Pele negra, lentes brancas: raça e relações de poder na construção da mise-en-scène documentária

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze and understand the ways in which the documentary filmmaker can mediate the construction of the mise-en-scène and self-mise-en-scène of a black character during the process of documentary filmmaking, taking into account the power relations and hierarchies established throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production stages of a film from a racial perspective. To this end, directing oriented toward the construction of the mise-en-scène and self-mise-en-scène became the main object of research, while the corpus for analysis consisted of the production of a short documentary film titled There Is No Black-Skinned Ninja. The film addresses how black cosplayers engage in an environment with such a pronounced lack of diversity, as seen in geek and pop culture communities centered around films, series, anime, games, and other media. As the film’s director, I start from the hypothesis that, for the character to express their performance as desired, the filmmaker, whether black or non-black, must embrace the person being filmed, offering them the freedom to develop their performance while still maintaining their own directorial perspective. To develop this investigation, the dissertation relied on an extensive bibliographic review that considered authors who have explored themes such as: the relationship between the director and the documentary subject (César Guimarães, Jean-Louis Comolli, Jean-Claude Bernardet, and Patricio Guzmán); the documentary and its contemporary form (Bill Nichols, Cezar Migliorin, Consuelo Lins, Cláudia Mesquita, and Karla Holanda); racism and race relations (bell hooks2 , Frantz Fanon, Kabengele Munanga, and Nilma Lino Gomes); black cinema (Edileuza Penha de Souza, Jeferson De, and Noel dos Santos Carvalho); performance studies (Leda Maria Martins, Clifford Geertz, Robson Corrêa Camargo, and Victor Turner); the concept of power and identity (Achille Mbembe, Claude Raffestin, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Stuart Hall); and the practice of documentary filmmaking itself (Alan Rosenthal, Michael Rabiger, and Sérgio Puccini, among others). In this way, I sought to understand how the relationships between documentary filmmakers and black characters unfold within the scene play, revealing the various ways in which racism is socially and structurally embedded. I also considered how we, as filmmakers, can mediate this mise-en-scène so that it develops freely and authentically, in a way that values human diversity throughout the filmmaking process while minimizing, and ultimately seeking to eliminate, racist constructions within cinematic practice.