Gravidade: da mise-en-scène à mise-en-technologie

Abstract

This thesis presents the results of a bibliographical, iconographic and filmographic research that made use of methodology of filmic analysis for the study of Gravity, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, corpus of my study. The research is justified to the extent that in cinema´s texts, as a rule, technology is taken as a given fact or, when this is a theme, the idea of technology as an apparatus is reified. The main research problem is the fact that technology has been considered ancillary and not essential in film studies. My thesis seeks to highlight it since cinema is born and develops through technological advances. It is the relationships between languages and technologies that underlie this activity. Sometimes technology induces new languages, or the invention of a new language suggests a new technology. In this way, the general objective of the research is to deepen the understanding of this relation in the cinematographic production of the film Gravity. The choice of the corpus took into question also the access to the productive process of the film, through its making of. In reflecting on the cinematographic authorship and the technical aspects involved in the films, I developed a concept for the approach of technology: the idea of MISEEN- TECHNOLOGIE, a concept that seems to me necessary for the contemporaneity of filmmaking and thinking. Thus, I argue that this layer of the author process is already present since Méliès, but without a specific study approach. Thus, this is the main focus of the thesis, that is, the argument about the concept of mise-entechnologie, taking into account the concept of mise-en-scène, in complementary approach. The concepts of Professor Álvaro Vieira Pinto, who established in Brazil the philosophical bases for the understanding of technology, are an essential part of the theoretical framework of this thesis, as well as the thinking of Arlindo Machado, who understands technology as an inherent factor in the poetry of the audiovisual work. Jacques Aumont is the principal author used as methodological guidance for film analysis and understanding of the concept of mise-en-scène. Throughout the text, other authors appear because there is, in the present day, the feeling of need of theoretical deepening on subjects such as animation and digital cinema. Authors like Lev Manovich and Marina Estela Graça were fundamental for achieving the results presented here. André Bazin is also a classic theorist revisited in this text. I have used other authors in order to gain a proper understanding of the historical developments of the sciences and the cinematographic arts. In this role I counted with Barry Salt, Raymond Fielding and James Monaco, among others, as well as several sites of institutions such as museums, academies and libraries. I compiled this part of the research into a Timeline that I included as an Annex to the main text.