Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media

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Performing the Intermedial across Brazilian Cinema

Editorial

Tamara Courage and Albert Elduque

 

Abstract: Since the beginning, it has always been the song. Among the different arts that developed in Brazil during the twentieth century, music (particularly popular song) has been a dominant and reputable force within the country and internationally. In the introduction to his book O século da canção (The Century of Song), music academic Luiz Tatit highlights the importance of the whole social spectrum in the shaping of Brazilian popular song, the global prestige it gained despite the lack of a Portuguese language influence on the international scene, and its overwhelming heterogeneity, which inhibits definitions and classifications (11–2). Since colonial times, song has been the expression of the cultural formation of Brazil, made up of a mixture of indigenous, Iberian and African rhythms, as well as their hybridisation with foreign genres such as jazz, rock and pop. From Bossa Nova to baião, Tropicália and Manguebeat, songs have expressed the ethnic, social and political contradictions of the country, they have accompanied the lives of Brazilians of every social class, and have even shaped Brazil’s image for people abroad.

 

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