Posterities of Limite in Brazilian Cinema

ABSTRACT

Revisiting Limite (Mário Peixoto, 1931) on the occasion of the discussions on Brazilian Modernism held on the centenary of the Semana de Arte Moderna, the article questions the historiographical postulate according to which the film had no precursors or successors in Brazil. Focusing on the case of the successors, we will point out three dimensions of Limite’s posterity in Brazilian cinema: 1) the appropriation of images from the feature by historiographical films; 2) the iconography that reinforces the leitmotif of decadence and death in situations of material precariousness; 3) the work of visual empowerment of the camera and the narrative structured by the characters’s agonizing retrospect.

KEYWORDS:
Limite; Mário Peixoto; Modernism; Comparative Cinema; Experimental Cinema