City Of God Flashcards
(21 cards)
1
Q
‘Flying chicken’ scene: Cinematography
A
- whip pans, close ups, extreme close ups
- low angles on Li’l Ze to showcase his status as slumlord before his immediate downfall
- slows down when focused on Rocket - shows his association with the fast-paced violent lifestyle - handheld, completely disorienting
- anti-clockwise pan on Rocket - time turning back
2
Q
Flying Chicken Sequence: Sound & Dialogue
A
- non-diegetic samba which is native to Brazil
- Li’l Ze using profanities
- Rocket’s voiceover - sets out that we are seeing the film through Rocket’s lens / history
- whilst Li’l Ze is obviously of great importance, Rocket’s voiceover undercuts this and shows how this is truly his story of escaping the favela - Ze is important to our plot but he is also just one of many slumlords throughout history
3
Q
Flying Chicken Sequence: Editing
A
- both first and last sequence of film
- collision & cross-cutting between characters
- match on action
- erratic, fast-paced - lots of jumps between chicke, knife, locals, black screen - floods the viewer’s senses
- slow-mo on Ze when Rocket mentions him - very important - Li’l Ze constantly smiling and laughing - he takes joy in chaos
- slows down when focused on Rocket - he is calm
4
Q
Flying Chicken and Beginning of the End Sequences: Mise-en-scene
A
- underdeveloped favela, rundown (social) - neo-realism or small budget - showcases contextual links through environment
- costume - lots of casual wear, everything old/worn in
- colour - everything is dull & grey in comparison to 60’s
- kids are all carrying guns whilst Rocket is carrying a camera - he is also caught between gangs and police - his constant moral dilemma / observations
- the gang physical staged opposite the police
5
Q
Beginning of the End Sequence: Sound
A
- Camera shutter & gunshots simultaneously - Rocket’s peacefulness in comparison to the grunts’ violence
- end credits - saudade (happy song, O Camino) which undercuts the carnage the audience has just seen, neutralising the effect of the film - life goes back to normal as per in the favela
6
Q
Beginning of the End Sequence : Cinematography
A
- POV of the standoff - Rocket’s camera
- high angle almost bird-eye view of Rocket running through the favela, same path as Benne cycled - difference in violence & Benne’s effect on Li’l Ze
- through the window through Rocket’s camera as he ‘shoots’ Li’l Ze
- shaky handheld low angles of the death & destruction after shootout
7
Q
Beginning of the End Sequence : Editing
A
- fade to black when Ned dies then a camera walks in silence through the death
- repetition of Benne cycling and Rocket running
- repetition of the beginning of the end - except now we know who everyone is - cyclical structure represents the never ending hatred and the inability to escape the CDD
- cross-cutting and collision, match on action
- we don’t see Ned and his gang so when it collides it is a surprise
8
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: aesthetics
A
- vibrant & lively atmosphere - sound & cinematography, costumes & set
- irony and foreshadowing
- Bene as a tragic character
- social realism
9
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: Mise-en-scene
A
- big room, lots of people - everyone loves Bene
- strobe lighting in time with music & argument
- Rocket’s camera which ends up humiliating Ze worse than he humiliates Ned
10
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: Sound
A
- music typical to crowd & time
- dialogue - Ze asking Ned’s girlfriend to dance & getting rejected - not something he is used to, as when he asks Bene to stay - the consequences of this
- gunshot - speakers go static
- Ze sending Angelica away - him crying & his gunshots
- Kung-Fu Fighting (American influence and dependence)
11
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: cinematography
A
- long shot - Li’l Ze - he is out of place of people having real fun
- wide group shots of Bene’s friends contrast singular CU of Li’l Ze
- framing - Angelica positioned between Ze & Bene as they argue - she is the dividing force
- sequence starts and ends with Ze ‘alone’ in the frame, surrounded by strangers
12
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: editing
A
- flashback to when Ze & Bene were kids - they’ve been together for a long time & it’s ending the wrong way now because of Ze (sepia coloured insert)
- cross-cutting parallel collision of people having a good time vs Ze forcing Ned to strip and it all collides with Blacky
- Ze forcing Ned to strip foreshadows the person he becomes when Bene dies & who his main adversary will be
13
Q
Bene’s Farewell Sequence: representations
A
- Angelica is the division between Ze & Bene as she represents the domesticity & peace Bene desires - this creates a mirror to Shaggy’s story although this time it is the hood that brings him down, showing how the gangs are no longer ‘tender’
14
Q
Representations in City of God
A
- a lot of influential nameless characters (eg the Runts) and we learn little to no personal details of the main characters - the City is ever changing, rapidly, everyone is two-dimensional & that’s how they all view each other - no one lasts long
- Knockout Ned - tragic hero - unable to escape the favela as he is drawn in by violence, and he becomes a terrible avenging angle. Contrasts Ze in his appearance & through Ze’s motiveless malignity vs his righteous justice
-aggressive definition of masculinity. Female characters have passive/peripheral roles - they are the recipients of male violence (Shorty’s wife & Ned’s girlfriend). They ‘disappear’ from the narrative and serve no further purpose than to experience the sexualised & tragic effects of masculinity
15
Q
Social Context for City of God
A
- Brazil is the 5th largest country in the world (land mass and population). 20% of the population live in absolute poverty and the disparity of the poverty line is greater than most countries in the world. As of 2014, the 6th most wealthy men owned the equivalent of the bottom half’s population of wealth.
16
Q
Historical Context of City of God
A
- colonised in 16th Century by Portugal - genocide of the indigenous people
- the current multicultural society is an effect of the Slave Trade & immigrants from all over the world
17
Q
Political Context of City of God
A
- dependent and dominated by the USA in the 20th Century
- in 2002 - year of release - the Da Silva (head of the Worker’s Party) was elected into presidency, after 40 years of right wing rule. Under Da Silva, Brazil saw strong economic growth, the expansion of a middle class and an increase of social equality, despite his corruption scandals.
18
Q
Technological Context of City of God
A
- digital editing allowed Daniel Rezende to create specific interpretations of characters in post, as the use of improvisation meant no 2 takes were the same.
19
Q
Institutional Context of City of God
A
- Canal Livre was running from 1996 - 2008 (Wallace Souza)
- financed by TV Globo (Brazil’s largest TV channel)
- distributed internationally by Miramax
- Brazilian cinema became an oppositional political movement concerned with exposing the great division in Brazilian society
- 1968 - repressive censorship
- $3.3 million budget,$30 million Box Office
- 2004, nominated for 4 Oscars, the most a Brazilian film ever had been
- Rocket and Ze accepted $3000 over a percentage, of which even 1% would’ve increased their pay by over 25 times the amount.
20
Q
Aesthetics of City of God
A
- Lund was in charge of character development and on-set management & Mereilles of image. Neither from favelas. Created ‘Nos do cinema’ through which they selected & trained 200 actors for the film.
- 1960 -1964 established the 1st wave of Cinema Novo which heavily influenced modern film in Brazil. The Brazil it symbolised was one of exploitation, deprivation and violence.
- Rocket was based on Wilson Rodrigues. Association with photography enhances his ‘neutral’ view of the events. He is the one who informs us what is happening on a local level (in the City of God) and on a national level (across all slums in Brazil). This represents and mixes the notion of an informative & objective camera able to reveal the slum & the film’s highly constructed & manipulated style.
21
Q
Themes of City of God
A
Brazil; conflict; corruption; crimes; drugs; favelas; poverty; power; violence
