Diegues, from Carlos to Cacá (1955-1963)

Abstract

This article presents a contextualized mapping of the written production of Brazilian filmmaker Carlos Diegues between 1955 and 1963. More specifically, it seeks to study the particularity of his work at the time of the formation of Brazilian Cinema Novo, at the turn of the 1960s. To this end, the analysis is based on a reading of all of Diegues' publications from those years, in periodicals such as the Suplemento Dominical of Jornal do Brasil, O Metropolitano, and the magazines Arquitetura and Movimento. In general, the analysis of different aspects of these publications – genre, form, theme, location, etc. – aims to analyze Diegues’ specific social place in the Rio de Janeiro cinematographic field and, more than that, to reconstruct the concept of Cinema Novo as a space for encounter and dispute between different fractions of the middle class. The aim is to create a dialogue between knowledge about Brazilian cinema of that time and the broader social dynamics of the Liberal Republic (1945-64). In fact, Diegues’ work in the Rio de Janeiro press exemplifies the ambiguous social connotations associated with precocity, which enable us to reconstruct some historical connections relevant to the understanding of the formation of modern Brazilian cinema.