Cinema and the CIty of God

In this article by Brianair, the author explores and clarifies the stories of individual characters in the film from their beginnings to the present day occurrences of the people. He also talks about the film’s background and its place in the Brazilian cinema. He talks about the importance of the genre conventions, editing, traditions, and political influences as well as the overall impact of society on this film.

The main ideology communicated within the film surrounds the violence that is present everywhere you look in the favelas. It is the life of the characters and all of the hardships they go through to survive and attempt to leave this hostile environment of crime and drug trade and violence. The violence leads to an ongoing clash between two rival gangs who fight over power and money and control of the city that they can not ultimately escape. It is very authentic in its use of social-realist subject matter because it portrays the real life drug lords in Brazil. We see the context of Brazilian life and this is shown very accurately in this film. A centralized issue here is violence and most of the film, aside from the coming of age and innocence and other topics such as romance, revolves around it.

There are many film traditions, genres, historical and political influences are communicated in the film. There were some obvious traditions and genres used. The genres included were violence films, gangster films, and also action filmic techniques. It is an action movie because all of the examples of fast-paced actions and adventures that the characters face. It is a gangster film because there are essentially two different rival gangs fighting to power among the Brazilian favelas which is the setting for the story. It is evidently a violence-themed film because of the illustration of ruthless violence and the taking of innocent lives as well as gang-violence throughout the film. Also non-diegetic sounds are used when the narrator or music is shown to portray events outside the actual film almost as if it serves to give background of the movie as a whole. This allows for a greater understanding of the film. Historical influences can be seen as the portrayal of setting within the era of the 1970’s. Political influences are the actual class-structure and way of living in this society in Brazil. There is a large separation between the poor and filthy favelas and the rest of the society and when the character wish to escape for a better life, they can not ultimately escape ever because they are trapped and this serves as an ongoing motif throughout the story as a symbol of hardship and pain. Flashbacks are used to tell stories of how the characters got to the point where they currently are as well. A final significant technique used was switching between the anecdotes about the characters in a non-orderly fashion to cause drama and suspense while giving us insight about who these people are and their relations to one another.   

Based on the research that I have done so far on the City of God, the focus area that most interest me for my personal research is the growing up essence of the film. IT is a coming of age story for many of the characters and the fact that it is an action film helps because these are usually intertwined. But then again I wanted to focus on the violence within City of God because there is a reason why the director wanted to make this detail such an obvious issue that is shown in a very explicit and large way. It is a very important issue and must be stopped in this society. I wanted to look at how the famous Godfather related to this film in terms of genre as a noir film and gangster film and how they show impacts on society through filmic techniques.