“Cineastas do mundo, uni-vos!” : performatividade e enunciação em As armas e o povo e outras aparições de Glauber Rocha

Abstract

Since As Armas e o Povo (1975), a film produced by Coletivo Trabalhadores da Atividade Cinematográfica de Portugal about the Carnation Revolution, the filmmaker Glauber Rocha, who collaborates interviewing people in the street demonstration of May 1, 1974 – the first popular celebration after the recent fall of the dictatorial regime –, decisively enters into onscreen space and never leaves it. This PhD Dissertation aims to investigate, firstly from a synchronic perspective, how Glauber Rocha's intrusion becomes a recurring formal procedure to be found in all his productions following his Portuguese experience (from Claro to Abertura). Combining a diachronic perspective, the study considers the previous productions in order to ascertain to what extent the sense of performativity that guides him in these appearances is already prefigured in his actors directing, for instance. We also assess some of Glauber Rocha's critical writings, which communicate his thoughts on filmmaking. Therefore, we will seek to understand the modulations that allow us to see how this sense of performativity, which manifests itself and guides the director on- and offscreen space, points toward poetic-critical essayism and inventive journalism. Finally, it will be shown how statements, propositions, and reflexivity of thought – making use of residual resources of irony and metadiscourse – help us understanding how entry into onscreen space becomes part of Glauber Rocha's aesthetic and political project and supports his exercising of a new audiovisuality.