The Modern Foundations of Brazilian Cinema

Abstract

The introductory chapter outlines a theory of early cinema in Brazil and its relationship to the country’s invention of modernity. Theories and examinations of early film’s relationship to modernity have by and large focused on the medium’s links to changes and transformations wrought by the advent of industrialization. Noting that such transformations were not present in Brazil, the introduction outlines how early film in Brazil—that is, its arrival and dissemination—were linked instead to a political project impelled by the first Republican regime, one that sought to transform the country into modern nation-state of order and progress. The chapter maps ways in which this imbrication between film and this project laid the foundations for the birth Brazilian cinema and modernity in Brazil. In doing so, it provides an alternative modernity of early cinema.