The gaze and the voice: the multifocal narration in film and the import of History in São Barnardo

Abstract

In film, the analysis of "point of view" and "voices" in the narrative process confronts specific questions that require a medium specific theory. In order to cope with its object, this specific theory must go beyond the simple incorporation of concepts borrowed from literary theory. This article discusses the way in which São Barnardo (Hirszman, 1972) offers us strategies typical of a modern cinema engaged in the exploration of possible disjunctions between image and sound - the gaze and the voice - in an adaption of Graciliano Ramos's novel, which inscribes in its very form, the distance that separates it from the original text.