of contemporary Brazil and the allegiance they propose promise to situate the protagonist as a more viable cinematic self for audience members. The fi lm only very marginally endorses Xica’s ad hoc decrease in oppression when it implies perpetuating the system and lack of solidarity toward those who are still oppressed. In the later scenes, the reactions of the enslaved viewer stand-ins to Xica’s manumission and to her interactions with white characters suggest that the fi lm does condone individual efforts to reduce one’s oppression when explicit lack of solidarity with the still oppressed is not present. Furthermore, the return of the full version of her theme song as the cheering is going on underscores the protagonist’s increased status, as it invariably does, but accompanies a more positive association with her increased power, since the song coincides with the slaves’ celebration. Jorge Ben Jor’s lyrics bridge the dining-room shot and a medium shot of a celebratory Xica the next day with the letter of manumission in her hand and surrounded by a delighted, leaping entourage of female slaves, all dressed in the luxurious garb that the protagonist had received, as they strut toward the camera. In a complementary scene that takes place shortly afterward, a crowd of slaves serves Xica, their behavior toward her suggesting perhaps something between reverence and obedience. The second possibility is implied when Xica yells out demanding something from one woman, Figena, and the slave immediately responds. At the same time, the scene

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communicates a degree of solidarity that the character manifests toward slaves regardless of whether she is the owner. Early in the scene a white man talking to Xica relays to her that he heard of her avenging one of her slaves by having a white man who mistreated her castrated and that she protects runaway slaves. Emanating from outside and captivating the attention of Figena before she is called are the sounds of drums and an agogô bell accompanying the dancing of a group of slaves. Within, European music—a single violin—is played while a white man paints a portrait of Xica and a number of slaves fawn over her. When viewers fi rst see the interior, they hear only the diegetic Afro-Brazilian music of the soundtrack. Gradually the European music prevails until at the end of the scene the drums and bells return from outside. The fi lm depicts here the fruition of this third phase of the protagonist’s circuitous route to redefining Brazilianness: viewers see a dominant protagonist whom other slaves either appreciate or uncomplainingly serve. The fi lm associates both African culture and European culture with Xica, though she is clearly predisposed toward the latter. She leaves the building and demands that the “noise” coming from the courtyard stop and says, “Send those pretos to work!”23 In this scene the fi lm alludes to how it will later link Afro-Brazilian culture, or at least Afro-European syncretic culture, with an increasingly appealing protagonist, revealing some of the fi lm’s disposition with regard to the attributes it favors in its slowly materializing version of national identity. Still, these are just hints, or perhaps false starts, in the fi lm’s path toward ultimately proposing Xica as a model for how all audience members might understand Brazilianness. During this third phase, the protagonist’s imperfections will clearly continue to limit alignment and allegiance among viewers, such as in her disdain toward the Afro-Brazilian culture and slaves in this scene and when slightly earlier she shows indifference toward a slave being whipped, looking upon the act while telling João Fernandes to ensure that the white residents of the town allow her to enter the church. The fi lm has begun to prepare Xica for the ultimate revision of what she represents and whether she is worthy of emulation. Xica da Silva models a reevaluation of the protagonist for Brazilian audiences through an ever greater shift in how she is interpreted by the slaves. Whether they propose censure or esteem, the slaves always put on display for viewers ways of thinking about the protagonist. How the enslaved characters are portrayed within the fi lm enhances this modeling dynamic: they generally represent an audience within the fi lm since the camera often exposes them observing and reacting to the protagonist. Their ap-

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peal for audience members as partial cinematic selves, as the fi lm proposes through visual alignment, is enhanced through ethical alignment due to their goodness, which often stands in contrast to the moral corruption of others in the fi lm. Perhaps to revive the ebbing sympathy for Xica that the viewer would surely feel during this phase of her characterization the fi lm starts to remold Xica not only by displaying a decreased rejection of her by the slaves when she is promised her manumission but also by suggesting her new, if limited, solidarity with them. In conjunction with the changing relationship between the protagonist and the enslaved characters, Xica exhibits a renewed appreciation of and reliance on African culture at the same time that she alters her behavior to show more benevolence toward the slaves. The new stage in the fi lm increases chances of viewer identification through ethical alignment but also social identity alignment to the extent that viewers have considered the slaves in the fi lm to be the most persuasive proxies for the contemporary Brazilian population. Xica’s kindness to those characters as well as her embrace of AfroBrazilian culture, which through the slaves would likely be tied for audience members to the Brazilian national community, begins to switch her status from a near internal outgrouper to an ingrouper. Although she might not yet be a viable prototype of the fi lm’s stand-in for the national community, Xica eventually implies that she considers herself to be a member. This change constitutes an unequivocal, if rather late, step in becoming an appealing model for viewer self-concept through which the fi lm might communicate what it tends to favor in understandings of Brazilianness. The means through which the character starts to fl irt with audience members and invite them to feel alignment with and allegiance toward her—her embrace of Afro-Brazilian culture and solidarity with the slaves—also help to articulate some of the attributes of the defi nition of national identity that the fi lm proposes. Through Xica, the fi lm gradually replaces the Eurocentric, nonsyncretic, exclusive attitudes she embodies when she fi rst achieves freedom and ostentatiously assimilates herself, through clothing and actions, into white colonial society until that society exposes that there are inevitably racially grounded insurmountable exclusions. Though it favors always solidarity among the oppressed, Xica da Silva pivots away from promoting somewhat Afrocentric and exclusive celebrations of Afro-Brazilian culture and toward interracial inclusiveness and cooperation and Afro-European syncretism. The potential of the model of cultural and material independence that Xica represents when she gains her freedom through the means at

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her disposal—and which the slaves and the fi lm seem to sanction in the end—quickly dissipates. Because she has never seen the sea, the protagonist convinces João Fernandes to build a full-sized sailing vessel that she will use in an inland body of water nearby. In a gesture that indicates alliance with the slaves and more generalized inversion of racial roles in that social context, Xica allows only blacks on board to use the ship for pleasure. The protagonist does consent to the presence of whites but only if they are servants and musicians. Her allegiance toward the fi lm’s enslaved national proxies would promise to increase social identity alignment among Brazilian audience members. Her policy possibly also adds an attribute to the value structure that she represents in this intermediate stage: Afrocentric, cross-class solidarity. Nonetheless, her participation in the system of slavery critically undermines whatever positive implications might be inferred. During the maiden voyage, while the slaves recline and rejoice, Xica remains preoccupied. Finally, she demands that they return to shore because she believes that João Fernandes needs her. On shore, he learned that a message from the court indicated that a letter criticizing him had been sent from Arraial do Tijuco. Soon after the maiden voyage, an emissary from the crown arrives, an inspector predisposed to give a negative evaluation of the contractor and order him to return to Portugal. The implications of Xica’s concern for João Fernandes in this context of Afro-Brazilian consolidation are ambiguous. Perhaps it adds racial inclusiveness or interracial cooperation to the attributes that this third iteration of Xica promotes. More convincingly, we might see the protagonist’s concern as exposing the shallowness of her Afro-Brazilian solidarity and revealing that self-interest is in fact a more powerful motive for her. With João Fernandes’s fall in sight—and Xica’s, to which white characters on shore allude by insulting her—the protagonist abandons her ostensible but ultimately empty suggestion of Afro-Brazilian unity in order to underscore her loyalty to the source of her luxury. She exploits African culture, it would seem, to selfish end. Her fi nal and still individual power play uses an African-inspired feast and dance to seduce the inspector in an effort to help her lover stay in power. While Xica slights Afro-Brazilian culture earlier, now she combines it with her proven sexual allure to wield power. Here her sexuality is put to distinct use for another person’s sake, even if it serves her self-interest as well, and with the collaboration of the national proxies. It is significant that this seduction scene does again display the willing cooperation of the protagonist and the slaves. What is more, they continue to model for their audience-

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member counterparts a new allegiance toward a character who arguably would at this point be perceived as more aligned with them in terms of social identity. João Fernandes explains to the inspector the planned feast: “Xica had an African banquet prepared, with all the refi nements of the African Courts.”24 As the inspector lounges behind a lavish display of dishes and messily stuffs his face, three young male slaves enter and begin playing drums and an agogô. A long shot from the perspective of the inspector—perhaps inviting viewers to share his captivation or obliging them to experience firsthand the objectification that the fi lm ultimately favors less?—shows a group of about ten female slaves accompanying the music in a choreographed performance. Xica emerges dramatically among the women wearing only a bikini-bottomlike garment. The other women model allegiance toward Xica and follow her lead (figure 5.2). Here the fi lm connects a slightly more viable cinematic-self protagonist more than ever to Afro-Brazilian culture. The seductive spectacle achieves its goal; the inspector grunts like a pig and clucks like a chicken as he and the woman frolic. A shot of the three young musicians laughing heartily guides viewers to react with amusement. Her ploy proves ineffective, in the end, in terms of saving João Fernandes and of actually embracing African culture.25 Still, her defiant treatment of the Portuguese emissary helps to elevate the Brazilian category of identity through opposability just as she is coming into greater alignment with that social group. Xica da Silva initiates the proposed elevation of the national category of the social identities of audience members through an opening intertitle. The intertitle contrasts Brazil (Minas Gerais) with Portugal (the Portuguese crown) and highlights the disadvantageous nature of the relationship for Brazil, which aids in evoking Brazilian identity as the fi lm’s topic and appeals to an ingroup bias among Brazilian viewers. It refers to a time “when gold and diamonds were mined from the beds of the rivers flowing down the mountains of Minas Gerais to enrich the Crown of Portugal.”26 To complement and intensify this hierarchizing opposition, in an early scene José explains to Xica what a contratador (contractor) is: “A man appointed by the King of Portugal to take what’s not theirs.”27 And later José characterizes to friends the boom of the region under João Fernandes as the “looting of this poor country.”28 In this same scene, which takes place before Xica’s solidarity with the enslaved, José’s father suggests to the young man that the shipment of luxurious goods from Lisbon are for Xica and gleefully says of her, “Your little friend also participates in the looting of this poor country.”29 The feast scene reconfirms the fi lm’s periodic push

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for Brazilian pride; it constitutes a call for the consolidation of the national community with Afro-Brazilian culture as the catalyst, and Xica da Silva is the conspicuous leader of this proposal. Despite the practical and symbolic limitations of her tactics, the fi lm goes further than ever in associating her with the nation. As Xica begins to wake in the place of the feast surrounded by female slaves, a medium close-up shows her smile with eyes still closed as one of the women pays her an homage by singing the sexually tinged Jorge Ben Jor theme song, which begins, “Xica dá, Xica dá, Xica dá, Xica da Silva.” The surprising transposition of the modern song into the world of the fi lm reinforces the link between Xica’s representation and the present during which the fi lm was released. Moreover, the theme song, which commemorates and exults the protagonist’s self-centered bids for power, is sung by one of the slaves, thus deepening the earlier association of the song with the slaves’ celebration of her manumission. The source of the song suggests their feeling of solidarity toward Xica and their condoning, it would seem, of her tactics and her goal of redeeming her doomed benefactor. Audience members would know the slaves’ sentiment to be unreciprocated or at least somewhat compromised on Xica’s part. It has remained clear that Xica’s allegiance has ultimately been to João Fernandes, the source of her own power. However, the fi lm steers viewers’ interpretation of her by means of the slaves’ revised attitude toward Xica and the limited if self-interested alliance that Xica appears to show with fellow slaves and with African culture. Its aim appears to more surely shape the attributes she represents and to sell her as a more viable cinematic self in anticipation of her fourth and presumably most compelling incarnation in the last scene of the fi lm. Through those concluding moments, Xica da Silva completes the sketch of a different possible understanding of Brazilianness. Xica’s fall from power further circumscribes her potential as a symbol of isolated liberation as it precipitates her redefinition and thus the fi lm’s tentative reconfiguration of Brazilianness. Earlier, soon after Xica’s initial seduction of João Fernandes, the fi lm foreshadows her decline: one of José’s friends even points out that there are many people who despise Xica, surely incensed by her bold rise above her former social station. The nonslaves to whom he apparently alludes perhaps would inspire a sense of affinity among audience members who up to this point remain nonaligned with the protagonist. However, I find more persuasive another interpretation. In this later phase of her characterization in the fi lm, viewer alignment with the protagonist has been relatively consistently proposed, and increased allegiance has been modeled by slaves.

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The white residents who are against Xica would not likely be embraced as viewer proxies, as their apparent collusion with the colonial power and the system of slavery make them internal outgroupers with regard to the proposed ideal composition of the national community that the slaves in the fi lm epitomize. The fi lm accentuates the limits of Xica’s influence when she is refused entry to the town’s main church during the scene that shows her march through town with her entourage to celebrate her manumission. Signaling a lack of solidarity with slaves, she argues to the priest, smiling, “I know that slaves may not enter this church, but [it] so happens that I’m now a free subject of the Crown.”30 But her appeal is snubbed. A highangle medium shot shows the male and female slaves with her looking solemnly up to Xica as she erupts in anger, proposing the possibility of viewers sharing their apparent though unrequited solidarity. Due to the racially grounded injustice Xica experiences here, audience members would possibly experience an ethical alignment with her that mirrors that of the enslaved characters in this scene. The fi lm underscores through this exclusion that even individual victories have little power within a fundamentally flawed system, one that here reveals its racist underpinnings. This point is emphasized shortly afterward when Xica fi nds João Fernandes and declares with outrage, “Your letter is good for nothing!”31 A global revision of the society’s values and its power structure are needed, the fi lm seems to suggest, rather than ad hoc efforts to better one’s lot within the system. In the end, it is João Fernandes’s own defeat that triggers hers, an inevitability to which Xica herself refers at the fi lm’s conclusion when she laments that without João Fernandes, Xica da Silva does not exist. Before that, she makes one last assertive effort to preserve the contractor’s and her place in power. She tries to convince João Fernandes to request the help of Teodoro—a free black man who leads a quilombo-like community—to fight the crown, saying that what is needed is an army of bandits, miners, and blacks—a proposal José mentioned earlier. The plea constitutes the closest that Xica, in this third stage, comes to elevating the protonational social group through a Brazil-Portugal opposition and associating Brazil with intergroup cooperation. The contractor does not take her advice and indeed betrays Teodoro, who had told Xica he was willing to help. The impasse is what provokes the protagonist’s plan to use sexual allure and the African feast as a last-ditch effort to retain power: “Now I’ll fi nish this case my own way.”32 The protagonist still does not embody an appealing revision of prevailing values among the national community. After the feast, without much delay, a government representative

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reads a letter from the king that indicts João Fernandes for abuses of power and scandal and orders him to return to Portugal. Xica, now dressed modestly in black, in contrast to her white apparel as she entered the spheres of power, pleads with her lover to stay. But he refuses to disobey a direct order from the king and subsequently departs, causing Xica to cry out. An extreme long shot shows her collapse to the ground alone in a nearly empty square. Immediately after João Fernandes’s departure, the white, powerful residents of Arraial do Tijuco, led by the repugnant blond member of Arraial do Tijuco’s high society, Hortênsia, turn against Xica, calling her names and laughing. Defeated, she staggers off, followed by children who taunt her. Her fall from power suggests that the possibility of individual social mobility that she has embodied—and that apparently had begun to inspire the slaves, whom I have been reading as viewer stand-ins—was restricted and ephemeral if not illusory. The fi nal reversion of her self-centered ascension highlights Xica’s lack of commitment to broad social change, an eventuality that might suggest that even her return to Afro-Brazilian culture is inadequate to redeem her corrupt and individual path toward liberation. Yet just as the fi lm conclusively nullifies Xica’s initial selfish strategy, the vitriolic condemnation of her by unsympathetically portrayed white townspeople reinforces through opposability the alignment with and allegiance toward Xica that the fi lm has attempted to inspire among audience members through her acceptance by the slaves. If the slaves represent a Brazil suffering the injustices of a military dictatorship, Hortênsia and the others, who are clearly distinguished from the white but resistant Inconfidentes, would allegorize a sector of the Brazilian population of the mid-1970s that was collusive with the military regime or that bolstered it through inaction. Here the fi lm culminates its attempt to renew Xica’s viability as a vehicle to communicate a new understanding of Brazilianness that might, if widely adopted, promise to provoke improved social conditions. From the beginning, the fi lm proposes the protagonist as an essentially flawed representative of the existing—and possible—national community: if she is faulty, it is because the nation is faulty. Along these same lines, if Xica da Silva’s proposals for how an imperfect population might move forward come in fits and starts, it is presumably because there are no easy solutions. Still, as the fi lm draws to a close it consistently and increasingly encourages audience members to consider the protagonist as a potential cinematic self. It suggests that despite the nation’s precarious state, there is some hope to set upon a new path. Xica da Silva proposes one direction through its new and improved protagonist at the end. The suggestion of a substantial metaphorical association of Xica with

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Brazil comes in the fi nal scene as a culmination of proposals for broad alignment and general allegiance. At this point the fi lm has resolutely confi rmed Xica’s futile attempt to maintain a position of power that challenges the limits imposed by society but ultimately still depends on an oppressive system. In the last moments, though, Xica da Silva reconfigures the protagonist a fourth and final time and suggests through her an alternate path of resistance and inclusive liberation. This path calls for Brazilians of African and of Portuguese descent to unite in opposition to the crown and its representatives or, allegorically, in opposition to the military dictatorship. It is in these last moments that the fi lm articulates the broad parameters of the defi nitions of Brazilian national identity that each of the later fi lms analyzed in this book envision. The fi lm condenses this vision in the figure of Xica, lending a degree of Afrocentrism to its fi nal proposed understanding of Brazilianness, which is Afro-European and holds as key attributes a revolutionary spirit and intergroup cooperation. Dejected and aimless, Xica accepts asylum from José, the son of her former owner, who is himself hiding out in the monastery for blacks where the protagonist had sent him. The fi lm has periodically given the viewer news of José, who has joined the Inconfidentes, which Brazilian viewers would know to be a group of late-eighteenth-century insurgents in Minas Gerais. Xica da Silva has taken audience members full circle: after Xica enters the building, José jokingly calls out to her as he did at the beginning of the fi lm, as if she were an animal. The two discuss Xica’s travails, and he manages to infuse her with renewed hope. When she claims that due to João Fernandes’s fall, Xica da Silva no longer exists, José extols her. In response to her discouragement, he declares, “I protest! Xica da Silva will never end. Because you’re forever, little Xica, you cannot end. Without you, diamonds will lose their glitter, the world’s fi res will go out. You’re the rejoicing, the sun of the people. Without you, their freedom will be no good. As long as there’s love, Xica.”33 José here joins the list of the fi lm’s characters, like the slaves, who interpret Xica and in so doing model audience members’ reception of the protagonist. Brazilian viewers might well have felt at least somewhat aligned with José due to his association with the revolutionary Inconfidentes—ethical alignment if they believe that to have been a worthy cause and social identity alignment if their existing understanding of Brazilianness subscribes to the common inclusion of these insurrectionists among the nation’s heroes. The nature of José’s praise encourages viewers to consider Xica, who now stands for collaboration that transcends race and class, in broad, positive, transhistorical terms. Also, his reference to the broad, Brazilian

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importance of Xica da Silva, which comes late in a fi lm that up to then only alluded to it, may have likely caused audiences to recall that she has long been a salient figure in Brazilian history and culture. José’s words build on this implied legendary status by suggesting a correlation between Xica and society’s freedom: “Without you, their freedom will be no good”; his declaration bolsters the suggestion that the protagonist be considered a stand-in for the Brazilian people. This move additionally helps to cement social identity alignment of viewers with Xica, and his overall attitude toward her encourages allegiance. Thus, the elements of a potentially effective cinematic model for viewer self-concept have come together: the presentation of an appealing proxy for one of the groups that constitute a viewer’s social identity. Significantly, through José the fi lm also asserts that her symbolic value will endure, helping the fi lm to merge the past depicted with the viewers’ present and to suggest that its national stand-in is indeed currently appealing and effective. The fi lm appeals in this way to one of the techniques of nationalization identified by Patrick Hogan, that of durability. The fi lm fi rst connects Xica to the Brazilian population and then promotes its reconceptualization of that group through the insistence on the protagonist’s indelibility. Xica da Silva urges audience members to feel pride in the defi nition of Brazilianness that it communicates through the character. José’s mention of love at the end of his discourse provokes a fainting spell in Xica. She begins to pursue him, and after José’s vain protests (figure 5.3), the two retire to have sex. Importantly, as their act commences and José protracted scream of agony (ecstasy?) begins, Jorge Ben Jor’s celebratory theme music for Xica returns. As usual, the song corresponds to an ascension for the protagonist. This time it marks her rise along yet another—and the fi lm would appear strongly to suggest, superior—path.34 In his interview by Alex Viany, Diegues interprets the end of the fi lm: “The end is a synthesis: Brazil will only change when the common people, with all of their revolutionary potential, unite with revolutionaries. [. . .] That is, perhaps it seems naïve today, but the union of intellectuals with the people is what produces a true revolution.”35 The fi lm emphasizes the link between the popular (Xica) and the intellectual ( José as Inconfidente). The evident success of their relationship alludes to the effectiveness of a strategy of resistance that depends on the union of intellectuals with the masses.36 The fi lm reifies through them its proposal for how viewers might revise their understandings of Brazilianness. Xica da Silva argues for the potential of this sort of intergroup collaboration with Xica as its symbolic head not only to better embody a multiracial Brazil but also to resist oppression more effectively. Xica once again deploys her famous seductive capacity, but this time

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her action seems to result from disinterested desire and not from the hope of achieving power. Moreover, through the return of the theme music the fi lm conclusively revises and brings into the present the definition of the national community that the protagonist has fi nally come to represent. Xica da Silva has conditioned viewers to associate the character’s eponymous song with successful ploys to control her destiny. By marking this moment with the same song, the fi lm indicates that a reformed Xica has begun again to ascend but this time along a path that seems to promise collective and not merely personal liberation. In this fourth stage, the fi lm completes its reshaping of Xica as a guide for an Afro-European, inclusive, and resistant understanding of Brazilianness. The viability of the fi lm’s fi nal commentary, however, may for some viewers collapse upon closer consideration. Xica has come full circle, back to the son of her former owner. A reasonable viewer might infer an unintended implication of such a union: after her failed sally into freedom, the crestfallen slave’s only option is to return to the space of her initial subjugation. The celebrated union of José and Xica also recalls and perpetuates the long-standing celebrations of unproblematic racial intersections and the related notion that Brazil is a racially democratic society, ideas intimately tied to the writings of Gilberto Freyre. Diegues’s later fi lm Quilombo as well as the other fi lms that I study here are generally more in line with Abdias do Nascimento, who published his O quilombismo in 1980. Quilombo moves more in the direction of Afrocentrism yet retains some Afro-European cultural syncretism and certainly the racial and ethnic inclusiveness that it implied at the end of Xica da Silva. Finally, José and Xica’s union and its proposed path of resistance to oppressive systems such as Brazil under the military dictatorship may well have been read by viewers as ultimately flawed in its patronizing suggestion that the black common people must be guided by the white elite.37 The idea of opposing the unjust social system in colonial Brazil comes not from the oppressed Xica but rather from José, a figure who, despite his revolutionary affi liation, has enjoyed the very privileges that the system affords to Brazil’s white population. Still, we should note that when she had power, she was José’s protector: he had remained for some time in safety because of Xica. Forty minutes before the end of the fi lm she proposes that he take refuge in a monastery that she had built for blacks. Also, when they arrive he shows reverence, even if jokingly: “I also promise to obey all your orders, for the rest of my life.”38 Xica da Silva posits a dual yet sometimes contradictory and often problematic symbolic value for the protagonist. On the one hand, Xica

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represents a slave who achieves personal freedom through strategy, cunning, and resourcefulness. In the beginning, the fi lm portrays a defective and precarious Brazil through the protagonist, yet at times it seems also to celebrate or condone this example of unlikely and isolated liberation as one approach to survival under an oppressive regime, whether it be a colonial slave society or, by analogy, a military dictatorship. On the other hand, her relationship with José suggests that if colonial or dictatorial oppression is to be effectively resisted, it must be through the union of the intelligentsia with popular power or at least through some sort of collaborative resistance. The problematic nature of the character risks compromising her status as a representative of the Brazilian people to which the fi lm alludes at times and explicitly proposes at the end. However, we have seen that while Xica’s success as a broadly viable model for national identity may be imperfect, the fi lm’s portrayal of her remains sufficiently complex to give rise to varied and still valuable interpretations. Perhaps it is this very complexity, this dialogue-inspiring refusal to reduce the protagonist to a single dimension that represents the chief contribution of the fi lm. In spite of its intended and unintended problems, Xica da Silva stimulates a continuing and concerned reconsideration of Brazil, whether audience members read with or against the grain, that is, whether we embrace or critically interrogate the strategies through which the fi lm constructs its national hero. Or perhaps its most lasting legacy is cinematic. The fi lm’s attempt to articulate and guide the interpretation of its proposal to redefi ne Brazilianness places Xica da Silva into a decades-long Brazilian cinematic tradition that transforms stories and figures from the colonial period into vehicles for commenting on national identity in the present. Yet it also inaugurates a new approach within Brazilian historical cinema. The understanding of national identity it proposes that audience members embrace and the means through which it offers that defi nition have to a large degree endured in the other four fi lms studied in this book. The consonant cinematic collection that emerged in the wake of Xica da Silva’s influence has provided an opportunity not only to study the nuances of various Africanized versions of prevailing Eurocentric, Afro-European visions of Brazil but also to appreciate the shared, interconnected ways in which these fi lms potentially engage viewers and influence their social identities.

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Notes

I n t roduct ion 1. With this book I have in mind the experience of Brazilians who saw these fi lms, although I do not try to prove that these particular fi lms had an actual or lasting effect on the social identities of those who watched them, which would require a different methodology. Throughout the book I use terms such as “audiences,” “audience members,” and “viewers” to describe the array of Brazilian people who were exposed to the fi lms. I subscribe to Carl Plantinga’s outlook on the dynamics and possible effects of the fi lm/viewer interface: Audience response is ultimately determined by a complex formula consisting at least of “conditioners” (context, audience characteristics) and “elicitors” (textual stimuli). Ideally, fi lm and media critics and scholars generate their estimations of audience response in relation to as many factors as possible. Yet it may be the best strategy at times to focus on one of these in isolation from the others. Or it may be the only strategy available when evidence of actual audience response is lacking. Thus, I fi nd context-centered, audience-centered, and text-centered studies all to be of value, assuming that they maintain a certain humility of outlook. (Moving Viewers 16)

My approach to considering the potential impact these fi lms may have had on Brazilian viewers largely combines “audience-centered” and “text-centered” strategies, although I devote some attention to cultural, intellectual, and political contextual factors. With regard to the audience, I draw, for example, on research in social psychology, specifically on current thinking about the nature of social identity and the ways our understanding of the social groups of which we are part may change as a result of exposure to stimuli. The bulk of my analysis, though, is text-centered: it focuses on “textual, fi lmic elements designed

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to elicit spectator response” (Plantinga, Moving Viewers 16). In my analyses I avoid claiming that Brazilian audience members necessarily responded in certain ways to specific stimuli. If I were Brazilian I would be able to draw on my own reactions to the fi lm as partial, anecdotal evidence of actual audience response. Instead, I propose likely responses among diverse members of Brazilian audiences. Finally, regarding terminology, throughout the book I avoid using the terms “spectator” and “spectatorship” in order to distinguish my approach theoretically and methodologically from psychoanalytical approaches to contemplating the fi lm/viewer interface, in particular from those that address the dynamics of audience members identifying with characters. 2. Plantinga argues, “Movies often appeal to viewers not because they reflect experience, but because they idealize and exaggerate it. Movies are hypercoherent; they streamline reality, including in their narratives only what is needed to generate their desired effect” (Moving Viewers 44). 3. Research to date on Brazilian cinema about slavery has not sought to extract from this subset of historical cinema the sorts of insights I pursue in this volume with regard to the potential impact on the social identities of viewers nor with respect to late-twentieth-century trends in debates about Brazilian identity. Noel dos Santos Carvalho’s extensive introduction to the book Jeferson De: Dogma feijoada. O cinema negro brasileiro (2005) stands out among recent critical evaluations of work done on cinematic representations of blacks in Brazil. In it Carvalho traces the backgrounds of the sorts of cinematic defi nitions of national identity that I study in the present book; he points to Robert Stam’s Tropical Multiculturalism (1997) and João Carlos Rodrigues’s O negro brasileiro e o cinema (2001) as pioneering works. Although fi lms about slavery form part of these three important studies, they are not the central concern. One of the significant precursors to my study is Ella Shohat and Robert Stam’s Unthinking Eurocentrism (1994), in which the cinema of slavery is identified as a discrete corpus worthy of study. One of the books that my present project most resembles in terms of its topic is historian Natalie Zemon Davis’s Slaves on Screen (2000). However, in that book, which examines cinematic depictions of slavery from different countries and is grounded in the discipline of history, the author’s aims differ from my own. Slaves on Screen underscores how fi lm depicts history rather than how historical fi lms project a vision of how viewers might see themselves. 4. Although social psychological research does provide some insight into the dynamics of social identity change, more work is required to understand these processes fully, especially with regard to the role that audiovisual narratives can play. Jan Stets explains, “While some identity theorists have examined identity change [. . .], more generally, this has been a neglected area of research. It is not clear whether this neglect is due to the lack of longitudinal data to capture identity changes, the lack of theory to explain identity changes, or both” (104). I share Torben Grodal’s intuitions about the relative malleability of the mind: “Rather than assuming that the mind is totally socially constructed and hence

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completely malleable, a more cautious assumption would be a relative malleability: innate dispositions can be activated by exposure, deactivated by lack of exposure, and modified within certain limits” (11). 5. In 1972 Henri Tajfel, who initiated this line of research, defi ned social identity as “the individual’s knowledge that he belongs to certain social groups together with some emotional and value significance to him of this group membership” (qtd. in Hogg 113). 6. Hogg explains in a 2006 article that summarizes and evaluates research in this area, “Social identity theory addresses phenomena such as prejudice, discrimination, ethnocentrism, stereotyping, intergroup confl ict, conformity, normative behavior, group polarization, crowd behavior, organizational behavior, leadership, deviance, and group cohesiveness” (111). 7. Hogg argues for the benefits of bringing into contact social psychology and other fields; he seems to have in mind literature, culture, fi lm, and so forth: “In the early days [. . .] social identity theorists explored the relationship between social identity and language and communication. However, a schism has developed—with language scholars, influenced by postmodernism, and social identity theorists, influenced by social cognition, eating at separate tables. Communication is the vehicle for social identity dynamics, and language is one of the most potent symbols of identity. A banquet to launch new integrative directions is called for” (127–128). 8. Homi Bhabha has pointed to a similar concept, “the field of meanings and symbols associated with national life” (3). John Mraz makes several comparable assertions regarding the intersection of culture and national identity, drawing on Stuart Hall and Benedict Anderson. Anticipating that readers may have something very different in mind when they think of national identity— “I am entering a potential minefield that easily blows up in the faces of those who dare to tread there. [. . . National identity is a] slippery concept in the best of cases” (1)—Mraz quotes Stuart Hall: “‘Perhaps, instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished historical fact . . . we should think of identity as a “production,” which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’” (2). Hall seems to be referring to what I would call diverse and ongoing proposals for individuals to understand specific ingroups in particular ways as well as to the impact of such proposals in the form of understandings of the group that are shared by a great proportion of the members. Mraz reinforces this position by pointing out that Benedict Anderson wrote that “newspapers and novels ‘provided the technical means for “re-presenting” the kind of imagined community that is the nation’ in eighteenth-century Europe” (2, emphasis in original). Research in social psychology leads to some analogous premises regarding national identity but provides a framework that leads to a number of other useful theoretical tools to understand interrelations between cultural products and social identity. 9. Hogg proposes one way to understand the dynamics of social identity change:

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From a social identity perspective, people cognitively represent a category or group as a prototype—a fuzzy set of attributes (perceptions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors) that are related to one another in a meaningful way and that simultaneously capture similarities within the group and differences between the group and other groups or people who are not in the group. Prototypes describe categories and also evaluate them and prescribe membership-related behavior. They chart the contours of social groups and tell us not only what characterizes a group but also how that group is different from other groups. [. . .] This analysis has a number of implications. (1) The content of a prototype rests on which human attributes maximize metacontrast in a specific context—with the caveat that people are motivated [. . .] to emphasize attributes that favor the in-group over the out-group. (2) Because accentuation of intergroup differences is integral to metacontrast, prototypes rarely describe average or typical in-group members—rather they are polarized away from outgroup features and describe ideal, often hypothetical, in-group members. (3) Because metacontrast involves both intra- and intergroup comparisons, any change in the social comparative context (e.g., the specific out-group or in-group member present or specific goals embedded in the context) affects the prototype—prototypes are context-specifi c and can change if the context changes. This variability is relatively modest because of the anchoring effect of enduring and highly accessible representations of important groups we belong to but may be more dramatic in new groups or groups that we know less about.” (118, my emphasis)

The fi lms studied in this book expose audience members imaginatively to changed versions of their social contexts. The challenge of the fi lms rests in fi nding ways to ensure that the exposure will remold prototypes in lasting ways in the minds of viewers. 10. I follow Patrick Hogan’s broad defi nition of nationalism: “any form of in-group identification for a group defi ned in part by reference to a geographical area along with some form of sovereign government over that state. [. . .] I am referring to a sense of identification rather than a political state. [. . . B]y ‘geographical area,’ I do not necessarily mean an area marked by strict boundaries. [. . . T]he sovereignty in question need not be actual or current. It may be an imagined or desired form of sovereignty. Thus, nationalism may inspire an anticolonial movement to establish a state” (Understanding Nationalism 4). 11. In her 1993 book, The New Latin American Cinema, Zuzana Pick points out in relation to Brazilian and Cuban cinema the kind of contestation of understandings of national identity grounded in cultural mixture that all of the fi lms I examine here manifest. She indicates her interest in “how cinematographic treatments of ethnicity contest mestizaje and replot race relations [. . . and] struggle to come to terms with [. . .] the master narratives of national identity” (9). She uses Quilombo as one of her examples.

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12. These fi lms are emblematic of a tendency in Brazilian cinema to analyze race and identity in the present through the context of the past. Referring to a broader pattern within Brazilian historical cinema, Stam and Xavier argue in their essay “Transformation of National Allegory” that “within the repressive atmosphere of a military-dominated present, the past becomes a kind of reservoir or fund of images available for allegorical re-elaboration, a kind of wardrobe of themes and costumes to be borrowed for contemporary purposes” (308). 13. “Formou-se na América tropical uma sociedade agrária na estrutura, escravocrata na técnica de exploração econômica, híbrida de índio—e mais tarde de negro—na composição” (Casa grande 65). 14. “One result of the persistent action of this sadism, a sadism of the conqueror toward the conquered, of the master toward the slave, is a fact that appears to me to be linked naturally with the economic circumstances that shaped our patriarchal society: the fact that the woman in Brazil is so often the helpless victim of the male’s domination or abuse, a creature sexually and socially repressed, who lives within the shadow of her father or her husband” (Masters and the Slaves 76). “Resultado da ação persistente desse sadismo, de conquistador sobre conquistado, de senhor sobre escravo, parece-nos o fato, ligado naturalmente à circunstância econômica da nossa formação patriarcal, da mulher ser tantas vezes no Brasil vítima inerme do domínio ou do abuso do homem; criatura reprimida sexual e socialmente dentro da sombra do pai ou do marido” (Casa grande 114). 15. “Nossa insistência visa outro fi m: acentuar que à formação brasileira não faltou o concurso genético de um elemento superior, recrutado entre as melhores famílias e capaz de transmitir à prole as maiores vantagens do ponto de vista eugênico e de herança social” (Casa grande 533). Freyre emphasizes the point in this way: “We should take measures to avoid the exaggeration of absolutely closing ourselves off to the recognition of hereditary differences among human groups; and of considering certain groups, like the Israelis, sacred, or invariably slandered with regard to their behavior as an ethnic, or previously, religious or cultural, minority among other groups, merely so that we do not appear ‘antiSemitic’ or ‘racist.’” Sometimes when a published translation is available—as in this case—I have felt that a distinct translation better captures the nuances of the original. “Do que [. . .] devemos nos guardar é do exagero de nos fecharmos de modo absoluto ao reconhecimento de diferenças hereditárias entre grupos humanos; e também do de considerarmos certos grupos, como o israelita, sagrados, ou invariavelmente caluniados, no que se refere ao seu comportamento, como minoria étnica, ou antes, religiosa ou cultural, entre outros grupos, só para não parecermos ‘anti-semitas’ ou ‘racistas’” (Casa grande 469). Vieira explores Freyre’s position on Jews. Significantly, Freyre combines two distinct hypotheses about the nature of the Brazilian population, one based on a revised understanding of biological influence and another grounded in an appreciation of the role of culture: “I learned to consider the difference between race and culture to be fundamental;

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Notes to Page 5

to discriminate between the effects of purely genetic relationships and the effects of social influences, cultural heritage, and context” (emphasis in original). “Aprendi a considerar fundamental a diferença entre raça e cultura; a discriminar entre os efeitos de relações puramente genéticas e os de influências sociais, de herança cultural e de meio” (Casa grande 32). Borges (59– 60) examines the way Freyre fuses culturist and eugenicist arguments in his attempt to defend the Brazilian people from the notion of degeneration grounded in miscegenation. Christopher Dunn comments, “In the 1930s and 1940s, the celebration of mestizo [mestiço] Brazil was a courageous and progressive gesture in relation to the work of other Brazilian intellectuals who believed in the racial inferiority of blacks and lamented miscegenation. The celebration of miscegenation also represented taking an ethical and moral position against the segregationist regime of the United States and the fascist states of Europe.” (“Nos anos 30 e 40, a celebração do Brasil mestiço foi um gesto corajoso e progressivo em relação ao trabalho de outros intelectuais brasileiros que acreditavam na inferioridade racial dos negros e lamentavam a mestiçagem. A celebração da mestiçagem também foi uma tomada de posição ética e moral frente ao regime segregacionista dos Estados Unidos e aos estados fascistas da Europa”) (39). Vieira makes a complementary observation: [It is] necessary to understand Freyre’s texts within the social context and intellectual mentality of his era, on the one hand, in order to not fall easily into what we consider today “politically correct” and, on the other hand, to not forget the predominant debate in the fi rst part of the twentieth century between biological determinism (eugenics) and the thinking of international and Brazilian culturalists like Freyre. [. . .] Freyre’s role in this polemic was intensified by the publication of Casa grande e senzala because his culturalist position challenged biological determinism with his insistence on the difference between race and culture. [É] necessário posicionar os textos de Freyre perante o ambiente social e a mentalidade intelectual da sua época, por um lado, a fi m de não cair facilmente no que hoje consideramos “politicamente correto” e, por outro lado, de não esquecer do debate predominante na primeira parte do século vinte entre o determinismo biológico (a eugenia) e o pensamento de culturistas internacionais e brasileiros como Freyre. [. . .] O papel de Freyre nesta polêmica foi intensificado pela publicação de CGS [Casa grande e senzala] porque a sua posição culturista desafiou o determinismo biológico com a sua insistência na diferença entre raça e cultura. (258–259)

16. “sob o predomínio de Portugal e do cristianismo” (Conferências 33). Freyre writes, “A society was organized that was Christian in superstructure” (Masters and the Slaves 83). “Organizou-se uma sociedade cristã na superestrutura” (Casa grande 160).

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17. “Híbrida desde o início, a sociedade brasileira é de todas da América a que se constitui mais harmoniosamente quanto às relações de raça: dentro de um ambiente de quase reciprocidade cultural que resultou no máximo de aproveitamento dos valores e experiências dos povos atrasados pelo adiantado” (Casa grande 160). 18. Translations of Nascimento are mine unless otherwise indicated; “uma visão suave, açucarada, das relações entre negros e brancos no pais” (15). “A mistura biológica e de culturas, da África e da Europa, aconteceu em todos os países do novo mundo onde houve escravidão. Assim, a tenaz persistência da cultura africana no Brasil e em outras partes da América do Sul não pode razoavelmente ser atribuída a uma suposta benevolência dos ário-latinos, nem ao caráter e cultura dos mesmos” (16). These quotes are from the essay “Introdução à mistura ou massacre? Ensaios desde dentro do genocídio de um povo negro.” 19. “O quilombismo almeja a construção de um Estado voltado para a convivência igualitária de todos os componentes da população, preservando-se e respeitando-se a pluralidade de identidades e matrizes culturais.” 20. “‘Dia da morte do grande líder negro nacional, Zumbi, responsável pela primeira e única tentativa brasileira de estabelecer uma sociedade democrática, ou seja, livre, e em que todos—negros, índios e brancos—realizaram uma grande avanço político, econômico e social’” (O quilombismo 256). 21. “O negro está longe de ser um arrivista ou um corpo estranho: ele é o próprio corpo e alma deste pais” (O quilombismo 253). 22. See Larry Crook and Randal Johnson’s introduction to Black Brazil: Culture, Identity, and Social Mobilization for a synthesis of the shift in ways of understanding race and identity of which Abdias do Nascimento forms part. Edward E. Telles provides an insightful and concise account of the prevalence and nature of proposals for understanding Brazilianness through the concept of mestiçagem in the introduction to his Race in Another America (1–23), where he discusses the influential role of Freyre and mentions Nascimento’s reaction to the earlier writer. 23. “1. O Quilombismo é um movimento político dos negros brasileiros, objetivando a implantação de um Estado Nacional Quilombista, inspirado no modelo da República dos Palmares. [. . .] 2. O Estado Nacional Quilombista tem sua base numa sociedade livre, justa, igualitária e soberana. O igualitarismo democrático quilombista é compreendido no tocante à raça, economia, sexo, sociedade, religião, política [etc.]” (275). 24. “Trata-se de uma proposta não apenas para os povos afrodescendentes na diáspora como para a Nação Brasileira.”

Ch a p t e r 1: I n f lu e nci ng U n de rsta n di ngs of Br a z i li a n n e ss i n O A le ija di n ho 1. The English title for release outside Brazil is Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory, and Torment. Reviews of the fi lm generally were not favorable (Caetano’s, for

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Notes to Pages 12–18

example). Although Inácio Araujo critiques the fi lm’s attempt to cover too much, he does point to redeeming qualities such as the emphasis on the character’s effort to encounter a “Brazilian style” of art. 2. Paulo Peixoto as well as Renato Lemos provide background on the director’s initial attempt to realize this project with the Vera Cruz studio in Brazil. 3. Guiomar de Grammont’s book Aleijadinho e o aeroplano (2008) offers a detailed study of the sort of reshapings and strategic fictionalizations in which the fi lm Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício participates: “There are many Aleijadinhos, not only in museums and in the homes of collectors, but also in the context of a nationality constituted by diverse imaginaries over the course of the past two centuries” (“Aleijadinhos há muitos, não apenas nos museus e nas casas dos colecionadores, mas também na morada de uma nacionalidade constituída de imaginários diversos ao longo dos últimos dois séculos” (33, my translation). Grammont (37) attributes the shifts in understandings of Aleijadinho to the “political objectives of each era” (“objetivos políticos de cada época”). Leandro Narloch’s Guia políticamente incorreto da história do Brasil (2009) draws largely on Grammont to challenge Aleijadinho’s legendary status in Brazil. 4. Hogan argues, “If ‘America’ brings to mind Abraham Lincoln, then my emotional response to Lincoln—that particular American with his particular life (as developed through narratives)—will affect my emotional response to America as a whole” (Understanding Nationalism, 96). 5. Maria Angela de Jesus (149) quotes Souza: “‘Aleijadinho, even though he was an exceptional artist, experienced prejudice fi rsthand because his mother was a slave’” (“‘Aleijadinho, mesmo sendo um artista excepcional, sentiu na pele o preconceito, pois era fi lho de uma escrava’”). 6. “De Antônio Francisco ninguém se esquecerá.” Unless otherwise noted, translations of quotations from the fi lm are from the subtitles. 7. “Não havia só festas, riqueza, e opulência em Vila Rica e Ouro Preto, havia também miséria, sofrimento e humilhações, como ainda vejo neste escravo moído de pancadas que um violento capitão-de-mato traz de volta à senzala.” 8. “enriqueceram Portugal e Inglaterra a custa do trabalho de milhares de escravos” 9. “os líricos e infelizes amantes da Inconfidência Mineira” 10. “parece guardar até hoje as juras e queixas de amor” 11. “Igreja de Santa Ifigênia. Igreja de Chico Rei [.  .  .] dos escravos que Chico libertou com duplo trabalho nas minas.” 12. Hogg, Terry, and White describe such social identity hierarchies in this way: “The basic idea is that a social category (e.g., nationality, political affi liation, sports team) into which one falls, and to which one feels one belongs, provides a defi nition of who one is in terms of the defi ning characteristics of the category—a self-defi nition that is a part of the self-concept. People have a repertoire of such discrete category memberships that vary in relative overall importance in the self-concept. Each of these memberships is represented in the individual member’s mind as a social identity that both describes and prescribes

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Notes to Pages 18–20

one’s attributes as a member of that group—that is, what one should think and feel, and how one should behave” (259–260). 13. Social identity theory “demonstrates that people are motivated to activate social identities that allow them to view themselves in a positive light” (Rydell, McConnell, and Beilock 953). 14. Social identity complexity is a theoretical construct that refers to an individual’s subjective representation of interrelationships among his or her multiple group identities. Social identity complexity reflects the degree of overlap perceived to exist between groups of which a person is simultaneously a member. [. . .] When a person acknowledges, and accepts, that memberships in multiple ingroups are not fully convergent or overlapping, the associated identity structure is both more inclusive and more complex. [.  .  .] Results from initial studies support the prediction that social identity complexity is affected by stress and is related to personal value priorities and to tolerance of outgroup members” (Roccas and Brewer 88). “Social identity complexity defi nes people’s more or less complex cognitive representations of the interrelationships among their multiple ingroup identities. Being high in complexity is contingent on situational, cognitive, or motivational factors, and has positive consequences for intergroup relations” (Schmid et al. 1085). “Social identity complexity (Roccas and Brewer, 2002) refers to individual differences in perception of one’s multiple ingroup memberships. More specifically, social identity complexity is represented as perceived overlap in membership across pairs of ingroups, with lower overlap reflecting higher complexity. Previous research has demonstrated that social identity complexity is associated with tolerance and positive affect toward racial outgroups” (Miller, Brewer, and Arbuckle 79). 15. The term “subjective ingroup” highlights the individual’s perception of membership in more than one ingroup. Roccas and Brewer explain: “The actual complexity of multiple, partially overlapping group memberships may or may not be reflected in the individual’s subjective representation of his or her multiple identities. For instance, a woman who is both White and Christian may think of her religious ingroup as composed primarily of White people, even though objectively there are many non-White Christians. Conversely, she may think of her racial ingroup as largely Christian, despite the fact that there are many Whites who embrace other religions. By reducing the subjective inclusiveness of both ingroups to their overlapping memberships, the individual maintains a relatively simplified identity structure. When an individual acknowledges, and accepts, the nonoverlapping memberships of her multiple ingroups, her subjective identity structure is both more inclusive and more complex” (89). An outgroup is composed of those one perceives as being different from himself or herself. 16. Intersection describes a situation in which “the conjunction of two group identities constitutes the perceiver’s ingroup; any other combination of category memberships are treated as outgroups” (90). Dominance consists of an individual adopting “one primary group identification to which all other potential

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Notes to Pages 22–24

group identities are subordinated. [. . .] Those who share the dominant category membership are treated as ingroup members; those who are not in the category are outgroupers” (90). Compartmentalization denotes when “more than one group identity is important to an individual as a source of social identity”; in such situations, “multiple identities can be activated and expressed through a process of differentiation and isolation” (90). Finally, merger describes a context “in which non-convergent group memberships are simultaneously recognized and embraced in their most inclusive form. [. . .] In this mode, ingroup identification is extended to others who share any of one’s important social category memberships—social identity is the sum of one’s combined group identifications” (91). 17. From another perspective, hierarchizing and favorably representing the national category of identity would also appear to respond to what Hogan characterizes as one of the fundamental challenges of nationalization: “The most obvious dilemma for the development of a functional in-group is the reconciliation of in-group members with one another. [. . . A] large ingroup, such as a nation, must reconcile contradictions among subgroups, such as ethnic communities, that themselves involve sometimes intense emotional attachments” (Understanding Nationalism 94– 95). One way that we might understand the process of reconciliation is through the metaphor of the population as a person whose social identity complexity is elevated. 18. Research has shown that intergroup contact benefits intergroup relations (Schmid et al. 1087). Roccas and Brewer speculate that intergroup contact also can affect social identity complexity: “Living in a multicultural society, for instance, may enhance awareness that social categorization based on ethnic heritage and social categorization based on national citizenship do not completely overlap and hence raises social identity complexity” (96). 19. Along a similar line of reasoning, Hogan’s discussion of modeling contemplates using “a fictional character from a certain ethnic group as a model to understand a real acquaintance from that group” (Empire and Poetic Voice 250). 20. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows explain that researchers in social psychology have sought to understand the effects of priming on the individual’s subsequent impressions of others. Priming refers to the incidental activation of knowledge structure, such as trait concepts and stereotypes, by the current situational context. Many studies have shown that the recent use of a trait construct or stereotype, even in an earlier or unrelated situation, carries over for a time to exert an unintended, passive influence on the interpretation of behavior. [. . .] Recent research has shown that attitudes and other affective reactions can be triggered automatically by the mere presence of relevant objects and events, so that evaluation and emotion join perception in the realm of direct, unmediated psychological effects of the environment. (230)

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Notes to Pages 24–29

21. Salience is provoking the activation of the national category of social identity in the minds of members of that group. “If we are oblivious to our national category, it simply will not play much of a role in our thought and action” (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 67). 22. “The functionality of the national category [refers to] its bearing on access to opportunities, services, and goods” (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 77). 23. Durability entails projecting “the nation back into the past, [creating] a sense that the nation has an enduring existence” (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 89). 24. Affectivity is “the infusion of emotion into our ideas about identity. It is the fundamental motivational parameter. Without emotion, the other parameters would have no practical effects” (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 93). 25. “Opposability involves two things: (1) polarization or near polarization of in-group and out-group and (2) categorial unification of the in-group and, to a lesser extent, categorial unification of the out-group” (Hogan, Understanding Nationalism 80). 26. “gente que Portugal trouxe da África! Gente marcada a ferro, trabalhando de sol a sol sofrendo, mas construindo a colônia. E o que é que essa gente recebe? Chicote, tortura, brutalidade!” Due to nuances in the Portuguese important for my analysis that the subtitles occasionally do not emphasize, I have sometimes altered subtitle translations of dialogue from the argument scene. 27. “Para Brasil que sobra?! Não existem escolas, estradas, hospitais, pontes!” 28. Hogan points to the personification of the nation through national allegories as a key example of a nation as individual metaphor (Understanding Nationalism 135). 29. In a section of his article “Racial Representation in Brazilian Cinema and Culture,” Stam makes reference the cinematic phenomenon of symbolically synthesizing in one character various racial groups, which he illustrates through Macunaíma (1969) and Zelig (1983). The protagonists of these fi lms “are the products, ultimately, of the miscegenated histories of the Americas” (341). 30. “Deixou uma obra sublime, que o mundo inteiro virá aqui para conhecer.” 31. “Eu estou a cata de soluções pessoais, um . . . um estilo brasileiro.” 32. “Meu querido mestre, Antônio Francisco. Eu estive pensando e cheguei a conclusão que a sua orientação está correta. Tem feito a sua revolução pessoal, busca um estilo brasileiro, e ao mesmo tempo não despreza o estudo dos clássicos, dos grandes mestres europeus. Muito bem. [. . .] Insista, meu jovem, em realizar uma obra de caráter pessoal e que seja duradoura, uma obra que refl ita o tempo e a alma do nosso povo. Eu tenho certeza, absoluta certeza, que o futuro lhe fará justiça, e a sua arte se estenderá por toda a terra, e esta será a sua consagração.” My translation. 33. On Oswald de Andrade and his manifesto, see, for example, João César

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Notes to Pages 30–33

de Castro Rocha’s essay “Let Us Devour Oswald de Andrade,” Randal Johnson’s “Tupy or Not Tupy,” and Carlos Jáuregui’s Canibalia. 34. The cinematic-self effect coincides somewhat with Hogan’s understanding of modeling, which he defi nes as “the use of one structure to shape one’s experience, understanding, interpretation, recreation of something else” (Empire and Poetic Voice 250). The cinematic-self effect is similar, as well, to Carl Plantinga’s concept of “projection” or “The desire to emulate a character, typically incorporating both strong sympathy and allegiance, but extending to cognitive and affective activities and responses beyond the viewing experience” (“‘I Followed’” 43). 35. Many biopics fit these parameters. In Brazil, one recent example is Lula, o filho do Brasil [Lula: The Child of Brasil] (2009), which tells the story of former Brazilian president, Luis Inácio “Lula” da Silva, from his poor beginnings in the Northeast of Brazil, to his work as a labor leader in the state of São Paulo, to his eventual rise to the highest political office. 36. I adapt for my analysis both Berys Gaut’s and Murray Smith’s work on viewer identification. 37. The transformation that I interpret the fi lm to be provoking from historical exemplum to national prototype is related to what Hogan says about the individual as nationalist metaphor. He argues that “modeling the group on the individual is probably the most fundamental form of metaphor, not only in nationalist discourse, but in the discourse of other identity groups as well. It is the basic way in which we come to imagine the unity of a diverse set of people” (Understanding Nationalism 134). 38. Elsewhere Hogan argues that one’s social identity can be influenced through paradigm individuals (Empire and Poetic Voice 27). With regard to prototypes, he points to “considerable research [that] suggests that prototypes guide our semantic understanding generally” (Understanding Nationalism 192) and argues that “our cognitive inclination is always to form prototypes when faced with a category” (44). Hogan’s assertions are consistent with the social identity theory of leadership. Hogg explains how the theory might shed light on cinematic national metaphors and how fi lm might influence the social identities of audience members through such metaphors: “Although norms are the source of influence within groups, some members embody group norms better than others—they are more prototypical and are thus disproportionately influential. This idea is the springboard for the social identity of leadership” (125). 39. Hogan’s description of an attempt to reverse an already mapped domain also helps to understand the sort of efforts that I am addressing, “to revise a set of cognitive relations that have been structurally established in the lexicons of many people” (Empire and Poetic Voice 26). 40. Roccas and Brewer argue that “making salient that an outgroup member on one category dimension is an ingroup member on another decreases bias by comparison with instances in which the latter information is not available.

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Notes to Pages 33–38

[. . .] We suggest that this effect of social identity complexity can be extended to a tolerance for outgroups in general” (102). Brewer and Pierce confi rm that high social identity complexity correlates with “acceptance of multicultural diversity” (433) and tolerance toward outgroups in general (434). 41. Hogan points to a similar phenomenon, that of heroic narratives having several heroes to reduce the incompatibility with the whole population that inevitably results from the main hero’s ethnicity, class, and other concrete attributes (Understanding Nationalism 188–189). 42. Murray Smith provides the following syntheses: “The term alignment describes the process by which spectators are placed in relation to characters in terms of access to their actions, and to what they know and feel” (83). “Allegiance pertains to the moral evaluation of characters by the spectator” (84). 43. I concur with Gaut’s assertion that “identification always is partial” (208). 44. Gaut sees the concept of sympathy as “one possible upshot of identification, since one can sympathize with someone without employing any sort of imaginative projection into his position” (208). 45. Tajfel and Turner contend, “The laboratory analogue of real-world ethnocentrism is in-group bias—that is, the tendency to favor the in-group over the out-group in evaluations and behavior. Not only are incompatible group interests not always sufficient to generate confl ict [. . .], but there is a good deal of experimental evidence that these conditions are not always necessary for the development of competition and discrimination between groups” (13). 46. This hypothesis of how cinema might influence audience members’ understanding of their social groups is consistent with speculation within the field of social psychology about ways social identities are internalized. Turner et al. asserted in 1987, The self-categorization theory has as yet little that is especially distinctive to say about the internalization of preformed ingroup-outgroup categorizations. If, as seems reasonable, one conceptualizes the self- concept as a system of self-attitudes, and self-categorizations as the cognitive component of that system, then the problem of internalization may be regarded as in essence a problem of attitude change. That is, it can be hypothesized that people change their social defi nitions of themselves in the same way that they change their other beliefs and attitudes. It may be supposed, therefore, that changes in self-defi nition will tend to follow the established empirical laws of attitude change and social influence [. . .]. Thus the primary modes by which people internalize group memberships are likely to be (1) simply as a result of persuasive communications from credible, prestigious, or attractive others (or in terms of the present theory, from others with whom they identify), and (2) on the basis of public behaviour as group members leading to private self-attitude change. (52–53, my emphasis)

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Notes to Pages 39–47

47. “Fizeste bem, Antônio Francisco, fi zeste bem.” 48. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s short fi lm from 1978 on the sculptor centers almost exclusively on his artistic production. 49. “Quando crescer vai ser artista como o pai!” 50. “Cumpre teu destino como artista.” 51. “Foi a primeira manifestação do seu espírito audacioso.” 52. Jeff Smith makes reference to one study that demonstrated that “when music was temporally and affectively congruent with an event outcome that spectators’ recall was significantly enhanced. Most tellingly, even when subjects were unable to identify a tune, the playing of it often enhanced a subject’s ability to recall the episode that it accompanied” (163). 53. “Meu fi lho, eu também te amo tanto, e é por isso que me preocupo por ti. Não te metas em assunto de política. Cuidas da tua arte, apenas da tua arte, está bem?” 54. “A derrama é o sinal para o levante, a independência da colônia. Não podemos perder esta oportunidade. [. . .] É o meu sonho. [. . .] Fazer a nossa independência, implantar a república, criar escolas, universidades, fábricas, libertar os escravos. [. . .] O Brasil será livre. Nosso povo será livre.” 55. “Quanta desgraça, meus Deus do céu. Quanta infelicidade.” 56. “Não podia ter acontecido. A idéia de vocês era a melhor possível. Fazer a colônia independente.” 57. This translation is mine. “Esse é o fi m de todos os projetos sonhadores.” 58. “Deus do céu. Tanta miséria, tanto sofrimento.” 59. “Antônio gostava muito de frequentar para fazer desenhos locais de trabalho dos escravos.” 60. Some changes were made to the subtitle translations in this note and the next two. “Mãe, a senhora não tem que ficar o tempo todo na cozinha. Isso não é serviço para a senhora. A senhora deixou de ser escrava. Põe isso na sua cabeça. Foi alforriada como eu. Deixa Helena ajudar, Mãe. E tem mais, ó. Um branco aparece por aqui para conversar comigo, a senhora não deve se esconder na cozinha. A senhora é minha mãe. Não tem de se envergonhar.” 61. Aleijadinho: [V]ejo que continua fi rme no seu estilo de tratar as figuras como mestiças. Ataíde: [. . .] É como se estivesse reunindo meus mulatos em praça pública. Aleijadinho: É, os preconceituosos que tratem de compreender o mundo melhor. A Virgem Maria, Mãe de Deus, ela também não é mãe dos negros e dos mestiços? [. . .] Por que é que ela não pode ser pintada como uma mestiça?

62. “Nos últimos anos do século ‘galante’, no momento em que a Revolução Francesa toma a Europa de assalto, num país perdido do outro lado do Atlântico, um mestiço com as mãos deformados produz esta obra sublime, a última aparição de Deus evocada pela mão do homem. Germain Bazin.”

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Notes to Pages 48–53

63. “O que não aceito é a situação desses milhares de escravos, povos inteiros como os de Chico Rei, foram trazidos para cá para dar tudo e depois desaparecer, para serem tratados como animais.” 64. “Se os portugueses não tivessem escravizado rei, rainha, os príncipes do reinado do Congo, muito vassalo, até minha mãe, eu não estaria aqui ao seu lado.” 65. “Eu sei. Eu conheço a história do grande rei Galanga, soberano do Congo. E depois ele se chamou Francisco, e hoje é Chico Rei.” 66. “Naquele dia começou o suplício de Antônio Francisco.” 67. “A doença foi um terrível sofrimento físico para Antônio, senhor Bretas. Mas a indiferença e ausência do fi lho, a repulsa e traição de Helena, foram seu profundo sofrimento moral.” 68. “Não é hora de brincar, não. Tu não és melhor que ninguém aqui, não. Vais trabalhar também.” 69. “Agora é trabalhar para melhorar.” 70. “Eu quero trabalhar mais ainda.” 71. “a possibilidade de Mestre Antônio não mais poder trabalhar” 72. “apesar de enormes sofrimentos, não o impede de trabalhar até os 76 anos, com os instrumentos que seus fiêis auxiliares amarram nas mãos” 73. “Fico imaginando [. . .] o sofrimento de Mestre Antônio. [. . .] mesmo com a doença, com os dedos atrofi ados, fez as suas obras mais importantes. Nunca parou de trabalhar.” Some changes were made to the subtitle translation. 74. “Como Deus quer e manda, trabalhando sempre.” 75. “miséria, sofrimento e humilhações, como ainda vejo neste escravo” 76. Hogan has observed that linking religion and nationalism has proven to be a particularly effective technique of provoking affectivity (Understanding Nationalism 118). 77. Aleijadinho: [Deus] criou o nosso caminho. Ele traçou o nosso rumo. [. . .] Que mundo maravilhoso que Deus nos deu. [. . .] Helena: Eu não entendo, Antônio. Deus fez este mundo todo. Mas pôs tanta miséria, tanto sofrimento. Minha mãe foi escrava, sua mãe foi escrava, e elas sofreram tanto com os outros que vieram da África. [. . .] Aleijadinho: Deus nos põe a prova. Jesus também foi posto a prova. [. . .] Essa beleza majestosa, Helena. Ela foi criada como medida da nossa grandeza ou da nossa miséria, da nossa infi nita glória, ou do nosso infortúnio, do nosso amor, ou do nosso solidão.”

78. “Fico pensando, senhor Bretas. Valeu a pena Antônio Francisco sofrer tanto? Trabalhou tanto. Fez tanta coisa bonita. Daqui a pouco está tudo estragando. Ninguém mais vai se lembrar dele.” Some changes were made to the subtitle translation. 79. “Ele é o símbolo do nosso povo, que sofre tanto quanto ele sofreu. E deixou uma obra sublime, que o mundo inteiro virá aqui para conhecer.”

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Notes to Pages 55–62

80. “Então me digas. E as negrinhas? Ah? Tem que te hão tratado bem? Já abusaste de algumas seu maroto? Ah?” Some changes were made to the subtitle translation. 81. “Já chega o que essa gente sofre.” 82. “Mas o senhor não vê como ela sofre com a situação da gente dela . . . da . . . da minha gente?” 83. “O senhor não . . . não . . . observa como ela, ela fica desajeitada no meio dos brancos? Ela até se esconde quando um branco passa por aqui.” 84. “Minha raça é a branca! Portanto corre em tuas veias sangue português!” 85. “Eu não sou branco, Pai. Eu sou o seu fi lho com muito orgulho. Mas eu tenho sangue africano e disso não me envergonho.” 86. “Eu sou negro, Pai! Eu tenho a cor . . . eu tenho a cor dessa gente que Portugal trouxe da África!” 87. Guimarães presents translated excerpts of some of the key arguments that Nascimento advances in O quilombismo. Nascimento says, for instance, “‘We must not allow ourselves today to be divided into categories of “Black” and “mulattoes,” weakening our fundamental identity as Afro-Brazilians, Afro-Americans of all the continent, that is, Africans in the Diaspora’” (quoted in Guimarães 267). 88. “Me perdoe Pai. Eu devo tudo ao senhor. Eu . . . eu amo o senhor.” 89. I fi nd useful for the study of culture in postcolonial and multicultural contexts the distinction that Hogan—drawing largely from social psychology and cognitive sciences—elaborates in Empire and Poetic Voice between what he calls categorial and practical identities. He defi nes “categorial identity”— or what I am calling social identity—as “one’s self-reflective identity or selfconcept. It is defi ned by a set of categories, prominently including gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and so on” (8). He understands practical identity to be “one’s set of habits, skills, and propensities. [. . .] It includes not only one’s own competences, but also one’s expectations of others, for one’s practical identity must fit with the practical identities of people in one’s community” (8). 90. “mestres” and “artesãos, com os quais tens aprendido tanto.” Aleijadinho: “É certo o que o senhor diz, meu pai.” 91. “Sem ‘esta gente’, sem os índios, sem nós, Portugal teria perdido a colônia para os ingleses, para os franceses, para os holandeses.” 92. Hogan argues, “One of our basic cognitive strategies is to think through new and difficult problems in relation to simpler, previously resolved problems” (Understanding Nationalism 126). 93. In terms of cognitive processes, Roccas and Brewer explain “merger” as “analogous to ‘transcendence,’ the introduction of some superordinate principle that makes the inconsistent cognitions compatible” and “dominance” as “analogous to the mechanism of ‘bolstering’—augmenting the strength and commitment to one cognition over the other” (91). 94. Nascimento is quoted in translation in Guimarães (267): “‘Along with the briefly enslaved and then progressively exterminated Indians, the African

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Notes to Pages 62–67

was the fi rst and only worker, throughout three and a half centuries, who built the structures of this country called Brazil. [. . .] The Black, far from being an upstart or a stranger, is the very body and soul of this country.’” 95. “Quem pode ser livre meu pai, vendo milhares de escravos sendo tratados como bestas humanas?”

Ch a p t e r 2: Mode li ng Nat iona l I de n t i t y on R e ligious I de n t i t y i n Ca f u n dó 1. The epigraph comes from a co-director: “Hoje tenho a noção que o Cinema Brasileiro é o álbum de fotografias de nossa mãe PÁTRIA! É nele que registramos nossa história, nossos artistas, parentes próximos e distantes, nossa língua, nossas paisagens, nossa memória, nossa identidade. É no nosso cinema que elevamos nossa auto estima. Que sentimos que pertencemos a uma Nação” (Paulo Betti, commentary; my translation). 2. In his interview with Revista Direitos Humanos, Betti reflects on possible intersections between Camargo and Antônio Conselheiro, making reference to his participation as an actor in a fi lm about Conselheiro, Guerra de Canudos (1997): “[Cafundó] is related to Canudos because it also deals with a charismatic leader. But João de Camargo avoided confrontation; he came after Antônio Conselheiro and was from a different region, another context.” (My translation: “Tem relação com Canudos porque também fala de um líder carismático. Mas João de Camargo evitou o confronto, veio depois de Antônio Conselheiro, numa região diferente, outro contexto.”) 3. Regarding this community, see Vogt and Fry’s África no Brasil. In their testimonials about the fi lm on the DVD, Betti and Bueno do not mention this historical quilombo, which lies thirty kilometers from Sorocaba (Vogt and Fry 15). However, it may well have been one of several inspirations for the title. A newspaper article published while the fi lm was being produced reinforces that possibility: “Cafundó. The name comes from the actual place in which the character lived, in the region of Sorocaba, near Ibiúna” (Merten, my translation: “Cafundó. O nome vem da própria localidade em que viveu o personagem, nas grotas de Sorocaba, perto de Ibiúna”). We might infer from a pamphlet aimed at prospective investors for the fi lm in the preproduction stage that at least one stimulus for the fi lm’s title was the expression “cafundó do Judas,” which coincides with the defi nition cited in the pamphlet: “Cafundó is the place where Judas lost his boots” (“Cafundó é o lugar onde o Judas perdeu as botas”). 4. Cafundó also resembles Aleijadinho as well as Chico Rei in that it resulted from a yearslong effort to get it produced. Regarding the challenges that Paulo Betti encountered developing the project, see, for example, his interview with Caetano. 5. “Nem sabemos quem somos.” Unless otherwise noted, translations from the fi lm are from the subtitles.

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Notes to Pages 68–75

6. “Já não compartilha o pensamento comum da criação. A natureza das coisas tem o hábito . . . de se esconder.” 7. “Este fi lme é inspirado na vida e na obra literária ‘João de Camargo de Sorocaba, o Nascimento de uma Religião’ de autoria de José Carlos de Campos Sobrinho e Adolfo Frioli.” This translation is mine. 8. “Todo segredo do mundo da terra sabia tudo. Hoje não sabe nada.” 9. “João de Camargo foi preso dezessete vezes. Em 1921 estabeleceu juridicamente a Associação Espírita Bom Jesus do Bonfi m da Água Vermelha. Faleceu em 1942 aos oitenta e quatro anos. Cinco mil pessoas seguiram seu enterro. Seu culto continua vivo até hoje.” The last sentence is my translation. 10. On extension, Hogan elaborates: “Categorial identity is one’s lexical entry for oneself. As such, it involves an extensional component and a semantic component. The extensional component merely indicates who falls into the category. This part of an identity category is the basis of in-group/out-group defi nition. Thus it is functionally primary. However, it is semantically vacuous. In other words, in-group/out-group divisions are produced even by explicitly arbitrary assignment of people to groups. The semantic component includes a prototype-based defi nition of group members with a strong normative component (i.e., it defi nes ‘good instances’ of the group—for example, what it means to be ‘typically Irish’ or ‘authentically African’)” (Empire and Poetic Voice 244). 11. “Este fi lme foi fi nalizado com apoio da Agência Nacional do Cinema—ANCINE.” 12. João: Nóis é que nem essas mulas . . . correndo pra onde manda o reio. Cirino: Mas o reio agora tá na nossa mão, João. João: E na fazenda tá na mão do coroné. (My translation of this line) Cirino: Ocê ainda não botô na cabeça, home, acabou a escravidão! João: Pra nóis não mudô muito, Cirino. Cirino: Se não mudô, João, vai mudá.

Here and elsewhere in the notes when dialogue is cited from Cafundó, I take the nonstandard orthography from the Portuguese subtitles of the DVD. 13. João: E se nóis vortasse pra África? Cirino: Que África o que, João, tá maluco, home? Aqui que nóis nasceu, aqui que nóis têm que vingá, João. (My translation of this line) João: Saravá! [an expression with various meanings] Cirino: Saravá!

14. “Aqui não é a África [. . .] Tem um oceano no meio.” 15. Cirino: Nóis gosta muito do coroné . . . mais sendo que nóis agora é livre. Coronel: Sei. João: E nóis queria levá a vida do nosso jeito. Coronel: Entendo. Vocês não são mais escravos. O Brasil não tem mais escravos. Somos uma República de homens livres. Querem ser livres? Cirino: É o que nóis qué falá. (My translation of this line) Coronel: Querem ser brasileiros?

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Cirino: É o que nóis é. (My translation of this line) Coronel: Pois vão ter que provar isso. Lutando pelo Brasil, defendendo a República. (My translation of this line) João: Não, mais eu só queria pegá a mãe na fazenda e i embora. Coronel: Vão se apresentar ao regimento militar, como voluntários. Vão lutar com o Marechal Floriano, em Itararé. Com os pica-paus, contra os maragatos. Dei minha palavra que mandaria meus homens. Não decepcionem. [My translation]

16. The word negro generally corresponds to the English word “black.” However, in this and other cases when the generally derogatory word preto— which literally means “black” but often represents the rough equivalent of “nigger”—is used in a fi lm, in translating I retain the original Portuguese word so that the specific sort of negative implications grounded in social context are preserved. 17. Man A: Isso já foi melhor. Mulas e negros antigamente era tudo o que a gente precisava. Man B: Pelo que eu sei, a Princesa Isabel não deu alforria para as mulas . . . só para os pretos. Man A: É. Mas aí vêm as máquinas a vapor . . . os trens fazendo o trabalho das mulas. Man B: O Brasil é muito grande. Até os trens chegarem onde chegam as mulas, não estamos mais aqui. [My translation] Man A: Mas e os pretos, fazer o que com eles?

18. They include, for example, the man who angrily removes João from a factory when he comes looking for a job, the white woman who screams ridiculously when she is surprised by João with a big sausage in his mouth (a likely reference to Xica da Silva when Hortênsia reacts to Xica stripping), the white woman who mistreats Levinda when she is working as a domestic servant, the judge who sends João to jail without cause, and the priest who accuses the protagonist of witchcraft. 19. “Aquele disgraçado do Teodoro dizia que ia me fazê uma rainha. Tô isperano!” 20. “Tenho que agüentá grosseria de branco sujo e martrato de negro asqueroso.” My translation. 21. “Fazem sacrifícios com sangue. Fanáticos, marginais! [.  .  .] Com Deus e com a lei! Aos hereges, o inferno. Aos marginais, a cadeia.” My translation. 22. “Foi longe demais! Longe demais! Chegaram com os seus cultos profanes em nossas janelas, em nossas portas. Isso é uma ofensa ao sentimento cristão do nosso povo. [.  .  .] É curandeirismo, é feitiçaria. Pegam as nossas imagens mais sagradas e deturpam os nossos valores. ‘O Papa Negro.’ Isso é uma heresia!” 23. “feiticeiro vulgar. [.  .  .] O senhor devia procurar um médico.” My translation. 24. “A situação é delicada. Não esqueçam que estamos na República. João

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Notes to Pages 80–96

de Camargo se tornou uma pessoa respeitada. [. . .] Eles não estão infringindo a lei. É uma religião.” 25. “Que confusão é essa aqui? Oceis tão pensando o que, seus meganha?” 26. “Que magia o quê? Nóis não faiz macumba aqui, não, viu?” 27. In the English subtitle “selvagem” is translated as “wild.” 28. “Viva o Senhor do Bonfi m!” and “Viva a Igreja da Água Vermeia!” My translation. 29. Cirino: Que milagre ocê por aqui!

30.

João: Hoje é o dia dos milagre, cumpade. Cirino: Já viu coisa ansim tão estrombótica? De supetão, a noite vira dia. João: Hoje o dia já acendeu e apagô tantas veiz que eu nem sei mais, cumpade. João: Mais nóis vai pra guerra. Cirino: Esquece. Guerra é coisa de branco. Nóis ganha ropa, ispingarda, casa, comida. E até dinhero. João: É, cumpadre, mas e se nóis ganhá um tiro na barriga?

31. “Meu marido morreu. Acho que agora eu também vô morrê.” 32. “É, parece que o cumpadre aí ficô famoso, né? Vira-lata, quem diria.” 33. “Cumpadre virô santo!” 34. “Aqui não tem mais remédio pro seu fio. Ele já podia tá são. A senhora jogô fora as erva que eu lhe dei, num creditô. Jogô fora a fé também. É a fé que cura. As erva só ajuda. [. . .] Vorte na estrada que ocê andô. Tenha fé e vai encontrá as erva. Vai com Deus e com a Virge Maria.” My translation. 35. “Oxalá e Rongondongo te conduiz meu fio.” 36. Man: Pára com isso. Isso é reza de branco. É isso que ocê qué? Qué virá branco? Então, eu vô te ajudá. [The man punches Camargo in the stomach and pushes him against the wall.] [. . .] Por que renega os nossos orixás? E as crença dos nossos antepassados? Você que é preto, fio de preto, e fica aí rezando pra santo de branco?

37. “Mais meu fio não matô ninguém.” 38. “Isso não é vida para mim.” 39. “A vida vai miorá. É a nossa primeira coieita.” 40. “Tá de partida, meu povo?” 41. “Nhô João agora pensa que é Jesus Cristo?” 42. “Nasceste de novo, João.” 43. Cirino: Meu cupincha de cativero e liberdade. Cansei de carregá ele bebo. Agora ele carrega todo mundo. Levinda: Ouvi falá. Morre um home e nasce otro.

44. “Tudo o que eu quero é cumpri a minha missão. Ajudá os otro.” 45. “Louvado seja João de Camargo!” 46. “Crendo no que eu creio, seremo irmão. Discrendo no que eu creio, nem isso seremo. Principia do miudinho até ao de porte maior. De Deus eu não

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Notes to Pages 99–107

sô amigo. Sou apenas um humirde servo, onde Deus me pôs. Também não sô padre. Cada quar com sua obrigação, e nada mais tem pra fazê.” 47. “Chega de arenga, chega de marcha . . . chega de sargento, de lama. Ah, já pagamo o preço do coroné. Agora, João, é liberdade!” 48. “Nóis tá de cabeça pra baxo, mãe.” 49. “Sua vida vai ser ajudar os outros. Amenizar a dor, curar as doenças.” 50. “O Nosso Senhor não faz negócio. A casa é santa, e o remédio é feito de graça, e nóis não vende!” 51. “Jesus Cristo te abençoa, meu fio.” My translation. 52. “Esse foi um lugar de disgraça, mas pode sê de muita fi licidade.” 53. “Reza, fio, reza, que ele vorta pra ajudá nóis.” 54. “Mais intão ele num era branco?” 55. “Arfredinho é um ibeji, ibeji não tem cor.” 56. “E ocê não tá bem aqui?” 57. “Tô, sim, mas é que tem uma cocera me coçando faiz tempo.” 58. Mother: Tem que tê um canto bonito, um fundo de mundo para nóis morá. João: Ô mãe, o mundo não tem fundo. Mother: Tem sim, pregunta pro menino. João: Onde é que é o fundo do mundo? Young Natalino: É no Cafundó.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

“Me leva prum lugar escondido?” “Isso aqui é o fi m do mundo!” “Oxalá e Oxóssi recebe nóis.” “E muié, já namorô?” “Sei não.” “É, de Nossa Senhora do Rosário.” João: Será que isso tudo não é um castigo de Deus? Soares: Deus não castiga. João: Então por que que a vida é tão miserável? Soares: Segredos da face de Deus. João: E como é a face de Deus? Soares: Há de ser perturbadora, fi lho. Pois encerra todos os mistérios do universo.

66. The English-language version of the fi lm’s website explains that the name Sorocaba derives from the indigenous phrase “ibi soroc.” 67. “Vai, levanta, fi lho. Levanta! Tens muita coisa para fazer. Vai construir aqui uma capela em homenagem ao Senhor do Bonfi m.” 68. “Aqui vai nascê a igreja negra e misteriosa da água vermeia. Em homenagem ao Senhor Jesus do Bonfi m. E tudo os santo, amém. Fundada na água, na pedra, e na verdade.” 69. Juiz: Esse Carlos Gomes é um café requentado. Prefi ro Puccini, Verdi, os mestres. Ministro: Mas que é isso? “O Guarani” é uma bela opera.

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70.

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Notes to Pages 108–110

Juiz: Cantada em italiano? Ministro: Sim, mas cantada por um índio, um índio brasileiro. Juiz: Que se apaixona por uma branca. Ministro: É o progresso, coisa nova. Os índios, como os pretos, também podem ter sentimentos nobres. Haverá um dia em que essas raças formarão um só povo brasileiro. [My translation of “povo”] Juiz: Vossa excelência é sonhador. Ministro: O senhor já ouviu falar em Alan Kardek, o francês? Ele é branco e diz que receber espírito é normal. O senhor é juiz desta comarca, não é? Juiz: O que faço com muito zelo e respeito às leis, senhor ministro. Ministro: Baseado em que leis o senhor mantém preso o João de Camargo? Juiz: Esses pretos querem transformar a religião numa celebração selvagem. [My translation of “selvagem”] Ministro: Contenha-se, senhor juiz. Obedeça às ordens. Camargo: Aqui não é a África, meu fio. Tem um oceano no meio. Quem quisé vive aqui tem que sabê juntá tudo. Man: Mentira, é tudo mentira! Acabô a senzala, e nóis ficamo c’a cadeia. Camargo: Escravo não somo nem nunca fomo. Não existe escravo no reino de Deus. Não existe corrente que aprisione o espírito. E nem riqueza que dê a luz.

71. “O branco não pode se separá do negro. Nóis já vencemos, e a felicidade é inevitável. São a mesma coisa a vida e a morte . . . a vigília e o sono, juventude e velhice. Deus é dia e noite, inverno e verão, guerra e paz . . . abundância e fome.”

Ch a p t e r 3: Mu lt i ple, Prov isiona l, Nat iona l I de n t i t y Mode ls i n Qu i lom bo 1. Epigraph: “O fato de o Quilombo ser um fi lme baseado num tema histórico não significa que ele seja um fi lme sobre a história. Ele é antes de tudo um fi lme. Ou seja uma maneira específica e original de ver o mundo, de ver a realidade, de ver as coisas” (Carlos Diegues, interview in Filme sobre filme). Renata Almeida Magalhães’s making-of documentary is one of the extras on the DVD of Quilombo distributed in the United States. Translations from the documentary and the feature are from the English subtitles unless otherwise noted, though I occasionally correct minor errors. 2. For concise commentaries on Palmares and the contemporary resonance of the community and Zumbi in particular, see those of Stam (Tropical Multiculturalism 41–44) and of Shohat and Stam (79). Pick (144–150) and Stam (Tropical Multiculturalism 313–316) offer nice discussions of various aspects of the fi lm itself.

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Notes to Pages 110–118

3. “Quilombo é um fi lme sobre a utopia.” 4. Cileine de Lourenço advances a similar interpretation of the significance of the community in her 1998 dissertation chapter “Palmares as a Model Nation” in an analysis grounded in Benedict Anderson and Homi Bhabha. Primeiros europeus a chegar ao Brasil, no ano de 1500, os portugue5.

6.

ses fi zeram vir negros da África para o trabalho escravo nas plantações de cana-de-açúcar, principal riqueza da colônia. Senhores absolutos da vida e da morte de seus escravos, os proprietários brancos os faziam trabalhar sem descanso, à custa de castigos e torturas muitas vezes fatais. Alguns escravos, porém, conseguindo fugir do cativeiro, se escondiam pelo interior virgem do país, onde formavam comunidades livres a que se deu o nome de Quilombos. Destes, o mais célebre foi o Quilombo dos Palmares, fundado em fi ns do século XVI, nas montanhas do nordeste do Brasil. (My adaptation of the subtitle translation) Existiu um eldorado negro no Brasil. Existiu como o clarão que o sol da liberdade produziu. Refletiu a luz da divindade, o fogo santo de Olorum. Reviveu a utopia um por todos e todos por um. [This line is my translation.] Quilombo que todos fi zeram com todos os santos zelando. Quilombo que todos regaram com todas as águas do pranto. Quilombo que todos tiveram de tombar amando e lutando. Quilombo que todos nós ainda hoje desejamos tanto. [This line is my translation.] Existiu um eldorado negro no Brasil.

7. “Sem dúvida alguma, Quilombo tornou-se um verdadeiro musical a partir da gravação desta trilha.” 8. Stam, Vieira, and Xavier aptly call the soundtrack music “deliberately anachronistic” and say it “not only evokes a historical utopia but also communicates a sense of what that utopia might have felt like” (426). An Associated Press article referring to the fi lm’s reception in Cannes in 1984 says that “the soundtrack composed by the super-current Gilberto Gil for scenes that take place in the seventeenth century caused some commotion” (“caus[ou] pequena confusão a trilha sonora composta pelo atualíssimo Gilberto Gil sobre cenas que retomam o século 17”; my translation). 9. “Pesquisa livremente inspirada nos livros ‘Palmares, a guerra dos escravos’, ensaio de Décio Freitas, e ‘Ganga Zumba,’ romance de João Felício dos Santos.” 10. “um engenho de açúcar em Pernambuco, cerca de 1650, durante a guerra entre Holanda e Portugal pelo controle da região” 11. “O Brasil é muito grande.” 12. Shohat and Stam point out that the links to samba and in relation to that, carnival, are integral to the conception and potential reception by viewers of Quilombo as well as other fi lms covered in this book:

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Notes to Pages 118–132

The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a “recarnivalization” of Brazilian cinema, not only as a key trope orienting the fi lmmakers’ conception of their own production, but also as a means of renewing contact with the popular audience. The stories of Diegues’ Xica da Silva (1976) and Walter Lima Júnior’s Chico Rei (1982), for example, were fi rst presented as sambaschool pageants for Rio’s carnival. Indeed, Diegues conceived Xica da Silva and Quilombo (1984) as samba-enredos (samba-narratives), that is, as formally analogous to the collection of songs, dances, costumes, and lyrics which form part of the annual samba-school pageants. (306)

13. “Quilombo, agora, sim, você e eu” 14. “Palmares nunca se acabou.” 15. “Palmares é eterno. Palmares nao vai se acabar nunca. Nunca.” 16. His words are spoken in a language other than Portuguese and not translated in the subtitle. They are translated to English in the subtitles in the U.S.distributed DVD. 17. “O povo de Palmares não está mais dividido! O povo de Palmares é um só outra vez!” 18. “Só volta a ser escravo de novo quem tem medo de morrer.” 19. “nossos irmãos” and “iguais a nós” (my translation). 20. “interior virgem do país” (my translation). 21. “A gente podia fugir.” 22. “Fugir para onde?” 23. “Se a gente se juntasse.” My translation. 24. One of the captives of the soldiers: Daqui a um pouco a notícia se espa-

25.

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lha. A gente tem que ir embora de pressa. The man who earlier showed Ganga Zumba skepticism: Para onde? Aroroba: Para o lado do mar, para voltar para a terra da gente. Dandara: Eu nasci aqui, não conheço outra terra. África está longe. África está longe demais. Another of the former captives of the soldiers: Ela tem razão. Nós três viemos de Palmares e vamos voltar para lá. Se vocês quiserem podem vir com a gente para Palmares. Ganga Zumba: Palmares? First captive: A terra dos homens livres. Para onde fogem os negros que não querem ser escravos. Dandara: É para Palmares que a gente tem que ir. Aroroba: Eu vou voltar para minha terra do outro lado do mar. Eu vou atravessar o mar. Agora! Quem quiser vir comigo! Ganga Zumba: Seu Aroroba, eu acho que vou com eles. Aroroba: Iboakua ale, chialafi a ni. Acaiuba: É melhor falar a língua de branco, para a gente se entender. Ganga Zumba: Seu Aroroba desejou para nós uma noite cheia de benção. O Faraó, então, deixou que Moisés fosse embora com seu povo em busca da Terra Prometida. Mas assim que Moisés foi embora, o Faraó se ar-

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Notes to Pages 133–141

rependeu, e mandou as tropas atrás do povo judeu lá no deserto. Agora quando o povo judeu chegou em frente do Mar Vermelho, Deus mandou que as águas se separassem, fez uma passagem seca, e o povo judeu seguiu por lá. Agora o incrível é que quando o exército egípcio tentou passar, Deus mandou as água virem de volta, e afogou todo mundo lá dentro das águas.

26. “A gente não tem muito, mas dá para dividir.” 27. “Por que você trouxe estrangeiro para Palmares?” 28. “Mais a gente também é estrangeiro nessa terra. Numa terra onde todos são estrangeiros, quem é um estrangeiro?” My translation. 29. “Tem muita gente vivendo no vale como eu, que pode ajudar vocês, se vocês quiserem ajudar a gente.” 30. “Acotirene conhece as verdades antigas, e com elas guia o povo de Palmares com bondade. Mas Acotirene tem medo das verdades novas, e isso não é bom para o povo de Palmares.” 31. “Você é o escolhido. Você é Ganga Zumba.” 32. “A figura de Ganga, que representa Xangô, representa esse orixá socializante, juntando a comunidade, passando a ideia de viver em comunidade, criando uma nova nação, porque essa é muito a função de Xangô.” 33. The interviewee in Magalhães’s making-of fi lm goes on to propose other analogies between characters and orixás: Ana de Ferro as Oba, Namba as Oxum, and Dandara as Iansã. Shohat and Stam underscore how associating characters with orixás “valorize[s] Black culture” and that the magic appearance of the deceased Ganga Zumba to Zumbi with Xangô’s ax in hand after the former’s death “foregrounds the symbolic value of African culture, while also insisting on the need for struggle” (80). 34. “Não Acotirene. Sou apenas Abiola, fi lho do rei dos Arda. Eu vim duma terra muito distante daqui. Eu estava caçando leão perto da minha aldeia quando [. . .] me pegaram e me entregaram para os brancos para ser vendido como escravo. Foi assim que vim parar nessa terra, essa minha nova terra.” 35. “Eu estou com medo. Eu não sei se sou capaz.” 36. “Saurê, meu Ganga Zumba.” The salutation “saurê” is used several times in the fi lm and always to indicate reverence for a leader. Ganga Zumba uses it as he names Zumbi, and Zumbi uses it at the end of the fi lm to show respect for Camuanga, who will become the leader of the Palmares resistance when Zumbi dies. 37. “Eles mataram Gongoba, mas o meu afi lhado eu quero de novo nos meus braços. Palmares vai crescer esperando por ele, porque ele há de voltar. E será como um sol para nós!” 38. “O cometa é um facão / Que acentua a divisão / Pro povo preto é bendito, é bem-vindo e é bonito.” 39. “É ele, Namba. Ele voltou!” 40. Pick argues that “by choosing to join the blacks, instead of fighting against them, [. . . Ana and other] characters establish how the mystique of Palmares overflowed to other racial groups” (149).

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Notes to Pages 141–151

41. “Se o senhor não vai nos deixar ficar é porque é igual a eles, que decidem quem pode ser livre.” My translation. 42. “Ana de Ferro me pertence.” 43. “Acaiuba. Mataram o mais valente. O mais puro. O melhor dos nossos irmãos.” 44. “E ninguém vai pagar por isso?! [. . .] Ganga Zumba, chegou a minha hora. Me deixe vingar a morte de Acaiuba. Me dê sua licença para eu lutar por ele.” 45. “Manda vir teus melhores guerreiros do Vale da Morte, para que eles protejam o corpo do teu fi lho. E ensina teu fi lho a sabedoria da Guerra.” 46. “Tu não es mais ninguém. Tu es teu povo!” 47. “Tu nasceste de novo! Teu pai Ogun mandou te chamar Zumbi Alakijade, a quem foi dada a coroa da guerra. Tu es Zumbi, o que não morre nunca!” 48. “Estou livre! Obrigado, meu bom Jesus! Obrigado, Zumbi dos Palmares!” 49. Zumbi protetor, guardião, padroeiro / Mandai a alforria pro meu coração. 50. Zumbi: Isso é uma traição. Ganga Zumba: De quem? Dandara: A paz, o Zumbi está lhe dando com a vitória na guerra, Ganga Zumba. [This sentence is my translation.] Ganga Zumba: A gente precisa dar um tempo sem guerra, Dandara, [. . .] para crescer até ficar impossível destruir Palmares. Eu vou a Recife. Que é para saber o que eles querem com a gente.

51. “É o que somos.” 52. “A gente é que precisa de sair daqui já. E para isso, precisamos dele [Zumbi].” 53. “Xangô não paira mais sobre a cabeça de Ganga Zumba, Ana de Ferro. Xangô me abandonou. [. . .] Fui eu que fi z eles virem para o Cucau. E agora meu povo está dividido. E a culpa é minha.” My translation. 54. “Salé, meu irmão. Você está vendo? Eles não são nossos amigos. Leve o povo de volta para a serra, Salé. Leve o povo de volta para Palmares.” 55. “Vamos embora! Ganga Zumba mandou! [. . .] Saurê, Ana de Ferro.” 56. “Foi o Zumbi quem disse: ‘Só fica escravo quem tem medo de morrer.’” 57. “Eles querem acabar com Palmares de uma vez. [. . .] O rei decretou que Palmares e o Zumbi são as maiores desgraças da colônia.” 58. “A partir de agora todos são guerreiros, e devem ser treinados para isso. Inclusive as mulheres e as crianças.” 59. Katambo (angrily): O Zumbi não perguntou ao povo se é isso o que o povo quer. Zumbi: Eu não posso obrigar o povo a ser igual a mim. Mas posso fazer com que ele faça o que é melhor para ele. Katambo: Um povo sem vontade perde a imaginação. E um povo sem imaginação não serve para nada. Nem mesmo para guerra. Zumbi: Eu sou o rei. E o rei tem que agir assim, ou não é rei. Katambo: Ganga Zumba também era rei.

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Notes to Pages 152–159

60. Pick makes note of what I see as Zumbi’s stage of disconnect with the ideals of Palmares, and Ganga Zumba’s period of alignment with the community’s favored values: “Ganga Zumba’s benevolent idealism is sustained by democratic consultation in contrast to Zumbi’s radicalism, which is quite modern in its alignment with a revolutionary vanguard” (149). 61. João Carlos Rodrigues alludes to the proposal for widespread reverence that we see here when he points out that the flaming spear indicates that Zumbi has been chosen “by the very Creator” (“pelo próprio Criador”) and that “the leader is a superhuman. Superior not only to the other blacks, but to the rest of humanity” (“o líder é um ser sobre-humano. Superior não apenas aos outros negros, mas ao resto da humanidade”) (37). 62. “O Zumbi é mais forte que tudo. Com ele, Palmares não se acaba nunca.” 63. “Acotirene! Acotirene! Você não disse que Palmares é eterno, Acotirene?! Cadê a sua força, Acotirene!?” 64. “Ganga Zumba. Meu Ganga.” 65. “Nós nunca mais vamos voltar a ser escravos de novo. Nunca mais.” 66. “Enquanto Zumbi estiver vivo Palmares não se acaba.” 67. “Acotirene me disse que Palmares é eterno, que não vai se acabar nunca. E Acotirene não pode se enganar.” 68. Pick characterizes this moment similarly: “[A]s the fi lm closes, the tone shifts from history to mythology” (150). 69. A felicidade do negro é uma felicidade guerreira! [This line is my translation.] A felicidade do negro é uma felicidade guerreira! A felicidade do negro é uma felicidade guerreira! Brasil, meu Brasil brasileiro Meu grande terreiro, meu berço e nação Zumbi protetor, guardião, padroeiro Mandai a alforria pro meu coração.

The phrase “Brasil, meu Brasil brasileiro,” recontextualizes the same wellknown line in the often-covered 1939 song “Aquarela do Brasil” by Ary Barroso. This link bolsters the potential for the Zumbi theme song to contribute to the fi lm’s proposal to redefi ne the national community for viewers. 70. “Camuanga tornou-se o líder da resistência de Palmares, nas matas da serra da Barriga, até 1704, quando foi morto em combate, pelos portugueses. Outros guerreiros ocuparam o seu lugar, sem que o poder colonial conseguisse exterminar completamente com Palmares. A última notícia que se tem da resistência na região é de 1797, mais de um século depois da morte do Zumbi.”

Ch a p t e r 4: A lt e r nat i v e U n de rsta n di ngs of t h e Nat iona l Com mu n i t y i n Ch ico R e i 1. The fi lm coincides with a tendency in New Latin American Cinema to question traditional discourses of race. See Pick 129.

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Notes to Pages 159–173

2. Robert Stam underscores how Latin American intellectuals often “deployed the notion of mestizaje to mask oppressive racial hierarchies” (“Racial Representation” 337). 3. In spite of the fi lm’s diverging disposition toward the government, it received government fi nancing. Chico Rei received monetary assistance from Embra fi lme (Empresa Brasileira de Filmes). 4. See, for example, Dzidzienyo 9. 5. “Depoimento” 19. See also Crook and Johnson 1–2, Santos 118. 6. Stam calls the story “at once historical and legendary” (Tropical Multiculturalism 310). 7. “Se Walter estava à procura de [.  .  .] um herói, havia também um herói à procura de um diretor” (240). Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. 8. “o outro rei, o rei de Portugal.” There are no subtitles for this fi lm. 9. “Nós somos ainda escravos, não apenas os negros daquela época” (“Depoimento” 3). 10. “Um dos nossos caiu!” 11. “Chico será o líder natural de todos os negros nesta região.” 12. “homem que devemos ter como exemplo” 13. “Os brancos prenderam o rei dos negros.” 14. “Meu povo vai ser livre. Santa Efigênia [same as Ifigênia] vai me ajudar.” 15. O que não nasceu para ser escravo.

16.

O ouro da terra moeda que devolve a liberdade. Um a um ele liberta, um a um ele reúne. O rei refaz o seu povo, o rei refaz o seu reino. Quem é rei sempre será se seu reino está plantado no coração de seu povo, Chico rei, Chico rei, nosso rei sempre será.

17. “No tuvo sentido jogarlas en el mar.” 18. Sailor A: Suas mulheres estão sendo muito bem tratadas. Sailor B: É uma pena que vocês não vão poder mais se encontrar com elas. [. . .] Sailor A: Vai sentir saudades dela, não [. . .] Sabe quando é que cê vai ver sua mulher? Nunca mais!”

19. “Eu quero propor a todos um brinde, um brinde ao negro Chico, um brinde a Chico Rei. Chico Rei! Cujo caráter nos mostrou a figura de um governador tirano e incompetente. [. . .] O que eu digo interessa a cada um de vocês, a todos, mas isto é menos importante que o fato de eu ter vendido a Mina Encardideira por um bom preço ao homem que devemos ter como exemplo, e que venceu pelo trabalho: Chico Rei!”

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Notes to Pages 173–184

Por muitos anos Chico Rei trabalhou para libertar o seu povo. E todos foram livres, e fi zeram uma grande nação. [. . . E]sses negros espalharam por todo Brasil e contaram a história da sua liberdade. Chico viveu muitos anos, mas não se sabe direito seu fi m. Se ficou por aqui, ou se voltou para o Congo. Todo que a gente sabe é que ele tornou a ser rei, rei de uma festa que conta sua glória, rei da congada, que os negros do Brasil ainda hoje cantam e dançam.

21. “Durante três séculos perto de dois milhões de africanos foram transportados como escravos para o Brasil colonial português. Destituídos de qualquer direito, trabalhando sem descanso, e com um curto tempo de vida, os negros tudo fi zeram para manter viva sua fé na liberdade.” 22. Robert Stam points out the tendency for Brazilian cinema to indulge in such musical dialogues between European and African cultural elements (“The Flash of Spirit” 334). Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s O amuleto de Ogum, for example, foregrounds an Afro-Brazilian but syncretic religion founded in the 1920s (328). 23. José Jorge de Carvalho, quoted in Fryer 68. 24. “[A] liberdade dos brancos não interessa prà gente. Interessa à gente a liberdade dos negros.” 25. “É isso mesmo, a liberdade . . . está aqui dentro da gente, em nossa música e tambor, a nossa dança.” 26. His owner, Seixas, after being released from jail for insurgency, dictates a letter granting Chico Rei his freedom. 27. “Ha muito tempo atrás, havia um rei chamado Galanga.” 28. The character is inspired by the early eighteenth-century insurrectionist Felipe dos Santos. See Carlos Alberto Mattos 251–252. 29. Mattos (241–242) discusses Chico Rei’s role in the emergence and persistence of the congada mineira according to the oral tradition. 30. “Chico Rei, Chico Rei, nosso rei sempre será.” 31. “O que fez a igreja este tempo todo para você perder sua crença?” 32. “Eu absolutamente não perdi nada da minha crença. Se eu sou usado, também posso usar. Não esqueci nada de Zambi. Ao contrário, eu trouxe para a igreja todos os orixás, apenas transformados.” 33. “A gente [. . .] veio até aqui só para saber como vocês estão fazendo tudo isto que se diz por ai.” 34. Muzinga: Mesmo sabendo que aqui tem ouro para libertar todo mundo, eu não entendo como é que os negros não vão buscar o meu pai que foi levado preso pelos soldados. One of the men: Nós não vamos brigar dentro da cidade. Nós já escolhemos o caminho. O caminho certo para a liberdade. Muzinga: Pois no quilombo, eu aprendi a lutar o tempo todo pela minha liberdade. [. . .] Que os brancos querem a gente morra! Os brancos prenderam o rei dos negros, e vão tomar tudo dos negros: alforria, mina, Zambi, tudo! [. . .] Se meu pai não sair dentro de pouco tempo nós vamos tirá-lo da prisão à força.

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Notes to Pages 184–190

35. Degler (39–40), for example, discusses the relatively common purchase of letters of manumission by slaves in Brazil. Degler elucidates the license that Muzinga’s owner presumed to refuse Chico Rei’s purchase offer, for “there was no law requiring a master to permit a slave to buy his freedom, though many undoubtedly did” (40). 36. On this topic see also, for example, Hasenbalg. 37. The complex dynamics of race and class inhering in early umbanda determined that great disparity was denied by way of the myth of racial democracy (Brown 222). This Afrocentric understanding of identity is a persuasive precursor to the fi lm. However, other political genealogies surely also provided inspiration for the discursive revision that the fi lms carry out. Examples include the activist, antiracist Frente Negra Brasileira in the 1930s (Pitanga [33] provides background on this organization) and the Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), which began in the late 1970s. 38. The Bahian Afrocentric cultural group Olodum, founded in 1979, was exemplary of this reinvention of Afrocentric and inclusive identity. João Jorge Santos Rodrigues offers information on the founding goals of Olodum.

Ch a p t e r 5: F li rt i ng w i t h V i ew e rs a n d Pr eca r iously R et h i n k i ng Br a z i li a n n e ss i n X ica da Si lva 1. Brazilian fi lms about the colonial period almost invariably focus on national identity in the present of the viewers rather than the realization of a precise historical reconstruction for its own sake—a basis for some critiques of Xica (see Johnson’s “Carnivalesque Celebration” 217 and 222)—unless the impression of accuracy complements the fi lmmaker’s strategy. 2. Robert Stam refers to Brazilian cinema’s traditional, if problematic, exaltation of the indigenous population to the exclusion of the African population: “The white literary and fi lmmaking elite in Brazil, in sum, chose the exoticized and mythically connoted Indian, symbol of the national difference from the detested Portuguese, over the more problematically present black,” whose history of rebellion remained unscreened (“Racial Representations” 340). See my study of Brazilian and Mexican fi lms about the indigenous-European encounter (Gordon, Cannibalizing the Colony). Diegues, with Ganga Zumba, was one of the pioneers to shift Brazil’s African population to the symbolic forefront. 3. Francisca da Silva and João Fernandes de Oliveira became a couple who “reportedly spent 43 years together and produced 13 children, all legitimized by their father” (Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism 290). Júnia Ferreira Furtado offers a detailed study of the historical figure. 4. “Diegues’s sources were both erudite (Cecília Meireles’s Romanceiro da Inconfidência) and popular, specifically carnival and the samba pageant. Diegues asked João Felício dos Santos, the same historical novelist who wrote Ganga Zumba, to devise a script based on popular legends about Xica da Silva” (Stam,

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Notes to Pages 190–192

Tropical Multiculturalism 290). That this fi lm and Quilombo unambiguously refer to the present has not gone unnoticed in criticism such as Lúcia Nagib’s 2007 comment that the two fi lms “allegorize situations of oppression and rebellion in the present” (85). 5. “[Xica da Silva] pode ser visto como um fi lme sobre a relação do Brasil com os seus colonizadores. [. . . E] o Brasil [. . .] seria Xica da Silva, com todos os seus defeitos, com todas as suas precariedades, mas uma pessoa extremamente viva, cheia de potência” (453). Rossini reads the fi lm in such a way and further explains the allegory: “Without a doubt, Xica is Brazil, which in the beginning is an exploited colony (Xica as slave), afterward is elevated to the condition of United Kingdom (Xica as lover who, although still a slave, is superior to the other slaves), and, fi nally, to independent nation (free Xica).” My translation. “Com certeza Xica é o Brasil que no início é colônia explorada (a Xica escrava), depois é elevado à condição de Reino Unido (Xica amante, que embora escrava, é superior aos outros escravos), e, por fi m, país independente (a Xica liberta).” 6. Diegues’s other fi lms about slavery offer distinct allegorical commentaries. Ganga Zumba, released in 1963, before the military coup and dictatorship, is a fi lm about fighting and using freedom. Quilombo, released in 1984 as Brazil was approaching democracy, is a fi lm about constructing a utopia (Diegues, “Choosing” 14). 7. Robert Stam indicates some of the critiques that have been leveled on Xica da Silva: Certain feminist and black analyses highlight other, less progressive, aspects of the fi lm. They point out that Xica’s power is very much corporeal—consisting of her body itself and unspecified sexual maneuvers— rather than moral or intellectual. [. . . S]he embodies the fantasy of the sexually available slave. She is used sexually by a variety of white men— the sergeant, his son, João Fernandes (all of whom at one point “own” her)—and seems to enjoy it thoroughly; she aspires only to fi nd a better class of owner-lover. [. . . A]nd her desire seems to cloud her judgment; her “dizziness,” which affl icts her whenever she is sexually excited, in this sense, is symptomatic of her political incapacity. (Tropical Multiculturalism 293–294)

Roberto Reis underscores, in general terms, the danger of perpetuating the stereotype of the sensual Brazilian women, a stereotype, many would say, exemplified by Xica: “There arises [. . .] the suspicion that the exalted Brazilian sexual permissiveness and sensuality are no more than concealing myths that camouflage a society that is fundamentally unequal, hierarchical, violent, paternalistic, reactionary, contrary to transformations, and which deals with confl icts in either a conciliatory way, or in a manner tries to ‘gain an edge’ and cannibalistically devour the other.” (“Levanta-se [. . .] a suspeita de que as exaltadas

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Notes to Pages 192–198

sensualidade e permissividade sexual brasileira não passariam de mitos mascaradores, a camuflar uma sociedade no fundo desigual, hierárquica, violenta, paternalista, reacionária, avessa às transformações, que enfrenta os confl itos ou de forma conciliatória, ou de modo a ‘levar vantagem’ e canibalisticamente deglutir o outro”) (58, my translation). For further discussion of critical readings of the fi lm, see Johnson’s “Carnivalesque Celebration” (217 and 221–222). 8. While acknowledging Xica da Silva’s problematic aspects, Stam argues that “the fi lm also depicts racism and the cruelty of slavery and [. . .] its sympathies are fundamentally on the side of blacks.” He contends that “Xica on many levels is [. . .] an engaging character. While opportunistic, she does skillfully exploit one of her few resources as a slave—her body—with singular imagination. Within a feminist-inflected variation of the carnivalesque perspective, Xica can be seen as the ‘disorderly woman’ or the ‘woman on top’ who upends conventional social hierarchies” (Tropical Multiculturalism 294). Denize Correa Araujo’s evaluation of the tactics that the character employs coincides with Stam’s: “[T]he inversion of social positions, displaying Xica in the superior position, fits within a feminist discourse in that Xica is not afraid to show her body and to impose her willingness to initiate sexual pleasure” (39). Johnson, who also recognizes Xica’s questionable characteristics—“she does briefly become a petty, vindictive tyrant who functions emotionally” (“Carnivalesque Celebration” 222)—lauds Xica’s carnivalesque approach to social ascension: “Her rise to power is based precisely on her sexual prowess. While such a characterization may be sexist in the light of modern feminist ideology, it is also typical of the carnivalesque, since copulation is a major element of the material bodily principle” (219). See also Dennison and Shaw 171–178. 9. Diegues capitalized on Xica’s history of popular appeal: one of the chief precursors to Xica da Silva was a 1962 samba pageant; Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism 295. Stam attributes the fi lm’s popularity to how it “weds carnivalesque effervescence to a historically shaped sense of liberation” (295). The story of Xica da Silva continues to fascinate: in 1996 the Manchete network broadcast a soap opera that shares the name of Diegues’s fi lm. 10. “Ah, hoje não.” Unless otherwise noted, translations of quotations from the fi lm are from the subtitles. 11. “Não, Xica! Xica! Isso, não Xica! Xica!” 12. Xica da Silva’s irresistible beauty, not to mention her hyperbolic sexuality so vital to Diegues’s portrayal of the character, represent a calculated deviation from what is known about the historical figure. In a note Rossini writes, “She is described by old narratives as tall, portly, and ugly” (“Ela é descrita, por relatos antigos, como alta, corpulenta e feia”). 13. “[D]e acordo com os valores patriarcais e masculinos ainda vigentes no imaginário brasileiro, a mulher deve ser ‘comida’, mas o homem não: o homem que é ‘comido’ é visto como afeminado.” 14. “Faz aquilo, faz.” 15. Margarita Zamora explains that van der Straet’s scene “has become an

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Notes to Pages 199–208

emblem of the Discovery: the reclining woman, nude in a luxuriant New World landscape, greeting the European man who stands on the shoreline before her. [. . . I]t is just one in a long series of graphic and verbal representations of the Discovery as an erotic encounter between a fully clothed European male and a naked Amerindian female, an image that has been fi rmly established in the Western cultural imagination for quite some time” (152). 16. Rossini points out that Xica da Silva, although not as explicitly politically allegorical as previous Cinema Novo fi lms, also represents an attack on contemporary oppression, that perpetrated by the military dictatorship: “although the references to the dictatorship are more diluted, the very choice of topic is an indication of the position of the author: telling the story of an enslaved black woman who wants to be free” (“se as referências à ditadura estão mais diluídas, a própria escolha do tema já é um indicativo da postura do autor: retratar a história de uma negra escrava que quer se tornar livre”). 17. Araujo observes that the change in social station that Xica achieves represents only “an apparent reversal of master-slave roles” (37). She goes on to write that Xica “never truly controls power; she is allowed to enjoy certain privileges, but only within the limits imposed by the dominant” (40). 18. “Ela vai longe, muito longe. E como não é de perder tempo, já deve estar começando, agora mesmo.” 19. “No quarto do contratador!” 20. “Isso não! Xica! Xica!! Xica!!! Aaaaaaah!!!” This translation is mine. The subtitle, which had just translated another “isso não,” does not include a translation for these exclamations. 21. For similar arguments see Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism (291), and Araujo (39). 22. “Quem ama mesmo de verdade tem que correr todo risco.” 23. “Manda esses pretos para o trabalho!” I have modified the translation of the subtitles by maintaining the word used in the original, pretos, in order to preserve the culture-specific derogatory connotation of this word for “blacks.” 24. “Xica mandou preparar um banquete Africano, com todo requinte das cortes negras.” 25. Robert Stam argues that “all of this affi rmation is compromised by ambiguity. All the homages to Afro Brazilian culture—the samba, the dance, the feijoada that overpower the effete Portuguese aristocrat—suggest that Afro Brazilian culture is hegemonic in Brazil. [. . .] The pitfall in all this is what Michael Hanchard calls ‘culturalism,’ the reliance on culture alone to effect social change. [. . .] If Brazil’s soul is black, its power structure is white” (Tropical Multiculturalism 296). 26. “quando ouro e diamantes eram tiradas do fundo dos rios que corriam nas montanhas de Minas Gerais, para servir à Coroa Portuguesa” 27. “Um homem nomeado pelo rei de Portugal para levar da gente o que não pertence a eles.” 28. “saque geral deste pobre país” [my translation].

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Notes to Pages 208–214

29. “A tua amiginha também participa do saque geral deste pobre país!” My translation. 30. “Eu sei que os escravos não podem entrar nesta igreja, mas acontece que eu agora sou uma súbdita livre da Coroa Portuguesa.” 31. “A tua carta não serve para nada!” 32. “Agora eu vou resolver este caso à minha maneira.” 33. “Protesto! Xica da Silva não vai-se acabar nunca. Porque você é para sempre, Xiquinha, e não pode-se acabar. Porque sem você os diamantes não brilham, o fogo do mundo se apaga. Porque você é a festa, o sol do povo, e sem você a liberdade deles não serve para nada. E enquanto houver amor, Xica.” My translation. 34. Araujo cautions against a reductive reading of the fi nal scene: “The most evident voice is that of sexual power, a voice that gives rise to the most erroneous interpretations by those viewers who jejunely view slavery in ironical terms or believe in the facility of liberty through love” (38). 35. “O fi nal é uma síntese: o Brasil só vai mudar no dia em que o povo, com todo o seu potencial revolucionário, se juntar com o revolucionário. [. . . O]u seja: talvez pareça ingênuo, hoje, mas a união do intelectual com o povo é que produz a verdadeira revolução” (454, my translation). 36. Johnson writes of this scene, “The link between José and Xica is meant to show that Xica’s ‘magic vitality’ alone is not enough; such vitality must be linked to the politics of revolution, which revolts not against people, as does Xica, but against the oppressive and mystifying institutions of colonial rule” (“Carnivalesque Celebration” 222–223). 37. For a similar analysis see Stam, Tropical Multiculturalism (292). 38. “Prometo também cumprir todas as suas ordens, pelo resto da minha vida!”

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Index

Note: Italic page numbers refer to illustrations.

affectivity: as technique of nationalization, 24, 27, 227n24; as technique of nationalization in Quilombo, 119, 120, 137 African diaspora in Brazil, 5, 7 African slavery in Brazil: abolition of, 16, 24, 65, 74, 75, 97, 169; and Brazilianness, 4, 5, 6; and Cafundó, 69; legacy of, 16, 69, 74; and O Aleijadinho, 16–17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43–44, 46, 47–48, 49, 51, 52, 56 Afrocentrism: and Abdias do Nascimento, 7, 60; and Brazilian fi lms about slavery, 38, 42; and Cafundó, 66, 69, 76, 77, 80, 84, 90, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100–107, 108, 131, 187; and Chico Rei, 17, 97, 159–161, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178–179, 181, 183, 184–185, 186, 187, 246n37; and O Aleijadinho, 48, 49, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59– 62, 63, 64, 187, 188; and Quilombo, 110, 113–114, 115, 116–117, 122, 123, 126, 130, 131–132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 148, 149, 153, 187, 214, 241n33; and

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Xica da Silva, 11, 97, 187, 189, 198, 205, 206, 207, 208–209, 212, 249n25 alignment: and viewer identification dynamics, 35–36, 37, 38, 229n42; and viewer identification dynamics in Cafundó, 83, 84, 85–88, 89, 91– 95, 96; and viewer identification dynamics in Chico Rei, 169, 170, 171–172, 174, 180; and viewer identification dynamics in O Aleijadinho, 38, 39–41, 42, 63; and viewer identification dynamics in Quilombo, 121, 124, 126, 127–128, 129, 130–131, 133, 136–138, 144, 147, 149–150, 152, 156, 188; and viewer identification dynamics in Xica da Silva, 188, 191, 192–199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212. See also social identity alignment allegiance: and viewer identification dynamics, 35, 36–37, 38, 229n42; and viewer identification dynamics in Cafundó, 83, 84–86, 87, 88, 89, 91– 92, 94; and viewer identification dynamics in Chico Rei, 169, 172; and viewer identification

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allegiance (continued) dynamics in O Aleijadinho, 38, 39– 42, 63; and viewer identification dynamics in Quilombo, 127, 129, 130– 131, 137–138, 140, 144–146, 153, 188; and viewer identification dynamics in Xica da Silva, 191, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200–201, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213 Anderson, Benedict, 3, 219n8, 239n4 Andrade, Joaquim Pedro de, 230n48 Andrade, Mário de, 162 Andrade, Oswald de, 29, 165 Araujo, Denize Correa, 248n8, 249n17, 250n34 Araujo, Inácio, 224n1 Arbuckle, Nathan L., 22 aspectual identification, 35

Bargh, John A., 226n20 Barroso, Ary, 243n69 Bastani, Tanus Jorge, 162 Bazin, Germain, 47 Betti, Paulo, 4, 233n2, 233n3, 233n4 Bhabha, Homi, 219n8, 239n4 Borges, Dain, 222n15 Brazilian audience members: and Cafundó, 65, 66– 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72– 73, 76, 83, 84–85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 109, 187; and character as social-identity model, 30, 83, 88; and Chico Rei, 165, 166, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 181, 183, 187; and fi lms’ effect on social identities, 1, 13, 217– 218n1; and identification dynamics, 35–36, 37, 229n42, 229n43; and O Aleijadinho, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30–34, 48–49, 53, 54, 55, 59, 60– 61, 62, 63, 187; and past linked to present, 14; and Quilombo, 111, 113–114, 116, 117–118, 121–122, 124–125, 126, 127, 132, 133, 136– 140, 141, 143, 148, 187, 239–240n12;

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and Xica da Silva, 187, 189, 191, 192– 201, 204–209, 211–212. See also fi lm/ viewer interface; viewer/character interface Brazilian fi lms about slavery: and Afrocentrism, 38, 42; and Brazilianness, 7–8; and cinematic-self effect, 31– 32, 38, 92; communicative strategies of, 188; effect on reshaping society, 1–2; national community defi ned by, 2; and past linked to present, 13, 14; and protagonist as national metaphor, 26, 27, 166; and shared oppression, 62, 63; and social identities of viewers, 2, 4, 215, 218n3. See also specifi c films Brazilianness: in Cafundó, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72– 73, 79, 89, 92, 93, 96–109; calling attention to, 8, 10, 13, 18–26, 20, 57, 71–81; in Chico Rei, 10–11, 158, 159, 160–161, 166, 169, 173, 174–182, 185–186, 244n3; and cinematic nationalism, 4; and cultural syncretism, 4, 5, 6– 7, 13, 42, 59, 63, 66; debates on Brazilian identity, 218n3; defi nitions of, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 38; and fi lm/viewer interface, 2, 7, 8; Freyre on, 5– 6, 7, 59, 60, 61, 159, 221– 222n15, 223n22; in O Aleijadinho, 9, 10–11, 27, 39, 46, 53, 54, 61– 62, 63, 64; and protagonist as national metaphor, 26, 27; and protonational community in Cafundó, 77, 79, 81, 88, 90; and protonational community in O Aleijadinho, 22, 25, 28, 39, 42, 44, 49, 57, 59, 62, 71; and protonational community in Quilombo, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118–125, 126, 127, 128, 130–144, 146, 147– 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154–155, 157; in Quilombo, 110, 112–113, 117, 120, 122, 125, 126, 135, 136, 140, 142, 150, 152, 155, 158; and social exclusion, 7; in Xica da Silva, 4, 9, 10–11, 187, 188,

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192, 199, 202, 204–215. See also strategic articulation of Brazilianness Brewer, Marilynn B., on social identity complexity, 19, 20–22, 23, 54–55, 61, 225n15, 226n18, 228–229n40, 232n93 Bueno, Clóvis, 4, 233n3 Burrows, Lara, 226n20

Caetano, Maria do Rosário, 223–224n1 Cafundó (2005): and Afrocentrism, 66, 69, 76, 77, 80, 84, 90, 94, 97, 98, 99, 100–107, 108, 131, 187; Betti and Bueno as directors of, 4, 233n3; Brazilianness redefi ned in, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72– 73, 79, 89, 92, 93, 96–109; and calling attention to Brazilianness, 71–81; celebratory procession scene, 79, 81, 96; and character as social-identity model, 71, 79, 83– 96; and characters’ reactions to protagonist, 83, 84, 86, 87– 91, 93– 94, 98; Chico Rei compared to, 97, 159, 165, 233n4; and cinematic-self effect, 79, 83– 96; close-up shots, 78, 91, 104; and congada mineira, 18; and congregation as heterogeneous extension of national identity, 73, 76– 77, 79, 80, 86–87, 88, 102–103, 104, 105; and congregation as national metaphor, 81–82, 96, 97; and congregation’s connection to protagonist, 83, 84, 85, 86–87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 98; creek scene, 84, 86; dark, exterior image of protagonist herding horses in, 67, 69– 70; and ethical alignment, 85, 92, 93– 95; and extension of national community, 72, 73, 75– 77, 78, 79– 81; father arriving with gravely ill daughter scene in, 88, 98; fictional world linked to real world in, 91; fi reworks scene, 85; fl ashback in, 14, 66, 84, 101–102; and fl ash-forward scene, 70; framing narrative of, 65,

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66, 70, 84, 85; and indigenous population, 106, 108, 237n66; and logo of federal government, 73– 74, 73; and mestiçagem, 91, 103; Ministro and the Juiz talking after leaving opera O guarani, 71, 80–81, 91, 107–108; and mother’s apparition in woods scene, 70; national anthem sung in streetlight ceremony, 71, 72, 78– 79, 82, 102, 117; and national identity, 9–10, 66, 67– 69, 72– 76, 79, 80, 83, 85, 96, 98, 100–101; Nossa Senhora Aparecida in, 77, 94, 95, 95, 100, 106; O Aleijadinho compared to, 65– 66, 71, 81, 86, 87, 95, 97, 99, 104, 233n4; opposition to protagonist, 79–80, 81, 89– 90, 91, 107; and oppression, 74, 80, 99; panning shots in opening images, 66– 67, 83–84; and past linked to present, 66– 71, 83, 84, 85, 91; point-of-view shots, 68, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91; and postcolonial period, 71– 72; and protagonist as messianic, 65; and protagonist as national metaphor, 69, 81–82, 83, 87, 92, 93, 96, 111; and protagonist’s arrest, 70, 77, 89– 90, 98; and protagonist’s association with Jesus, 87, 93, 95, 96, 104; and protagonist’s attributes, 92– 93, 94, 96, 97–100; and protagonist’s dedication to family, 93, 99; and protagonist’s expansion of church building, 82, 87, 88; and protagonist’s founding of church, 77, 78, 102, 106; and protagonist’s imprisonment, 81, 90, 91; and protagonist’s spiritual illumination sequence, 77, 82, 94, 95, 95, 100, 101, 102, 106; and protagonist’s wife, 93, 94, 101, 103, 104, 105; Quilombo compared to, 97, 111, 117, 122, 125, 131, 132; and religious identity aligned with national identity, 66, 77, 78, 79, 90, 93, 96, 97, 100; and reverence of hetero-

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Cafundó (2005) (continued) geneous population for protagonist, 66– 67; and slavery, 69, 74, 75, 97, 98, 108; and social identity, 67– 68, 79, 85, 90, 92, 93; soundtrack of, 14, 69, 70, 78– 79, 101, 104; and statue of protagonist, 69, 70, 84, 87, 89; strategic articulation of Brazilianness in, 96–109; sun image in, 70; symbolic resistance in, 69, 94, 97, 99, 100; title of fi lm, 97, 233n3; and utopia, 10, 73, 77, 97, 103, 105, 107; visual/perspective alignment in, 85, 86, 87, 89, 91; white characters in, 76, 77, 78– 79, 80, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 97, 98, 99, 105, 235n18; Xica de Silva compared to, 94, 97, 235n18 Camargo, João de: church founded by, 9–10, 65, 70– 71; and Conselheiro, 65, 233n2. See also Cafundó (2005) capoeira, 104, 177 Carlota Joaquina, princesa do Brazil (1995), 25 Carvalho, Noel dos Santos, 218n3 categorical identities, 59, 162, 232n89, 234n10 Catholic Church: in Cafundó, 74, 98, 101, 105, 106; in Chico Rei, 166 character as social-identity model: and Brazilian audience members, 30, 83, 88; and Cafundó, 71, 79, 83– 96; and Chico Rei, 11, 161–163, 169, 173, 181– 182; and fi lm/viewer interface, 8; and O Aleijadinho, 13, 30–42, 31, 63; and Xica da Silva, 187, 191, 192–202, 206, 213 Chen, Mark, 226n20 Chico Rei (1985): and affective alignment, 170, 171, 172; and Afrocentrism, 17, 97, 159–161, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 176, 177, 178–179, 181, 183, 184–185, 186, 187, 246n37; and anthropophagy, 165, 181; Brazilianness redefi ned in, 10– 11, 158, 159, 160–161, 166, 169, 173,

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174–182, 185–186, 244n3; Cafundó compared to, 97, 159, 165, 233n4; and capoeira, 177, 179; characters’ reactions to protagonist, 166, 170, 172, 173; and cinematic-self effect, 161, 169, 173, 174, 183; and close-up shots, 171, 176; and cognitive alignment, 172; and congada mineira, 18, 161–162, 175, 177, 182; and epistemic alignment, 169, 170, 180; and ethical alignment, 169, 170–172, 174, 180; and extension of national community, 164, 174; fact and fiction in, 174–176, 179–180; fl ash-forward in, 172–173; and hanging scene, 169– 170; and indigenous population, 159, 181; and intragroup unity, 176; Lima Juniór as director of, 4, 18, 159, 160, 161, 162, 166, 181; and military dictatorship, 160–161, 165–166, 167, 179, 185; and motivational alignment, 170, 171, 172, 180; and national identity, 158, 159–160, 162, 163, 164–165, 169, 173, 174, 185– 186; and oppression, 158, 160, 161, 164, 165, 166, 170, 175, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184–185; and past linked to present, 159, 160, 161–163, 164, 165– 166, 168, 175–176, 178, 181, 182; and Portuguese characters, 163–164, 165; and protagonist as national metaphor, 158, 159, 161, 163–174, 176– 179, 181–182, 185; and protagonist as self-identity model, 11, 161–163, 169, 173, 181–182; and protagonist’s arrival at Vila Rica, 180; and protagonist’s imprisonment, 167, 183; and protagonist’s release from prison, 163, 165, 170, 173; and protagonist’s renaming, 162, 165, 172, 182; and protagonist’s royalty, 178, 179, 180, 182; and protagonist’s seeing slave being beaten, 172; and protagonist’s son Muzinga as national metaphor, 158, 159, 174, 176–177, 182,

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183–184; and protagonist’s son Muzinga joining the quilombo, 11, 169, 171, 177, 183–184; and protagonist’s son Muzinga on Chico Rei’s imprisonment, 167, 184; and protagonist’s son Muzinga’s treatment from owner, 164, 184, 246n35; and protagonist’s story, 178, 179–180; and protagonist’s theme song, 168–169, 178, 182; Quilombo compared to, 158, 164, 167; and quilombo group, 158, 169, 171, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183–184; and resistance, 160, 165, 169, 170, 173, 177, 178, 180–181, 185; and samba, 162, 240n12; and slavery, 158, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170–172, 175–176, 178– 180, 182; and social identity, 160, 163; soundtrack of, 14, 167–169, 172, 175–178, 179, 180, 182; strategic articulation of Brazilianness, 174–182; torture scene in, 164; and umbanda, 186; and utopia, 185; and visual alignment, 171; voice-overs in, 170, 173–174, 179, 181; white characters of, 169, 180–181, 182, 183 “Chico Rei” (Bastani), 162 Chico Rei (Galanga): on dictatorship, 160; in O Aleijadinho, 18, 48–49; relevance as social-identity model in Chico Rei, 11, 161–163, 181–182 Christianity: and Cafundó, 101, 103, 104, 105; and Chico Rei, 159, 186; Freyre on, 5, 222n16; Jesus as prototype, 34; and O Aleijadinho, 30, 40– 41, 48, 49, 51–52; and Quilombo, 132, 139, 140. See also religious issues cinematic-self effect: and Cafundó, 79, 83– 96; and Chico Rei, 161, 169, 173, 174, 183; and fi lm/viewer interface, 8, 30; and Hogan on modeling, 228n34; and O Aleijadinho, 25, 30– 32, 33, 34–42, 43, 53, 55, 61, 63; and Quilombo, 10, 111, 114, 126–127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 140,

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141, 143, 147, 148, 150–151, 152, 153, 154, 157; and social identity dynamics, 32, 34, 35, 36; and viewer identification dynamics, 35–36, 37, 38, 229n42, 229n43; and Xica da Silva, 189, 191, 192–202, 204, 205–206, 208, 209, 211 colonialism: and Chico Rei, 158, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 174, 181, 183; and O Aleijadinho, 21, 22, 24– 25, 27, 28, 34, 38, 39, 44, 46, 48, 49, 51, 57, 58, 62, 71; and Quilombo, 110, 119, 125, 126, 139, 142, 143, 146, 147, 148, 152, 153; and Xica da Silva, 189, 190, 198, 200, 210, 215, 246n1, 247n5. See also postcolonial period compartmentalization, and social identity complexity, 20, 226n16 Conselheiro, Antônio, 9, 65, 233n2 cultural cannibalism, 29 cultural syncretism: and Brazilianness, 4, 5, 6– 7, 13, 42, 59, 63, 66; and Cafundó, 65, 66, 69, 77, 79, 97, 101, 102, 104, 105, 106–108, 109, 187; and Chico Rei, 159–161, 166, 169, 177, 178–179, 181, 182–183, 186, 187; and O Aleijadinho, 13, 27, 28, 58, 59– 60, 61, 63, 64, 97, 187, 188, 227n29; and Quilombo, 126, 130–132, 134, 142– 143, 187, 214; and religious issues, 69, 77, 78, 79, 101–109, 130, 132, 166, 182–183; Stam on, 177, 245n22; and Xica da Silva, 11, 97, 187, 189, 205, 206 Cunha, Euclides da, 9

d’Acelino, Severino, 182 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 218n3 Degler, Carl N., 246n35 Dia da Consciência Negra (Black Awareness Day), 6 Diegues, Carlos: as director of Ganga Zumba, 189, 246n2, 247n6; as

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Diegues, Carlos (continued) director of Quilombo, 4, 110, 114, 214, 247n6; as director of Xica da Silva, 4, 187, 190, 191, 192, 194, 198, 213, 246–247n4, 247n6, 248n9 dominance and social identity complexity, 20, 21, 55, 61, 62, 225– 226n16, 232n93 Dunn, Christopher, 222n15 durability: as technique of nationalization, 24, 27, 227n23; as technique of nationalization in Cafundó, 71; as technique of nationalization in Chico Rei, 174; as technique of nationalization in Quilombo, 118–119, 144, 155; as technique of nationalization in Xica da Silva, 213

ethnicity: and Chico Rei, 162, 166, 174, 177, 178, 181, 186; cinematic interpretations of, 220–221n11; and cultural syncretism, 69; and multiculturalism, 64; and national identity, 58, 59, 66, 108; and past linked to present, 14; and Quilombo, 122, 126, 133, 134, 139, 141, 142–143, 146, 214, 220n11; and social identity, 18, 19, 21, 28, 32, 54, 121; and Xica da Silva, 214 eugenics, 5, 222n15 Eurocentrism: and Chico Rei, 159, 186; of Freyre, 7; and Quilombo, 123; and Xica da Silva, 205, 206 exempla: and national metaphor of Chico Rei, 166, 168; and national metaphor of Xica da Silva, 191; and social identity, 33–34, 38; and social identity in Cafundó, 81, 85, 88, 92, 94

family as national metaphor, 27 Filme sobre filme (Magalhães), 136

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fi lmmakers: intentionality of, 2. See also specifi c filmmakers fi lm/viewer interface: and changed versions of social contexts, 220n9; and cinematic-self effect, 8, 30; Plantinga on, 217n1; psychoanalytical approaches to, 218n1; and social identities, 1, 2, 3–5, 8, 9, 10, 23, 217– 218n1, 218n3, 221n12, 229n46. See also alignment; allegiance Freitas, Décio, 115 Frente Negra Brasileira, 246n37 Freyre, Gilberto: on Brazilianness, 5– 6, 7, 59, 60, 61, 159, 221–222n15, 223n22; Casa grande e senzala, 5– 6, 60, 159, 222n15; on racial democracy, 214; on slavery in Brazil, 5, 221n14 Frioli, Adolph, 68 functionality: as technique of nationalization, 24, 27, 227n22; as technique of nationalization in Chico Rei, 165; as technique of nationalization in Quilombo, 119 Furtado, Júnia Ferreira, 246n3

Galanga. See Chico Rei (Galanga) Ganga Zumba (1963), 189, 246n2, 247n6 Ganga Zumba (Santos), 115, 246n4 Gaut, Berys: on empathic identification, 36; on imaginative identification, 35, 36, 84, 85, 229n44; on partial identification, 229n43; on viewer identification, 37, 40, 228n36 gender: and social identity, 18, 21. See also women Gil, Gilberto: and soundtrack of Cafundó, 14; and soundtrack of Quilombo, 114–115, 118, 139, 150, 156, 157, 168, 239n8 Gomes, Carlos, 81, 107 Gonzaga, Tomás Antônio, 17 Grammont, Guiomar de, 224n3

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Grodal, Torben, 218–219n4 Guerra de Canudos (1997), 233n2 Guimarães, António Sérgio Alfredo, 232n87, 232–233n94

Hall, Stuart, 219n8 Hanchard, Michael, 249n25 Hogan, Patrick Colm: on categorical identities, 59, 232n89, 234n10; on cognitive strategies, 232n92; on empathy, 36; on heroic narratives with several heroes, 229n41; on hierarchies of social identity, 18, 20, 33, 226n17; on linking religion and nationalism, 231n76; on modeling, 226n19, 228n34; on nationalism, 14, 18, 220n10, 224n4; on nationalist homogenization, 60, 63– 64; on national metaphors, 27, 227n28, 228n37; on orthodoxy, 130; and past linked to present, 14, 224n4; on practical identities, 59, 232n89; on reversing already mapped domain, 228n39; on sacrificial narrative structure, 49; on social influence of audiovisual narratives, 2–3; on techniques of nationalization, 24, 71, 120, 174, 213, 227n21–25; Understanding Nationalism, 3, 14, 23–24, 27 Hogg, Michael A., 219n6, 219n7, 219– 220n9, 224–225n12, 228n38

identity changes, research on, 218– 219n4 indigenous Brazilians: and Cafundó, 106, 108, 237n66; and Chico Rei, 159, 181; and Quilombo, 122, 142–143; and van der Straet’s America, 198, 248–249n15; and Xica da Silva, 198 ingroups: bias toward, 37, 229n45; and national identity, 219n8; and opposability in nationalization, 25, 72; and

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social identity complexity, 20–21, 23, 56, 58, 220n9, 225n14, 225n15, 226n17, 228–229n40; subjective ingroups, 20, 21, 22, 225n15 integrated biculturalism, 61 intergroup contact, 23, 220n9, 226n18 intersection, and social identity complexity, 20, 225n16 Iracema, uma transa amazônica (1975), 68

Jesus, Maria Angela de, 224n5 João de Camargo de Sorocaba: The Birth of a Religion (Sobrinho and Frioli), 68 Johnson, Randal, 248n8, 250n36 Jor, Jorge Ben, 14, 168, 199, 201, 204, 209, 213 Julião, Carlos, 18

land as national metaphor, 27, 134 language: and Cafundó, 68; and Chico Rei, 162, 166, 178; and Quilombo, 130–132, 134, 138, 143; and social identity, 219n7 Lemos, Renato, 224n2 Lima Júnior, Walter, as director of Chico Rei, 4, 18, 159, 160, 161, 162, 166, 181 Lincoln, Abraham, 224n4 Lisboa, Antônio Francisco “Aleijadinho (Little Cripple)”: Joaquim de Andrade’s fi lm on, 230n48; Camargo compared to, 65– 66; legendary status of, 8– 9, 12, 27, 29, 224n3; relevance of, 15, 17. See also O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000) Lourenço, Cileine de, 239n4 Lula, o filho do Brazil (2009), 228n35

Macunaíma (1969), 227n29 Magalhães, Renata Almeida, 110, 136, 238n1, 241n33

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Mattos, Carlos Alberto, 162, 166 Meireles, Cecília, 162, 180, 246n4 merger: dilemmas of, 21; and social identity complexity, 20, 55, 61, 62, 226n16, 232n91 metacontrast, 220n9 Mignone, Francisco, 162 Miller, Kevin P., 20 miscegenation, 5, 222n15, 227n29 Movimento Negro Unificado (MNU), 6– 7, 160, 246n37 Mraz, John, 219n8 multiculturalism: and Abdias do Nascimento, 6, 7, 60; and Chico Rei, 186; and O Aleijadinho, 54, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64; and Quilombo, 148; and social identity complexity, 61

Nagib, Lúcia, 247n4 Narloch, Leandro, 224n3 Nascimento, Abdias do: on Afrocentrism, 159, 160; and multiculturalism, 6, 7, 60; on national identity, 5, 6– 7, 59, 61, 223n22; O quilombismo, 6, 7, 56, 60, 214, 232n87; on racial democracy, 185; on slavery, 62, 232–233n94 Nascimento, Milton, 14, 168, 178 national identity: and Cafundó, 9–10, 66, 67– 69, 72– 76, 79, 80, 83, 85, 96, 98, 100–101; and Chico Rei, 158, 159– 160, 162, 163, 164–165, 169, 173, 174, 185–186; cinematic interpretations of, 1–2, 4–5, 8, 220–221n11; and cinematic- self effect, 30–32, 33; defi nitions of, 3, 8, 9, 18, 59, 219n8; and O Aleijadinho, 20, 21, 24–26, 28, 29–30, 33–35, 42–43, 49, 58, 59– 60, 63, 64; and protagonist as national metaphor, 26; and Quilombo, 10, 110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117–119, 126, 130, 133, 135, 139, 143, 144, 146, 155, 157, 158; and religious identity, 66, 77, 78, 79, 90, 93, 96, 108; and so-

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cial identity complexity, 19, 22, 32, 59, 63– 64, 226n17; and Xica da Silva, 187, 188, 190, 198, 206, 212, 215. See also Brazilianness nationalism, defi nition of, 220n10 nation-building narratives, 3 New Latin American Cinema, 243n1

O Aleijadinho: Paixão, glória e suplício (2000): and Afrocentrism, 48, 49, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59– 62, 63, 64, 187, 188; and argument between young Aleijadinho and his father, 19, 24–25, 27–28, 29, 34, 44, 46, 48, 51, 54, 55– 59, 60, 62; and birth scene, 12, 43, 44, 50, 55; and Brazilian art, 26, 28– 29, 43, 44, 58, 230n48; Brazilianness redefi ned in, 9, 10–11, 27, 39, 46, 53, 54, 61– 62, 63, 64; Cafundó compared to, 65– 66, 71, 81, 86, 87, 95, 97, 99, 104, 233n4; and calling attention to Brazilianness, 13, 18–26, 57; and character as social-identity model, 13, 30–42, 31, 63; and characters’ reactions to protagonist, 38–41, 43, 86; and Chico Rei, 18, 48–49; and cinematic-self effect, 25, 30–32, 33, 34–42, 43, 53, 55, 61, 63; and congada mineira, 18; cultural artifacts in, 18; fl ashbacks in, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18; fl ash-forwards in, 15; framing narrative of, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15; and Inconfidência Mineira, 17, 28, 41, 44, 59; national identity in, 20, 21, 24–26, 28, 29–30, 33–35, 42–43, 49, 58, 59– 60, 63, 64; and past linked to present, 13–18, 43, 52, 53, 54, 56, 63; and point-of-view shots, 40; Portuguese characters in, 25–26, 28, 38, 39, 40, 49; and protagonist as national metaphor, 13, 26–30, 33–34, 38, 40, 41– 42, 43, 53, 55, 62, 111, 138; and protagonist associated with Jesus, 26, 29, 34, 42, 51–53, 87, 95, 104; and

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protagonist’s activism, 43, 44–45, 46, 47, 49; and protagonist’s central role as artist, 43–45, 46, 47, 49, 50–51, 52, 53, 57–58; and protagonist’s illness, 13, 25, 40, 50, 52–53; and protagonist’s martyrdom, 45–46, 47, 49–53, 62; and protagonist’s social identity, 54– 64; and protagonist’s wife, 25– 26, 38, 39–40, 43, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 86; Quilombo compared to, 111, 113, 122, 132, 138, 142; and racial issues, 23, 28, 44, 46, 47, 52, 54, 55–56, 58, 60; and reaction shots, 40, 41, 48; reviews of, 223–224n1; Santos Pereira as director of, 4, 12; and slavery, 16– 17, 18, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 38, 41, 42, 43–44, 46, 47–48, 49, 51, 52, 56– 57, 58, 62– 63, 64, 142; and social identity complexity, 21–22, 23, 24, 28, 32, 54–58, 60– 62, 63; soundtrack of, 26, 43–44, 47, 48, 53; and strategic articulation of Brazilianness, 31, 42– 64; urban context of, 9; and viewer identification with protagonist, 16; voice-overs in, 15–16, 17, 18, 25, 34, 43, 46, 50, 51 Oliveira, João Fernandes de, 189 Olodum, 246n38 opposability: as technique of nationalization, 24, 27, 227n25; as technique of nationalization in Cafundó, 71, 76, 88; as technique of nationalization in Chico Rei, 164, 165, 167, 176–177; as technique of nationalization in O Aleijadinho, 24–28, 39; as technique of nationalization in Quilombo, 119, 120–122, 149, 153; as technique of nationalization in Xica da Silva, 208, 211 Ortiz, Fernando, 5– 6 outgroups: and opposability in nationalization, 25; and social identity complexity, 20, 21, 23, 56, 62, 63, 64, 225n14, 225n15, 228–229n40; tolerance toward, 20, 225n14, 229n40

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Palmares, a guerra dos escravos (Freitas), 115 past linked to present: and Cafundó, 66– 71, 83, 84, 85, 91; and Chico Rei, 159, 160, 161–163, 164, 165–166, 168, 175– 176, 178, 181, 182; and colonized sphere as seed of independent nation, 10; and fi lm/view interface, 8; and nationalism, 14; and O Aleijadinho, 13–18, 43, 52, 53, 54, 56, 63; and Quilombo, 111–112, 114–115, 118, 126, 247n4; and Xica da Silva, 187, 189, 190, 199, 202, 209, 214, 215, 246n1, 247n4 Peixoto, Paul, 224n2 Pereira, Geraldo Santos, 4, 12 Pick, Zuzana, 220n11, 241n40, 243n60, 243n68 Pierce, Kathleen P., 20, 22, 229n40 Plantinga, Carl, 217n1, 218n2, 228n34 postcolonial period, and Cafundó, 71– 72 practical identities, 59, 122, 134, 143, 232n89 priming, 24, 226n20 protagonist as national metaphor: and Cafundó, 69, 81–82, 83, 87, 92, 93, 96, 111; and Chico Rei, 158, 159, 161, 163–174, 176–179, 181–182, 185; and fi lm/viewer interface, 8; and O Aleijadinho, 13, 26–30, 33–34, 38, 40, 41–42, 43, 53, 55, 62, 111, 138; and Quilombo, 111, 123–157; and Xica da Silva, 168, 187, 188–192, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200–201, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211–213, 214–215, 247n5 prototypes: Hogan on, 228n38; and national identity, 33–34, 39, 85; and social identity, 220n9. See also protagonist as national metaphor Putnam, Samuel, 5

Quanto vale ou é por quilo (2005), 69 quilombismo: and Cafundó, 65, 80, 94, 97, 101, 102–104, 107, 233n3; and Chico

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quilombismo (continued) Rei, 158, 169, 171, 176, 182; Abdias do Nascimento on, 7; and protagonists as national metaphor, 114 Quilombo (1984): and Afrocentrism, 110, 113–114, 115, 116–117, 122, 123, 126, 130, 131–132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 142, 143, 144, 148, 149, 153, 187, 214, 241n33; and authority of narrative, 115–116; Brazilianness redefi ned in, 110, 112–113, 117, 120, 122, 125, 126, 135, 136, 140, 142, 150, 152, 155, 158; Cafundó compared to, 97, 111, 117, 122, 125, 131, 132; and characters as social-identity models, 114; Chico Rei compared to, 158, 164, 167, 168; and cinematic-self effect, 10, 111, 114, 126–127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 147, 148, 150–151, 152, 153, 154, 157; and departures from realism, 115, 116; Diegues as director of, 4, 110, 114, 214, 247n6; and epistemic alignment, 127; and ethical alignment, 126–128, 129, 135, 137– 138, 141, 147, 149–150, 152; and ethnicity, 122, 126, 133, 134, 139, 141, 142–143, 146, 214, 220n11; and extension of national community, 113, 114, 121–122, 141–142, 148; and indigenous characters, 122, 142–143; intertitles of, 111–112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 126, 128, 137, 139, 154, 155, 157; Magalhães’s documentary of, 110, 136, 238n1, 241n33; makeup and costumes of, 115; and motivational alignment, 127; and national identity, 10, 110, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117– 119, 126, 130, 133, 135, 139, 143, 144, 146, 155, 157, 158; O Aleijadinho compared to, 111, 113, 122, 132, 138, 142; and oppression, 116, 117, 124, 125, 136, 142, 147, 155; and Palmares as protonational community, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 118–125,

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126, 127, 128, 130–144, 146, 147– 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154–155, 157; and past linked to present, 111–112, 114–115, 118, 126, 247n4; and pointof-view shots, 127; and protagonist Acaiuba as national metaphor, 130, 131–132, 133, 138, 141, 150; and protagonist Acaiuba’s funeral, 134, 142–143; and protagonist Acotirene as national metaphor, 119, 125, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 144, 147, 153–154, 155, 156, 157; and protagonist Camuanga as national metaphor, 125, 138, 154, 155–156, 157; and protagonist Dandara as national metaphor, 129–130, 138, 144, 146, 150, 151; and protagonist Dandara’s jump off cliff, 120, 155; and protagonist Ganga Zumba as national metaphor, 124, 124, 125, 127–137, 138, 139, 140–142, 143, 144, 146, 148– 149, 150, 152, 154–155, 156, 157, 158, 188, 243n60; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s association with Moses, 132, 137; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s encounter with Jewish settler, 117, 133–134; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s poisoning himself, 119, 120, 149–150; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s return from Recife, 119; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s theme song, 112, 114, 115, 139, 140; and protagonist Ganga Zumba’s truce negotiation, 121–122, 147– 148; and protagonist Gunga Zumba with overseer, 116–117; protagonists as national metaphors in, 111, 123– 157; and protagonist Zumbi as national metaphor, 123, 124, 125, 127, 133, 134, 137–139, 140, 141, 143–148, 145, 150, 151–157, 158, 188, 243n60, 243n61; and protagonist Zumbi as self-identity model, 126–127; and protagonist Zumbi preparing for war, 115, 118, 150; and protagonist

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Zumbi’s arrival in Palmares, 117, 118; and protagonist Zumbi’s association with Jesus, 132, 144; and protagonist Zumbi’s birth, 133–134, 137; and protagonist Zumbi’s death, 120, 156; and protagonist Zumbi’s dream, 119; and protagonist Zumbi’s homecoming, 114; and protagonist Zumbi’s kidnapping, 137–138; and protagonist Zumbi’s mother, 116, 117, 126; and protagonist Zumbi’s theme song, 115, 118, 144, 146, 152– 153, 156–157, 168, 243n69; publicity poster for, 144, 145; and reaction shots, 136; and rebellion scene, 129–130; reception at Cannes, 239n8; and resistance, 127, 131, 136, 137, 143, 146, 150, 152, 154, 155, 157; and samba, 118, 239–240n12; “saurê” used for leader, 138, 144, 156, 241n36; and slavery, 112, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121, 126–128, 129, 141–142, 146, 154, 155; and social identity, 110, 119, 122; and social identity complexity, 133, 134, 140; soundtrack of, 14, 111, 112, 112, 113–115, 118, 124, 126, 137, 139, 140, 144, 145, 146, 150, 152–153, 156–157, 168, 239n8, 243n69; and strategic articulation of Brazilianness, 114, 117; and torture scene, 116, 126, 127, 150; and utopia, 10, 97, 110, 113, 114, 116, 117, 122, 124, 125, 126, 151, 154, 239n8, 247n6; and visual alignment, 127, 128, 129, 156; white characters in, 113, 116, 119, 120–122, 126, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137–138, 141–143, 146, 147, 148–149, 152, 153, 155, 156, 241n40

racial democracy, 7, 60, 159, 160, 183, 184–185, 214, 246n37 racial issues: and black women, 28, 44, 55, 191; and Cafundó, 66, 76, 77, 79,

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84, 87, 94, 97, 99, 102, 104, 105, 109, 235n16; and Chico Rei, 159, 160, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178, 180–181, 183, 184, 185–186, 243n1; and national identity, 58, 59, 66; and O Aleijadinho, 23, 28, 44, 46, 47, 52, 54, 55–56, 58, 60; and past linked to present, 14; and Quilombo, 110, 113, 116–117, 121–123, 126, 139, 140, 141–142, 146, 148, 214, 241n40; and social identity, 19, 21, 28, 32, 54; Stam on, 227n29; and Xica da Silva, 191, 210, 213, 214, 248n8 Ramos, Lázaro, 66, 83 Reis, Roberto, 194, 247n7 religious identity, and national identity, 66, 77, 78, 79, 90, 93, 96, 108 religious issues: and Chico Rei, 162, 166, 182–183; and cultural syncretism, 69, 77, 78, 79, 101–109, 130, 132, 166, 182–183; and past linked to present, 14; and Quilombo, 126, 130, 132, 136, 139, 140, 146; and social identity, 18, 19, 32, 54 Roccas, Sonia, on social identity complexity, 19–22, 23, 54–55, 61, 225n15, 226n18, 228–229n40, 232n93 Rodrigues, João Carlos, 218n3, 243n61 Rodrigues, João Jorges Santos, 246n38 Romanceiro da Inconfidência (Meireles), 180, 246n4 Rossini, Miriam de Souza, 247n5, 248n12, 249n16

sadism of slavery, 5, 221n14 salience: as technique of nationalization, 24, 27, 227n21; as technique of nationalization in Chico Rei, 165; as technique of nationalization in Quilombo, 116, 117, 119, 120 Santos, Felipe de, 245n28 Santos, João Felício dos, 115, 246– 247n4 Seixas, Dorotea Joaquina de, 17

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self-concept: and hierarchies of social identities, 224–225n12; and internalized social identities, 229n46; and practical identities, 122; and viewer/ character interface, 37–38 sexual orientation, and social identity, 18 Shohat, Ella, 218n3, 239–240n12, 241n33 Silva, Francisca da (Xica): and Brazilianness, 11, 161; in historical record, 189–190; legends about, 246n4; and Oliveira, 189, 246n3; popular appeal of, 192, 248n9. See also Xica da Silva (1976) Silva, Luis Inácio “Lula” da, 228n35 Sinhá Moça (1953), 189 Skidmore, Thomas, 185 Smith, Jeff, 137, 230n52 Smith, Murray, 35, 36–37, 228n36, 229n42 Sobrinho, Carlos, 68 social class: and Cafundó, 69, 72, 76, 77, 87, 90, 91, 96; and O Aleijadinho, 40, 41, 42; and social identity, 21; and Xica da Silva, 207 social identities: and conception of national group, 3; defi nition of, 3, 219n5; dilemmas of, 21, 54–55, 57, 60; dynamics of change, 219–220n9; and exemplum, 33–34, 38; and fi lm/ viewer interface, 1, 2, 3–5, 8, 9, 10, 23, 217–218n1, 218n3, 221n12, 229n46; hierarchies of, 18, 20, 24, 26, 32, 57, 59, 71, 73, 79, 163, 224– 225n12, 226n17; internalization of, 229n46; interrelationships among, 225n14; and leadership theory, 228n38; models of, 10; and paradigm individuals, 228n38; and prioritizing national identity, 18; and representations of fictional characters, 3; social groups’ modification of, 2 social identity alignment: and viewer identification dynamics, 35–36, 37;

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and viewer identification dynamics in Cafundó, 85, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96; and viewer identification dynamics in Chico Rei, 170, 172; and viewer identification dynamics in Quilombo, 121, 144; and viewer identification dynamics in Xica da Silva, 191, 194, 204, 206, 207, 208, 212, 213 social identity complexity: and cinematic- self effect, 32; and ingroups, 20–21, 23, 56, 58, 220n9, 225n14, 225n15, 226n17, 228– 229n40; and intergroup contact, 23, 226n18; models of, 20–21, 225– 226n16; and national identity, 19, 22, 32, 59, 63– 64, 226n17; and O Aleijadinho, 21–22, 23, 24, 28, 32, 54–58, 60– 62, 63; and outgroups, 20, 21, 23, 56, 62, 63, 64, 225n14, 225n15, 228– 229n40; and Quilombo, 133, 134, 140; and Xica da Silva, 201 social identity theory, 3, 219n7, 225n13 social psychology, 3, 9, 218n4, 219n8 Sommer, Doris, 3 Souza, Ruth de, 14, 224n5 Stam, Robert: on Chico Rei, 244n6; on cinema of slavery, 218n3; on cultural syncretism, 177, 245n22; on indigenous population, 246n2; on mestizaje, 244n2; and past linked to present, 221n12; on Quilombo, 239n8, 239–240n12, 241n33; on racial issues, 227n29; on Xica da Silva, 199, 247n7, 248n8, 248n9, 249n25 Stets, Jan, 218n4 strategic articulation of Brazilianness: and Cafundó, 96–109; and Chico Rei, 174–182; and fi lm/viewer interface, 8; and O Aleijadinho, 13, 42– 64; and Xica da Silva, 187 stylization of reality, 1, 218n2

Tajfel, Henri, 3, 4, 219n5, 229n45 Telles, Edward E., 60, 223n22

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Terry, Deborah J., 224–225n12 Turner, John C., 3, 4, 229n45, 229n46

umbanda, 186

van der Straet, Jan, America, 198, 248– 249n15 Vasconcelas, Agripa, 162 Vespucci, Amerigo, 198 Viany, Alex, 190, 213 Vieira, Nelson, 221–222n15, 239n8 viewer/character interface: and identification dynamics, 35–36, 37, 38, 40, 55, 63, 229n42, 229n43; and selfconcept, 37–38. See also alignment; allegiance

White, Katherine M., 224–225n12 women: and Chico Rei, 171; and O Aleijadinho, 28, 44, 46, 55; and racial issues, 28, 44, 55, 191; and slavery, 171, 191, 221n14; stereotypes of, 247n7. See also Xica da Silva (1976)

Xavier, Ismail, 221n12, 239n8 Xica da Silva (1976): and affective alignment, 196; and Afrocentrism, 11, 97, 187, 189, 198, 205, 206, 207, 208– 209, 212, 249n25; Brazilianness redefi ned in, 4, 9, 10–11, 187, 188, 192, 199, 202, 204–215; Cafundó compared to, 94, 97, 235n18; and carnival, 246n4, 248n8; and cinematicself effect, 189, 191, 192–202, 204, 205–206, 208, 209, 211; and close-up shots, 196; and cognitive alignment, 194; Diegues as director of, 4, 187, 190, 191, 192, 194, 198, 213, 246– 247n4, 247n6, 248n12; and ethical alignment/nonalignment, 191, 194, 195, 197, 200, 202, 206, 210, 212;

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feminist interpretations of, 247n7, 248n8; and Inconfidentes, 211, 212, 213; and indigenous Brazilians, 198; influence of, 187, 188; intertitle of, 208; and military dictatorship, 187, 190, 199, 211, 212, 214, 215, 249n16; and motivational alignment, 196; and national identity, 187, 188, 190, 198, 206, 212, 215; and oppression, 188, 190, 191, 192, 194, 202, 204, 206, 212, 214, 215, 247n4, 249n16; and past linked to present, 187, 189, 190, 199, 202, 209, 214, 215, 246n1, 247n4; and point-of-view shots, 194; popularity of, 192, 248n9; Portuguese characters in, 25, 200; and protagonist as national metaphor, 168, 187, 188–192, 194, 195, 196, 199, 200–201, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211–213, 214–215, 247n5; and protagonist as self-identity model, 187, 191, 192–202, 206, 213; and protagonist performing for Portuguese inspector, 203, 207–209, 210, 249n25; and protagonist’s achievement of freedom, 191, 204, 206–207, 209, 210, 215; and protagonist’s collaboration with José, former owner’s son, 190, 192–194, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 203, 212–214, 250n36; and protagonist’s fourth stage, 209–211, 212, 214; and protagonist’s relationship with João Fernandes, 193, 195–198, 199, 200, 202, 205, 207–208, 209, 210–211, 212; and protagonist’s second stage, 200–202; and protagonist’s sexuality, 189, 191, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 204, 207–208, 209, 210, 213–214, 250n34; and protagonist’s theme song, 199–200, 201, 202, 204, 209, 213, 214; and protagonist’s third phase, 205–207, 210; and protagonist’s transformation of social identity, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 195– 196, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 205–

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Xica da Silva (1976) (continued) 207, 209, 211, 212, 249n17; and resistance, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 198, 201, 212, 213, 214, 215; and samba, 240n12, 246n4, 249n25; and slavery, 190, 191, 193–194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199–200, 201, 202, 204–208, 209, 210, 211, 214–215, 248n8, 250n34; slaves in fi lm as partial cinematic selves, 205–206, 211; and social identity complexity, 201; soundtrack of,

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14, 168, 195, 198–200, 201, 202, 204, 205, 208, 209, 213, 214; and strategic articulation of Brazilianness, 187; and visual alignment, 192–193, 194, 195–196, 197, 206; white characters in, 199, 202, 204, 205, 207, 210, 211

Zamora, Margarita, 248–249n15 Zelig (1983), 227n29 Zumbi, 6, 161. See also Quilombo (1984)

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