The thesis aims to uncover some of the many ways in which contemporary Argentine and Brazilian cinema have registered and helped to construct national identity since the mid 1990s, when, after almost collapsing at the height of the debt crisis of the previous two decades of military dictatorship, film production experienced a boom as a result of new film legislation. The transition from dictatorship to democracy and the adoption of the neoliberal economic model were accompanied by the erosion of the nation-state, an increase in international agreements and the formation of regional blocs such as Mercosur. The thesis draws primarily on postcolonial and film theories to show how the socio-political aspects of the transition engendered changes in the ways in which the nation is constructed. The thesis does this through engaging with discourses pertaining to the formation of supra-national communities via case studies of selected films. Among the questions addressed are the following: How have Argentine and Brazilian films negotiated the impact of globalisation on identities? How have cinematic practices and filmic representations in contemporary Argentine and Brazilian cinemas encouraged critical reflection on the countries‟ position in a global system? I construct an argument in Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 for the continued relevance of a critical focus on the nation in a globalised era in which trends in criticism are set toward a transnational approach. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 explore how films have re-constructed the national in the face of the growing impact of globalised identities, by engaging with supra-national entities such as diasporic, Lusophone, Ibero-American, and regional communities. Contemporary Argentine and Brazilian films are shown to display complex identity-negotiations in a globalised context and, in turn, pose meta-critical questions for filmic (and more general cultural) analysis in a transnational context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:557797 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Pinazza, Natalia |
| Contributors | Goodbody, Axel ; Martin, Debbie |
| Publisher | University of Bath |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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