An Intro…. of sorts

 

In 1969, filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino published an essay they titled Toward a Third Cinema. The piece outlined a cinema of revolution. One that, in turn, inspires revolution and liberates itself from the western bourgeois. One that documents and constructs a narrative - a personality - with the people as its starting point.

 

As countries have emerged into a post-colonial, post-revolution present, I argue that Third Cinema has evolved to depict a wider range of “guerilla topics” regarding the socio-economic and political status of their countries - not just with their colonizer, but with themselves. It is a blend of honoring their own country and calling into question its faults. Through this lens, City of God stands at the axis of cinema - blurring the lines between a lever of revolution, a genuflection on Brazilian film history, and an accepted piece of global cinematic canon. Thus, it is a film that bridges the present with the past while simultaneously merging and manipulating the theories of Third Cinema and Cinema Novo.

 

The following essay breaks down these various elements and how City of God fits into or subverts them.

 

A note: while divided into three main topics (Third Cinema; Brazilian Tradition; Western Spectatorship), points touched upon within each of the topics may also fit into another due to the nature of the claims presented. In doing so, this essay unintentionally satisfies the query that City of God merges, manipulates, and subverts these theories to its own ends.

 

Third Cinema

 

There are no aesthetic norms to Third Cinema, and that’s because there is no set of required rules filmmakers needed to follow. No “Third Cinema 95” Solanas and Getino created. 

 

And that’s because Solanas and Getino knew revolutions come in many shapes and forms - in bold actions and hushed conversations, between individuals and within groups. Even, they said, through art, and by extension, through cinema. A cinema outside the system, shared in closets and kitchens for audiences already committed to change, because Solanas and Getino knew that revolution begins the moment the masses sense a need for that change, and what is cinema if not a spark to inspire change rather than retrospectively spectaclize it. 

 

So City of God becomes transfixed with films exploring with these ideas, and in the process, creates its own identity, referencing revolution not obtusely, but slid into passing dialogue and flashing frames.

 

Take, for example, how it pulls from The Battle of Algiers, a film that is a manifestation of Third Cinema. While, as stated previously, there are no technical norms for the theory, both films use shaky cams sprinting through the alleys of once colonized cities. Both films become a violent game of cat-and-mouse with western power structures that inevitably ends in the death(s) of a rebel(s), who, for the community, becomes a martyr. Both films end in a final frame… a final frame that doesn’t conclude but rather leaves the audience in the climactic middle of what is still yet to come (Dreamer, 2020).

 

Or how it uses global revolutions as analogies for the conflicts within the City of God favela. When the city is separated, bloodied, and bruised, torn against itself and ripping apart at the seams, Rocket’s voiceover states matter-of-factly “People got used to living in Vietnam.”

 

That same Rocket, as he flips through the newspaper, comes across an image of the Brazilian military police. An image - a society - that is eerily similar to the identity of La Hora de los Hornos, the film Solanas and Getino made simultaneously with the development of their Third Cinema theory.

 

And that, perhaps, is the most important part of the film. That the political and cultural setting of the film is supposed to be already known. And the only purpose for that decision is because it was made with a Brazilian audience in mind. Because another key element of Third Cinema theory is the process of documentation, a Text as a piece of fact recorded during the process of liberation… a primary documentation of life. 

 

To this end, Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund sought authenticity not just from the script, but also the cast as well. So together they went into the favelas and found children who had never acted before. And through these performances - much of which was encouraged improvisation based on real life experiences within the favelas - authenticity was achieved. Authenticity, even, through the set, which is not a studio, but the alleys and tin covered huts of real favelas across Brazil.

 

This priority to get close to authentic documentary allows for a change in what images can be shown on screen… and where they’re shown. Solanas and Getino state that Third Cinema must be viewed outside of western spectatorship and western systems. They claim festival circuits play key roles in publicizing these films and revealing them to larger non-western audiences. Indeed , City of God was screened at Cannes out of competition, and so it aligns with these principles of Third Cinema; but, by the turn of the century, had the festival circuit become an exhibition ground for western audiences? An outlet to exoticize and view violence from a safe distance? Through the controlled means of their remote and their couch?

 

While the initial focus of Third Cinema Theory argues that it must serve as a spark for revolution against the west, I argue that a newer identity of Third Cinema brings into context the aftereffects of a revolution, and how the formerly-colonized suffer generational consequences within their own systems. Only by engaging with these things can a film usher in a new societal revolution of change within itself. 

 

This line of thought stems from the line that Third Cinema Theory also states that any form of expression that tries to show national reality is a revolt against the bourgeois. And, I ask, is the use of non-actors and real favelas not a national reality? So much so that the film inspired the Brazilian government to pass legislation to help the favelas? Is the portrayal of corruption and military dictatorship and police brutality (even in the peripheral) not serving that objective? The film even references the suppression of its national reality and accuses the government of doing it, “But for the rich and powerful… [the favelas] were removed from the picture postcard image of Rio.” But more on that later.

 

And so City of God can be viewed as a deconstruction of the image neocolonialism has depicted - the good, the gold, the riches and the spoils. Instead it shows the shadow of reality it has created. It is a pseudo-documentary to inform and reveal, but to this end the film must engage with exoticism to bring attention to these places. It’s the anti-travel view of a country. A mission to keep westerners away by appealing to their form (but more on that later).

 

Brazilian Tradition

 

I’ll cut to the chase. City of God is a call to Brazilian nationalism, an audio-visual artifact to preserve the very identity of Brazilian film. In itself is that not a call to revolution? A preservation of self? A rejection of the system? (all of which align with our Theory in question).

 

To understand the Brazilian tradition we must start where all traditions start - at the beginning. 

 

In the 1920s, as North American businessmen infiltrated the Brazilian movie industry, Brazilian filmmakers were siloed into create newsreels and documentaries, two mediums that are present in City of God (the clip of Knockout Ned; the documentarian use of Rocket’s camera; and the Ken Burns effect of stills). By incorporating these methods and mediums, Meirelles and Lund “reclaim” that which were forced upon them nearly a century prior. Thus, it revolts against the oppression of western businesses. The scraps have become the style.

 

As the West converted Brazilian entertainment into the System, Brazilian national cinema was kept alive by independent, avant-garde production. While City of God does cater to and was supported by North American businessmen (Miramax), it keeps Brazilian tradition alive by incorporating these aesthetic choices. Plus, what is a more avant-garde than opening with the pulsating images of a knife scraping against a rock and a shuddering chicken all set to the rapid tempo of a samba. 

 

And that is perhaps an idea too important to skip over: City of God's unwavering commitment to the preservation of the favela - and the larger Brazilian - culture; both the good and the bad, the gangs and the communities. Think of how it retains the Brazilian identity - the visits to the beaches, the music, the parties, the dancing, the playing fútbol in the dust with bare feet. It is a story that the bourgeois cannot assimilate because they cannot begin to place themselves in the story. And thus, another tenet of Third Cinema is satisfied.

 

Then in the 60s and 70s, Cinema Novo took off, both across the world and in Brazil. Rio Quarenta Graus, a Brazilian film directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, ushered in a new kind of Brazilian film, one that utilized concepts of shooting on location; using non actors; and ignoring the dramatization that Hollywood encourages (the former two points were satisfied in our first section) (Rist, 2005). But more than that, City of God pulls directly from Rio Quarenta Graus. Both films start with samba music, are inherently political, and transform into episodic stories of Rio and its inhabitants. The city - the culture - becomes the main character. That itself is a call to action, a highlight of a life that exists in the shadows of Christ the Redeemer’s statue.

 

And yet, despite its adherence to the larger principles of Cinema Novo (not just the stylistic choices of dos Santos), City of God does dramatize itself - both through its technical aspects and its narrative. There are deaths (and more deaths); time jumps (and more time jumps); and editing that would make a person from 1432 combust.

 

The utilization of Cinema Novo elements evolves City of God into a semi-biographical documentation of favela life. Alas! The movie is based off a semi-autobiographical book by Paulo Lins. And thus, the film weaves a line between all three forms of cinema, subverting them and adopting them on the whim of it’s own fancy; becoming a text that resides alongside reality and making it real enough to encourage the Brazilian government to pass laws that attempt to bring beneficial change to the favelas.

 

And is that not the purpose of Third Cinema theory - to bring about change? Even if that change comes not from the people, but the System itself and its acknowledgment of its shortcomings.

 

I’ll leave that one to the philosophers and theorists.

 

Western Audience

 

Ahhh. The Western audience. The colonists. The ones that Third Cinema Theory was developed to directly repel. The camera is a weapon that shoots 24 frames per second… and that weapon is pointed directly at the West. At me.

 

Solanas and Getino argue that the bourgeois need a daily dose of controlled violence, something that shocks and excites and grabs their attention. The film itself admits to its own shortcomings in this regard, a sort of preemptive awareness of how its portrayal of violence will be received. Take, for example, the moment when the newspaper releases Rocket’s picture of Lil Z. Rocket runs to the newsroom, fearing for his life, claiming Lil Z will kill him. The employees smile, chuckle, and wiggle their eyebrows at each other, implicitly chalking Rocket’s exclamation up to exaggeration. And get this - the newsroom sequences are the only time more than 2 white people are shown on screen together. They look at the events Rocket is experiencing, all that death and gang warfare, as a fiction to tell stories about, as a violence they can control the narrative of and share with other people.

 

And are these newsroom employees not the bourgeois or descendants of them? The people who systematically pushed Afro-Brazilians to the favelas?

 

And so my initial query comes back into focus - that a new Third Cinema Theory might evolve to depict not just the relationship with the colonizer, but also with themselves in the post-revolution. 

 

When violence stems from Third Cinema, it is less contained, less controlled, not hung on a house or released through a newspaper. However, the very model of cinema through which City of God was released is a conceptual dependency on the Hollywood structure, using Miramax to promote and distribute the film to Western audiences. And then, because bourgeois audiences only see themselves on screen in the few moments Rocket goes to the newsroom, the film, for bourgeois audiences, effectively becomes an exhibit of “the other”, a contained and controlled violence to watch from the comfort of their couch. Indeed one Brazilian critic, Ivana Bentes, argued that it glorified the issues of poverty in the favela, that a dramatization of the events shown domesticates Brazilian violence as a product for export to be seen not by Afro-Brazilians, but by the bourgeois.

 

But, when adding all the other pieces of this analysis - its realism, its non-actors, its adherence to so many other elements of Third Cinema Theory and Brazilian cinematic tradition - it could be argues that City of God dramatizes its events so that the bourgeois would watch it, creating a movie that is so removed by the bourgeois that it keeps them away by appealing to their form, yet also inspires them to help bring about change… which the film did.

 

A Conclusion… or at least a new way of thought

 

So does City of God fit into Third Cinema Theory? In some regards it does because the theory has no aesthetic norms, which gave Meirelles and Lund the ability to mold the film to their means, picking and choosing ideas like kids in a candy shop. It also engages with several elements of Cinema Novo (which bleeds into Third Cinema). Yet, crucially, it goes against the mission of Third Cinema by appealing - in some capacity - to the systemic and structural norms of western cinema.

 

I guess it depends on what side of the table you’re looking at it from, or what elements you’re willing to consider. But mostly it depends on if you’ve read Third Cinema Theory by Solanas and Getino… because I think that’s pretty important if you want to answer this question.