Chanchadas and intermediality: On the musical numbers of Aviso aos navegantes (Watson Macedo, 1950)

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dc.contributor.authorCesarino Costa, Flávia
dc.contributor.authorGibbs, John
dc.contributor.editorCourage, Tamaraen
dc.contributor.editorElduque, Alberten
dc.date.accessioned2020-07-24T08:34:49Z
dc.date.available2020-07-24T08:34:49Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.description.abstractThis audiovisual essay investigates the intermedial nature of Brazilian film comedies produced during the 1940s and 50s by exploring the musical numbers of Aviso aos navegantes (Calling All Sailors, Watson Macedo, 1950). Brazilian cinema of this period is a privileged arena of different media strategies. Its “mixed” style is informed by Hollywood cinema but also by the domestic influence of radio, Carnival, and by the local forms of comic staging of the teatro de revista (the Brazilian equivalent of music hall or vaudeville). Of particular interest in this regard are the chanchadas, a body of films made between the mid-1930s and the early 1960s, that presented musical performances intertwined with comic situations, slender narrative lines and strong connections with the world of Carnival. Our aim is to show how the relationships between the different forms of cultural production in 1950s Brazil can be identified in a specific chanchada, opening a dialogue between musical performances on stage, over the radio, at Carnival and on screen. The essay also examines similarities and differences between chanchadas and the Hollywood musical comedy tradition. One area explored is integration, both in the sense in which it is often used in film studies, to discuss the relationship between the numbers and the narrative, and in reflecting on whether the different elements which feed into the numbers of Aviso aos navegantes are seamlessly combined in the film. Despite the huge popular success of his films, Watson Macedo was considered by many as the most “Americanised” of the directors of that period, adhering less to the critical mechanisms of parody than was the case with his contemporaries. However, if we pay attention to Macedo’s musical numbers, it is evident that these performances are not imperfect copies of Hollywood originals, but have a logic of their own. This audiovisual essay complements Flávia Cesarino Costa’s other contribution to this issue of Alphaville, the article “Building an Integrated History of Musical Numbers in Brazilian Chanchadas”, by exploring related ideas in the context of a single film. As well as the interest of the video essay’s own exploration and argument, the pairing of essays—traditional and videographic—enables readers of this issue to pursue their thinking about chanchadas and intermediality with specific audiovisual material in front of them.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationCesarino Costa, F. and Gibbs, J. (2020) 'Chanchadas and intermediality: On the musical numbers of Aviso aos navegantes (Watson Macedo, 1950)', Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 19, pp. 28-30. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.19.03en
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.19.03
dc.identifier.endpage30
dc.identifier.issn2009-4078
dc.identifier.issued19
dc.identifier.journalabbrevAlphavilleen
dc.identifier.journaltitleAlphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Mediaen
dc.identifier.startpage28
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/10300
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherFilm and Screen Media, University College Corken
dc.relation.urihttp://www.alphavillejournal.com/Issue19/StatementCosta_Gibbs.pdf
dc.rights© 2020, the Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.en
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectIntermedialityen
dc.subjectBrazilian film comediesen
dc.subject1950sen
dc.subjectMusical numbersen
dc.subjectChancadasen
dc.titleChanchadas and intermediality: On the musical numbers of Aviso aos navegantes (Watson Macedo, 1950)en
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Issue 19: Performing the Intermedial across Brazilian Cinema