City of God and Elite Squad Assessment Flashcards
(148 cards)
1
Q
Who directed City of God and when was it made?
A
Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund - 2002
2
Q
Elite Squad - where is it set and in what year?
A
Rio de Janeiro - 1997
3
Q
City of God looks at Gang Culture in what period?
A
1980s
4
Q
How many murders occurred in Rio in 2007?
A
6000
5
Q
What is the technique by which a camera is in the middle of the action - in this case when the chicken tries to take flight - and the resultant confusing array of hand held images result?
A
Cinema Verite - Cinema of the ‘real’
6
Q
Read the attached article from the Daily Telegraph on Elite Squad’s release. The director’s third film was going to be about Politicians. Did it get made?
A
It appears not - he went on to produce ‘Narcos’
7
Q
Why does the book suggest that City of God fails as a film?
A
Li’l Ze is an unrealistic character - simply an ‘embodiment of evil’.
8
Q
Who kills Knockout Ned for the same reason Ned is trying to kill Li’l Ze? (Out of revenge).
A
Otto
9
Q
What is the name of the elite Police squad that works in the Favelas?
A
BOPE
10
Q
What does Todorov’s theory state?
A
Equilibrium, disruption, recognition of disruption, attempt to repair, equilibrium
11
Q
How much more was spent on Elite squad than on City of God?
A
700,000
12
Q
Which made more money, City of God or Elite squad? Opening weekend
A
City of God - 541,000 as opposed to 3600
13
Q
Marxists believe that power is exerted over the working class by the —————– class
A
Ruling class
14
Q
During the film Benny has a celebratory party which Ze ruins, but what is the principle reason that Ze doesn’t join in the fun?
A
Ze cannot dance and is ugly
15
Q
According to your notes, what is the major criticism of Elite squad?
A
The action is gratuitous and the film is right wing
16
Q
where do the middle classes escape to with private security and gated communities?
A
Copacabana, Ipanema
17
Q
What is Rocket’s ambition?
A
To escape the Favela and become a photographer
18
Q
What does ‘right wing’ mean?
A
On the side of oppressive law and order; the traditional status quo must be maintained and capitalism must be allowed to thrive
19
Q
Which philosopher talked about the exertion of power - such as the Police over others but also education as a form of exerting power?
A
Althusser
20
Q
Name a French film which also looks at urban conflict - in this case in the Paris slums.
A
La Haine
21
Q
Until what year was there martial law - military rule?
A
1985
22
Q
The soundtrack is fast paced and echoes/reflects the chase of the bird through the streets; what is this sort of sound called?
A
Parallel
23
Q
When did military rule end in Brazil?
A
1985
24
Q
In what decade does Rocket’s story begin?
A
1960s
25
Which film does the book compare City of God to as having similar themes of corruption and political carelessness?
Elite squad
26
The chicken is trying to escape the carving knife and eventually escapes; how could this act as a metaphor for the film's main story?
Rocket is also trying to escape the Favela - like the chicken is being chased - so is he.
27
Why are the Police so intent on taking down drug dealers in 1997?
The Pope is visiting
28
What is the nearest city to the City of God?
Rio De Janeiro
29
What is it about the background of the writer of Elite Squad that might influence a pro- Police viewpoint?
He was ex-BOPE
30
What happens to Tiago and why is he in the film?
He becomes a drug addict and li'l Ze's associate - shows what happens to the easily influenced youth.
31
Brazil is Latin America's largest country and the ______ most populated in the world.
Fifth
32
The arrival of explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral in 1500 led to a legacy of Portuguese colonisation, while other parts of Latin America were mostly claimed by the _________.
Spanish
33
When the indigenous tribes failed to meet the needs of the colonists, the new land owners brought in African slaves to work the mines and plantations. Brazil - which achieved independence in 1822 - was one of the last countries to abolish slavery, in ________.
1888
34
Republican democracy was stifled a number of times in the 20th century by coups and __________.
Dictatorships
35
The last period of military rule ended in ______ and in 1989 Fernando Collor became Brazil's first democratically elected president for 25 years. He was impeached three years later on corruption charges.
1985
36
In a modern tale of rags to riches, former shoe-shine boy Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - known as ____ - became president in 2002 - the first left-wing leader of Brazil in 40 years.
Lula
37
Brazil has Latin America's __________ economy with a GDP of $795.7bn and GDP per capita of $8,458. There has been steady growth under Lula but millions still live in poverty.
Largest
38
The wealth is based in the south and south-east - the cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and the southern areas heavily settled by ___________ immigrants.
European
39
President Lula was elected in _______. His victory for the Workers' Party (PT) - at the fourth attempt - put a left-wing government in power for the first time in more than 40 years.
2002
40
The vast country - with a population of ____ million - is also home to extreme contrasts of wealth and poverty.
180
41
Around __% of the population live in urban environments - where poverty and violence are rife.
84
42
Many residents of the slums or shanty towns of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo live with the constant threat of gun violence from heavily armed drug traffickers. More than ________ are killed by the police every year, says Amnesty International.
2000
43
Around 73% of the population claim to be _________ - a legacy of the Portuguese rule - and in the Catholic calendar the period of Lent is preceded by carnival.
Catholic
44
City of God and Elite Squad are set in ________
Brazil
45
Bope stands for?
Battalion for Special Police Operations.
46
BOPE were created to deal with kidnappings, but their job now is to take on the most dangerous _____ ________ in the country, a battle fought with high-calibre weapons in the city's favelas or shanty towns.
Drug gangs
47
Their (BOPE) role has made the force extremely controversial, with accusations that they have killed _________ people whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Innocent
48
The film includes scenes in which captives are __________ by police officers to obtain information, and one in which an unarmed suspect is killed. At the same time, a drug gang burns a screaming captive to death, his body wrapped in tyres as he is set alight, apparently to destroy all human remains.
Tortured
49
The movie also points an accusing finger at the hypocrisy of _____ young people who complain about violence in Brazilian society, but who use the drugs that finance the gangs which dominate many favelas.
Rich
50
In a survey in Veja news magazine, 79% of respondents said they believed the film showed the police as they really are, and ___% thought the drug dealers in the movie were treated the way they deserved.
72
51
___% said torture was not an acceptable way to get a confession from a drug trafficker.
51
52
Some critics have accused the film of glamorising ________ and making a hero of a police officer who endorses torture and acts outside the law, an interpretation rejected by the film's director.
Violence
53
On the streets of Providencia, a favela whose walls bear the bullet marks of many recent gun battles, there is little sympathy for the _______.
Police
54
One of Bope's senior commanders insisted he did not accept the film's portrayal of police using torture.
"The film is a fiction and the author may exaggerate things. The limit of activity of police, in particular Bope, is the law. The law doesn't allow us to do that. Torture is not permissible, torture is a ______"
Crime
55
The elite squad in question is _______ (State Police Special Operations Battalion), the brutal, paramilitary police commando force which combats crime in Rio's slums by any means necessary.
BOPE
56
The film's main character - and its highly unreliable narrator - is Captain ___________, a jaded 30-ish cop who is about to become a father.
Nascimento
57
He embraces BOPE's unsavoury methods unquestioningly. But now he wants out and needs a _________.
Successor
58
Among those who saw the first pirate version of Elite Squad were the police, who immediately _____.
Sued
59
The ________ ruled in his favour on the grounds that the film accurately reflected the current situation.
Judge
60
A report by Amnesty International found that in ______ police killed at least 1,260 people in the state of Rio de Janeiro alone - and that's just according to official figures.
2007
61
Elite Squad's apparent espousal of Nascimento's take-no-prisoners philosophy, and its superabundance of bloody shoot-outs had local audiences ________.
Cheering
62
The accusations of ____-_____ extremism were made in local media, such as O Globo, Rio's largest newspaper, as well as by international critics.
Right-wing
63
The film "presents its case by celebrating police ____________", said Variety. Padilha begs to differ.
Psychopaths
64
Aren't these damaging images of his country? "Yes they are," says Padilha promptly. "And I think we filmmakers should go on, even harder. The _________ are not changing, so let's put them on the spot."
Politicians
65
We learn by analyzing his life that he became a violent man in his personal life primarily due to his actions as a member of BOPE, a police division that is shown as extremely violent to the point of using ______ as a means of obtaining information.
Torture
66
The middle-class students who work at the NGO that supports the poor people from the ________ are presented as leftists and drug consumers/distributers, funding the same drug selling system that they criticize.
Favela
67
Synthesizing, we could say that the plot is about a man's inner struggle to reconcile his work and his family, but it's also about social issues such as the police abuses - whether it's in the the form of violence or corruption - and the _____ dealing system.
Drug
68
The greatest accomplishment of Elite Squad is revealing the philosophy of __________ law and order to be deeply naive and ineffective, but does not ignore how seductive it can be.
Conservative
69
Directed and co-scripted by José _________, Elite Squad is a now fairly familiar sort of report on the war zone that is Rio de Janeiro.
Padilha
70
The visual style is harsh - blindingly bright by day, the dark nights lit by naked bulbs and gunfire, the _________ camera running along with police and gangsters through alleyways and up steep streets.
Handheld
71
The cops are underpaid and ________, the arrogant, remorseless gangs protect their turf and are left to fight it out among themselves.
Corrupt
72
The authorities are indifferent to the plight of the ______; the middle and upper classes turn their backs on the city's problems.
Poor
73
Only the Elite Squad are beyond corruption but to maintain this position they must embrace ________ rituals, turn training sessions into sadistic ordeals and adopt ruthless policies that mirror the behaviour of their worst opponents.
Fascistic
74
The film's plot turns on which of _____ ambitious young lieutenants of very different temperaments will be promoted to succeed a seasoned captain who's packing it in, a burnt-out case in his mid-thirties.
Two
75
The retiring veteran provides an exhausting non-stop _____-______ narration, and we have little doubt which man he'll choose, provided of course that both are alive at the end.
Voice-over
76
Elite Squad depicts the life of the film narrator Roberto Nascimento, the captain of an elite squad in the police of Rio de Janeiro, who is awaiting for a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and is seeking a replacement so he could spend more time with his _____ and his upcoming son.
Wife
77
As he goes through this situation, he plunges into an inner struggle after he chooses _____ to be his successor and the latter proves to be the wrong choice as he is too euphoric to command the squad.
Neto
78
Later on, Neto is assassinated by drug dealers, and Nascimento explores his death to turn André ______ - Neto's best friend - into his replacement.
Matias
79
At some point, Nascimento becomes too stressed about his work and becomes __________ even at home, repelling his pregnant wife away from him.
Aggressive
80
While Elite Squad is derived from real life events, generically speaking, this is a crime film – and to be slightly more precise, falling into the sub-genre of the police __________.
Procedural
81
The police procedural, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of _________ fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes.
Detective
82
The primary notion for a ‘successful’ narrative is to develop the relationship between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, as this essentially is what develops the _______ which then develops the story.
Conflict
83
With __________ approaching, Nascimento plans to step down, and the film charts his efforts to find a replacement whilst tackling violent criminals and endemic police corruption.
Fatherhood
84
Nascimento is one of the few clean cops, but such is his utilitarian approach to imposing justice – often resorting to ________ of suspects – that the line between himself and those he hunts is often hard to discern.
Torture
85
The ingredients are thus present for a classic anti-hero, but the film fails to ever figure out the _____ status of this character, just as it fails to figure out its stance towards the organisation in which he works.
Moral
86
You can construct your own table of 'typical' male/female characteristics, like this one:
Typically masculine:
* Tough
* _____
* Sweaty
Hard
87
Women are often represented as being part of a ________ (family, friends, colleagues) and working/thinking as part of a team.
Context
88
In drama, they tend to take the role of helper (_____) or object, passive rather than active. Often their passivity extends to victimhood.
Propp
89
The representations of women that do make it onto page and screen do tend to be __________, in terms of conforming to societal expectations, and characters who do not fit into the mould tend to be seen as dangerous and deviant.
Stereotypical
90
'Masculinity' is a concept that is made up of more rigid stereotypes than femininity. Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following:
```
•Strength - physical and intellectual
•_______
•Sexual attractiveness (which may be based on the above)
•Physique
Independence (of thought, action)
```
Power
91
Male characters are often represented as isolated, as not needing to rely on others (the lone _____)
Hero
92
Captain Roberto ___________ (Wagner Moura) narrates the film, briefly explaining how the police and the drug lords of Rio de Janeiro cooperate with each other (policemen collect periodic bribes and drug lords are left free to operate) in the 90's.
Nascimento
93
In 1997, In medias res, officer Captain _________ (Marcelo Valle) and his colleagues are shown driving through Morro da Babilônia towards a baile funk.
Oliveira
94
Nascimento and his other colleagues are also shown in their armored car. Meanwhile, novice police officers André Matias (André Ramiro) and _____ Gouveia (Caio Junqueira) are shown riding a motorcycle at the same favela, though not with the other officers.
Neto
95
Not wanting to be an absent father when his child is born, Nascimento decides to search for a successor for his role as a ________, since he will be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
Captain
96
This coincides with an operation he will have to lead at Morro dos Prazeres in order to secure the location and clean it of drug dealers, so that Pope John _____ II can spend the night iin Archbishop's home, located near the slum buildings and favelas.
Paul
97
Besides working at the local police, _______ is a Law student at "the best new Law university of Rio", according to Nascimento, where his classmates are shown as well-off young adults that tend to see the police as a repressive unit, while several others are selling marijuana around the campus.
Matias
98
By riding with his superior Captain _____ (Milhem Cortaz), Neto learns about corruption schemes adopted by police officers – commonly, owners of small establishments pay periodic bribes to the police in exchange for their presence in front of their places, so they are safer.
Fabio
99
Another scheme, learned by Matias, is the relocation of _____ _______ to other battalion's areas, so that one's criminal statistics will artificially decrease and leave less work to the department charged to the battalion, which Matias learns the hard way when his superiors rage at him for filling their department with files they are too lazy to solve.
Dead bodies
100
Nascimento is confronted by a woman claiming the _____ of her son, who was killed by drug lords after being forced to confess by Nascimento, who was then released knowingly of the danger.
Body
101
BOPE's training program takes place over the course of a few weeks in the jungles of Brazil, and proves a tough challenge and all enrolled officers are subjected to severe physical and psychological punishments and are trained under extreme pressure "in order to eliminate the weak and, mainly, punish the corrupt", as Nascimento explains, as the goal is to eliminate all the corrupt and mentally weak officers and only keep the _______ and tough ones.
Honest
102
Because Matias is aware that he will be killed once inside the slum, he blackmails ____ into arranging the meeting at the base of the slum. However, Neto informs Matias that he arranged a job interview for the same day and hour and offers to go in his place to bring Romerito the glasses.
Edu
103
Edu reveals to Baiano that he had been threatened by Matias, and the drug lord decides to take revenge on Matias for getting his friend killed, as well as interrupting his operations. After giving Romerito his _________, Neto is taken down by Baiano and his men.
Glasses
104
In a rage, Matias interrupts a peace walk, beats Edu up and insults _______ and the others, accusing them of being nothing but spoiled hypocritical drug users working for a dealer to provide for their work.
Maria
105
The scenes that precede this chapter take place outside.
Rocket is on the beach with _______.
Angelica
106
Rocket offers to go and get her a ______ at Blacky’s.
Joint
107
In a series of cuts he goes from the beach to the Apartment through narrow streets of low shacks with tin roofs, now with apartment blocks in the background.
We see long shots down alleyways, empty except for a mangy ________.
Dog
108
A low angle looks up between apartments followed by a cut to a dark corridor and knocks on a door.
Cut to _______ inside who opens the door.
Blacky
109
The Apartment consists of a living room containing a few pieces of furniture including a broken refrigerator; the walls are daubed with paint.
At the back, on either side of the front door are a bedroom to the left and a bathroom to the right, where a ______ and lavatory can be seen.
Basin
110
Rocket asks for a joint.
While he is waiting there is a banging on the front door.
Blacky pulls out a ______
Gun
111
Cut to the fixed ______ shot that will tell the story
Long
112
We will not enter the Apartment ourselves, or see things from the characters’ points of view.
This is in marked contrast to the highly ______ style of most film.
Mobile
113
A wide angle ____ and deep focus give an exaggerated perspective to the room where figures appear large in the foreground, small in the background.
Lens
114
The story is told with a series of dissolves where people appear, disappear and reappear in different parts of the ______.
Room
115
In the Apartment the characters watch themselves.
The walls change _______, the furniture moves and objects change.
Colour
116
As usual Rocket guides us through the story that begins with the dissolve into a tidier, more homely version, with the overall colour of the warmer _____.
Past
117
Define heterodiegetic.
Relating to a narrator that does not take part in the plot.
118
The Apartment is mainly yellow, the predominant colour of the 60s favela; a ________ is in the foreground right, a yellow curtain draped behind it conceals the lavatory from our view.
Table
119
Carrot and Aristotle make an agreement but whilst they are doing so Big Boy appears large in the front left.
He knows what is going on and now the ______ is very dark.
Big Boy’s ultimatum leads to Aristotle’s death.
The Apartment is now very dark indeed.
Without changing camera positions the spectator just watches from a distance and listens to the story told by someone who wasn’t there.
We can have no illusion that we are participating in [and therefore having an influence on] the action.
Screen
120
The montage of conflicting shots and the collision of the fast paced editing now give way to the spectacular ________ shots which will morph Rocket from a young man to a boy, and the favela to its former days of low rise shacks and open spaces.
Circling
121
The meeting up of two of the principal characters initiates the story, the circular shot will provide the bridge between what they were and what they will _______.
Become
122
In the stand-off Rocket is in the middle with the police behind him and the gang in front, not part of either faction.
This is a position he will maintain as the ______ voice of the film.
Neutral
123
Rocket is also the person who has sealed Ze’s notoriety by taking photographs of his gang that have made the front page of the newspapers.
At the end of the film we will return to this scene and Rocket will take more pictures, only this time it will be of ______ bribing the police.
We can remind ourselves that what we are seeing is Rocket’s version of events.
Ze
124
To interrupt this action, take us into flashback and begin Rocket’s commentary, we have a ________ shot as he begins to turn his head.
A jump cut to behind Rocket shows the gang in the distance.
As he enters the story as its teller he starts to turn round, his arms still extended.
Medium
125
Rocket is caught between the rock of the cops and the hard place of the ______.
Gang
126
The camera completes a second clockwise 360 degree turn, Rocket centre screen.
The scene dissolves into young Rocket still centre screen, now dressed in a _____ shirt.
The crowded buildings turn into one story simple shacks, the colour turns from cold grey-blue to warm yellow.
Yellow
127
The camera movement continues in a third turn.
The title on screen informs us it’s the _________.
Sixties
128
This scene when replayed will turn into a pitched and bloody battle but now instead of crowded streets there is open space.
Rocket still has him arms out, not to catch a chicken but to try and stop a ________.
Football
129
In the stand-off Rocket is in the middle with the ______ behind him and the gang in front, not part of either faction.
Gang
130
In an interview with Alex Bellos of The Guardian Katia _____ stated her case to be credited as the film’s co-director.
Lund
131
Daniel Rezende has emphasised that his use of digital editing allowed him to experiment and try out new ideas.
He claims that many of the interpretations of the characters were created at the _______ stage.
Editing
132
__________ maintained that it was the editor/director who took the shot footage and created the film through the way the shots were joined together.
Kuleshov
133
Montage is used for emotional effect.
The active and powerful way that it drives the narrative by combining different shots can be examined in terms of other theories used in early _______ cinema.
Soviet
134
These were laid down by _________ in 1923 in his essay The Montage of Attractions where he set out the importance of editing used not to link shots in continuity but to make them collide against each other to produce shocks.
Eisenstein
135
Eisentein proposed that such shots opposed the illusionary ________ of Hollywood because they stress the artificiality of the work.
Realism
136
In City of God opposing or colliding shots move from one mode to another – high to low angles, close up to long shots, movement within the frame left to right, right to left, up to down.
Long takes allow the spectator to settle into the scene; ________ jolts the spectator into a confrontation with the material, constantly removing and changing the image.
Montage
137
The ‘restless’ style, characteristic of the whole film, announces itself from the start.
The film begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close-ups – knife, hand and stone – with a cut to ______ between each shot.
Black
138
The film begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close-ups – knife, hand and stone – with a cut to black between each shot.
This is repeated _____ times in quick succession like a camera flash bulb lighting the scene.
Five
139
The film begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close-ups – knife, hand and stone – with a cut to black between each shot.
Close ups of hands on the neck of a guitar coincide with the entry of the music, the samba that is associated with Brazil, but particularly with the ______ of the slums.
Culture
140
The film begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close-ups – knife, hand and stone – with a cut to black between each shot.
The series of tight close up zooms in and out on further fragments of street life – faces, guitar, tambourine, ______ with tumblers of drinks, hands scraping and chopping carrots, chicken feet, chicken being lowered into the cooking pot.
Hands
141
The first _____ shot of the film is of a live chicken on the table, tethered by its leg amidst piles of chicken feathers.
Mid
142
The chicken appears around the corner and a drum beat accompanies a cut to a close up of a man who we will later know as L'il __.
Ze
143
High shots give a bird’s eye view of the space confined by the buildings.
These cramped places offer little escape.
A sound cut, from music to silence accompanies an abrupt change to a different place.
Rocket and _______, filmed from a low angle, walk down some steps.
Stringy
144
A fast tracking camera follows the chicken.
The gang chase it, firing their guns into the air.
A police car arrives.
The flying chicken is trapped between the police car that would run it over and the gang who would kill it, just as ________ appears to be.
Rocket
145
Close ups of hands on the neck of a guitar coincide with the entry of the music, the samba that is associated with Brazil, but particularly with the culture of the slums.
This sets up the location as a stereotypical tropical ________ scene stressing its ‘local colour’ in fragments, making music, making food.
Festive
146
Another photographic flash illuminates Rocket with his _______.
Camera
147
Another photographic flash illuminates Rocket with his camera.
This is in fact a flash forward to the scene that will replay very near the end of the film, where we will see the reverse shot denied us here, that of Ze bribing the police after his gun battle with ____ and subsequent arrest.
He zooms out from behind a network of bars, which collapses down into his image.
Ned
148
The film begins not with the customary establishing shot but with flashes that illuminate a series of close-ups – _____, hand and stone – with a cut to black between each shot.
Knife
