A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet

City of God /
Cidade de
Deus
(2002, Fernando Meirelles/
Katia Lund, Brazil)
Component 2: Global CORE STUDY AREAS 1 - STARTING
Filmmaking Perspectives POINTS - Key Elements of Film
Form (Micro Features)
Core Study Areas: Cinematography
Key Elements of Film Form • Cinematography César Charlone. The film
Meaning & Response depicts the changing nature of the slum, the
The Contexts of Film favela itself features as a major character that
grows and changes. The open environment
Rationale for study where there are spaces to play football gives
• City of God is an example of Brazilian national way to the closed one with the cramped and
cinema. It is also an international film that narrow streets confined by apartment blocks,
secured worldwide distribution and critical tin roofed shacks, and graffiti spattered walls.
acclaim. Its settings in a Rio de Janeiro favela The characters become more and more hemmed
are ‘authentically’ Brazilian and the language in by the encroachment of these walls and
is Portuguese, but there are enough genre barriers, their dimensions emphasised by
characteristics to invite comparisons with overhead shots. The characters are imprisoned,
Hollywood ‘hood’ films. The flamboyant the killings are speeded up.
and stylish spectacle of violence and poverty • Camera in a fixed position for ‘The Story of the
is narrated by a man/boy/observer of the Apartment’, spectator watching from a place in
action Buscapé/Rocket the photographer. the stalls of a theatre, not entering the Apartment
or seeing things from the characters’ points of
view, a marked contrast to the highly mobile
STARTING POINTS - Useful style of most of the film. A wide-angle lens and
Sequences and timings/links deep focus give an exaggerated perspective
• Opening sequence ‘The Flying Chicken’ to the room where figures appear large in the
00:00:44 - 00:05:50 foreground, small in the background. The
story is told with a series of dissolves where
• ‘The Story of the Apartment’ 00:35:00 - 00:38:11
people appear, disappear and reappear in
different parts of the room. In the Apartment

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 A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet

the characters watch themselves. The walls so as not to lose anything. In the third part of
change colour, the furniture moves, and objects the film, we especially welcomed anything out
change. The lighting gets darker and darker. of the ordinary for the editing style. If a ‘badly
The story appears like a series of tableaux. made’ cut could increase levels of discomfort
• The atmosphere created by lighting, in the viewer then we incorporated it.”
cinematography and camera movement can be • The ‘restless’ style, characteristic of the film,
illustrated by looking at the disco scene where announces itself from the start. It begins not
Bené is killed. Shots of the dancing crowd with the customary establishing shot but with
from the dancers’ eye line contrast with high flashes that illuminate a series of close ups -
angle shots from Rocket’s point of view as he knife, hand, and stone – with a cut to black
puts discs on the turn table, emphasising his between each shot. Another photographic flash
position as an observer and not a participant. illuminates Rocket with his camera. He zooms
out from behind a network of bars, which
Mise-en-Scène
collapses down into his image. This is in fact a
• ‘The Story of the Tender Trio’ retains some flash forward to the scene that will replay very
of the romantic, warm imagery of the earlier near the end of the film, where we will see then
poetic representations of outlaws, social bandits, that the reverse shot has denied us here, with Zé
echoing the cangaceiros, the revolutionary bribing the police after his gun battle with Ned
outsiders of earlier Brazilian films but there and subsequent arrest. He has been introduced
is often a disjunction between the image we as a key player in the drama, but still only a
see on screen and what we hear Rocket say. fragment. The montage of conflicting shots and
The image of Bené and Dice with their arms the collision of the fast paced editing now gives
round each other laughing will recur later way to the spectacular circling shots which will
in the film as a sepia coloured insert, the morph Rocket from a young man to a boy, and
recollection of a lost more innocent time. the favela to its former days of low rise shacks
• A montage of shots of six images that turn and open spaces. The meeting between two of
the boy Dice into the man Zé. His rebirth the principle characters initiates the story; the
is through a candlelit voodoo christening circular shot will provide the bridge between
ceremony that evokes the dead. A priest in what they were and what they will become.
a wheelchair gives him a magic amulet that • The series of tight close ups zooms in and out
seals his pact with death and sanctifies his on further fragments of street life - faces, a
violent behaviour. God has forgotten him and guitar, a tambourine, hands with tumblers of
he can gain power through Exu the devil “the drinks, hands scraping and chopping carrots,
light that shines forth”. The glimpse of slum chicken feet and chickens being lowered into the
dwellers wearing gold jewellery, with their cooking pot. The first mid shot of the film is of
cars and girls bears some relationship to the a live chicken on the table, tethered by its leg.
understood paraphernalia of the gangster film. A cut provides the first long establishing shot of
• In contrast to this Rocket is seen in an the film. The chicken jumps down off the table
atmosphere of normality and freedom - working making a bid for freedom. Brazilians describe
in the newspaper office, riding around in a situation that appears to have taken off and
the newspaper delivery van with the open be going but will soon crash to the ground as
aspect of the mountain in the distance. a “flying chicken”. This apparent freedom is
Editing illusionary – the chicken might try to fly but it
• Daniel Rezende editor “What we tried to do can’t get very far. A close up low-level shot from
with the editing was attempt to use ‘effects’ the chicken’s point of view shows a plate of blood
whenever we thought that this could bring on the ground, a reminder of the chicken’s fate.
something extra to the sensation or emotion Sound
that we were aiming to evoke. If the situation • The use of the first person narrator places us
is tense, and there’s no time to think, we speed in a particular position in regard to what we
it up and make it even tenser. If the character might describe as the narrative “truth” of the
is going to be important later, then we freeze film. The use of various cinematic devices
the face to commit it to memory. If both things that insert us into the text and privilege our
happen at the same time then we split the screen, understanding – point of view, shot-reverse-
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 A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet

shot, eye line match – are sometimes undercut for retribution. Described by Rocket as a hero
by the voice over that contradicts that position. who takes on the bad guy, initially welcomed
• Diegetic music documents the era. Bené dancing as some sort of saviour or champion by the
to James Brown’s Sex Machine emphasises inhabitants of the City of God, he is transformed
his new found persona. Kung Fu Fighting, a into a kind of terrible avenging angel.
song about controlled power played at Bené’s • This is a film that centres on an aggressive
farewell party, is an ironic counterpoint definition of masculinity. The female
to the real violence that erupts there. characters have passive and peripheral roles.
• The music then often acts in a similar way The women in the film - Shorty’s wife, Dona
to Rocket’s commentary, as a seductive Zelia, Blacky’s unseen girlfriend and Ned’s
counterpoint to the violent images. In many girlfriend are there to be the recipients of
films the music underscores the mood of the male violence and are attacked, murdered
drama played out on the screen. A tense, and raped. Berenice and Angélica may reject
violent or emotional moment will be signalled this violence but they are sucked into it as
and echoed by the sounds we hear. The music observers and mourners. They “disappear”
that accompanies the end credits of City of from the narrative and what happens to them
God is what Brazilians call saudade, (happy/ afterwards is of no consequence. Angélica,
sad) leaving the audience with a feeling of threatened by Zé, leaves Bené’s body and is not
nostalgia. This can be said to work against seen again. Berenice, who was given the gun,
the carnage and deprivation we have been is seen fleetingly as a gangster’s moll. Marina’s
witnessing and neutralise the impact of the film. function is to provide the bridge to Rocket’s
entry into manhood and the outside world.

CORE STUDY AREAS 2 - STARTING Aesthetics (i.e. the ‘look and feel’
POINTS – Meaning & Response of the film including visual style,
influences, auteur, motifs)
Representations • Fernando Meirelles was in charge of the images;
• The complex 3-story structure involves 13 Kátia Lund helped in the character development
major characters whose actions motivate the and supervised the crew. Mereilles had no
story, and 11 secondary characters who act experience of the favelas and needed someone
as foils to the action. The rival gangs and the who knew their way around the area and could
Runts contain some nameless characters. City negotiate with the people who lived there. Kátia
of God has no or very few personal details. Lund is the daughter of middle class American
The only families we see are those of Rocket parents who now feels that she’s Brazilian.
and Ned and both play very minor roles. They started the organisation “Nós do cinema”
Characters are in many ways incomplete and / “We of the Cinema”, a workshop project for
two-dimensional. We know nothing, or next boys from the favelas. They chose 200 who
to nothing about their background. they then trained to be actors in the film.
• Mané Galinha / Knockout Ned is assured and • From 1960 to 1964 the first phase of Cinema
handsome. He has lived outside the favela as he Novo “an idea in your head and a camera
served for the military, as well as this his job in your hand” established modern cinema
as a bus fare collector also takes him into the in Brazil. It transformed its image outside
outside world. He has no thought of antagonising the country by reason of its critical success.
others. The rape of his girlfriend and the The Brazil that it symbolised of was one of
murder of his brother and father draw him back exploitation, violence and deprivation.
in. He contrasts with Zé in his appearance, a • Buscapé / Rocket, the documenter and voice-
fact commented on by Rocket. Whereas Ned over in City of God, is based on the photographer
is tall and handsome Zé is pequeno (small). Wilson Rodrigues. He becomes Rodrigues at
Unlike Zé, who is given no motivation other the end of the film and his association with
than inherent evil, Ned’s fall into violence is photography enhances his “neutral” view of
motivated by the need for revenge. Ned is events. The poverty and violence are seen
the tragic hero, drawn into gang warfare and through the viewfinder of his camera, he
forced to use his physical prowess and skills documents the final shoot out. He is the one
as a marksman when he embarks on his quest who informs us what is taking place both on
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 A Level Film Studies - Focus Film Factsheet

a local level (the City of God itself) and at a year the film was made, ex-metalworker
national level (the slums of Brazil). City of Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva was elected as
God mixes the notion of the reporter with his President on his fourth attempt. Head of PT,
objective camera that is able to reveal the truth the Worker’s Party, he led the first left-wing
of a sordid and violent area with the films own government to be in power for more than
highly manipulated and constructed style. 40 years. He promised economic prosperity
fairly distributed to all Brazilians.

CORE STUDY AREAS 3 - STARTING Technological

POINTS – Contexts • The use of digital editing allowed Daniel
Rezende to experiment and try out new ideas.
Social He claims that many of the interpretations
• Brazil is part of the “developing world” and the of the characters were created at the editing
largest country in Latin America, covering about stage. Different results could be obtained
half the continent. It is the fifth largest country with the same footage “all the scenes
in the world in terms of both land area and its evolved from the actor’s improvisations,
population of about 163.7 million. An estimated and of course each one was unique.”
20 % of the population (32 million) live in
absolute poverty. The disparity between those Institutional
living below the poverty line (who receive 2% of • City of God was financed by TV Globo, Brazil’s
the GDP) and the top 10% (who receive 50.6%) is biggest TV channel, and O2 Filmes, Brazil’s
greater than most other countries in the world. biggest commercials company. The international
distributor was Miramax, the company founded
Historical by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 1979. Their
• Brazil was colonised by Portugal in the involvement with the film was a continuation of
16th century resulting in almost genocidal successes they had with international and so-
subjection of the indigenous people. Struggled called independent films. Beginning as promoters
for independence, which was then gained in of rock and roll concerts their reputation as “art
the 19th century. Economy partly founded on film brats” was founded on their involvement
the transport of huge numbers of slaves from with some of the most interesting and
the west coast of Africa, a practise abolished challenging films of the 1980s and early 1990s.
in the second half of the 19th century. Their
multi-ethnic communities are today made
of the descendants of these slaves, together
with immigrants from all over the world.
Political
• Economically dependent and dominated by
the USA in the 20th century. In 2002, the