Imagens da vida urbana : leituras de narrativas fílmicas sob as lentes de uma sociologia estética

Abstract

This work is a sociological research based on studies of Georg Simmel (1858-1918) and Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) about conditions of urban existence suggested by three specific filmic narratives: Foreign Land (Brazil, Portugal, 1995), Turbulence (Brazil, Cuba, Portugal, 2000) and Nine Queens (Argentina, 2001). This makes clear the purpose of reconstitution of a perspective, an epistemology and a methodology “aesthetic”, which can be captured in Simmel and Benjamin´s work. The aesthetic analysis is characteristic of mode these authors observing and experiencing life in metropolis, where the diagnosis on the modern fragmentation and style of life demanded a “new” way of analysis and expression unorthodox, from ephemeral phenomena and unusual objects. After analysis his theories of modernity and its modes of expression – both in major works like Simmel´s “Philosophy of Money” and Benjamin´s “Arcades Projetct”, such as the profusion of treaties, aphorisms and essays left for them – we found the aesthetic procedure for the analysis of objects chosen here. The films analyzed suggest singular forms of relation, typical of city life, permeated by individuals, social types and modes of interaction that combine the increasing objectification of existence with the search of the subjective redeeming experience. The result is a variety of possibilities, typical colorful cities – contemporary and “peripheral” cities – represented, oscillating between the tragedy of life´s technicisation life and the love.