Slides from Lecture 3 on National Allegories: The Family and the Nation

1. Rachel Randall
Special Subject Brazilian Cinema
3rd February 2014
National Allegories:
The family & the nation

3. Click a picture, and then click
the Format Picture tab to
create your own frames and
make picture corrections such
as adjusting contrast and
brightness or cropping the
picture for just the right look.

4. Grande Otelo of
‘Macunaíma’
and Eliana
Macedo,
another star of
the ‘chanchada’.

5. Mário de Andrade and his
well-known novel ‘Macunaíma’
(1928)

10. José Louzeiro’s romance-
reportagem:
‘A Infância dos Mortos’ (1977)

13. Click a picture, and then click
the Format Picture tab to
create your own frames and
make picture corrections such
as adjusting contrast and
brightness or cropping the
picture for just the right look.

14. Click a picture, and then click
the Format Picture tab to
create your own frames and
make picture corrections such
as adjusting contrast and
brightness or cropping the
picture for just the right look.

15. Salles has described his motivation behind the film as the idea that:
‘if a letter can really alter somebody’s perception of the world,
then what happens if a letter doesn’t reach its destiny? And
somehow it had to do with Brazil, who hadn’t reached a destiny
during those 25 years of military dictatorship. I really felt like,
maybe this woman who hasn’t been sending the letters, Dora,
the central character, maybe the journey into discovering what
country she is from, maybe going into the centre of Brazil.
Because ‘Central Station’ in Portuguese is ‘Central do Brasil’,
which is not only the name of the station but also the centre, the
heart of the country. So it has a double meaning. And for me, the
search that the little kid does for his father in the film is really
the search for a country. In Portuguese actually the words for
father and the word for country are almost the same. Father is
pai, and country is país.’

16. Michelangelo, ‘Pietà’ (1499)

17. Dora’s transformation into the archetypal mother:
A Mãe de Deus das Candeias.
Also known as: Nossa Senhora
da Luz, and Nossa Senhora
das Candeias.