The problem of the subject-hero in twenty years later (cabra marcado para morrer) : film by Eduardo Coutinho

Abstract

Run in three stages, 1964, 1981 and 1983, this film in ans attempt to redeem the tragic events which provoked the death of João Pedro Teixeira, president of Sapé Peasant League, Paraíba state, in 1964. Interrupted by the 1964 military coup, shooting was resumed 17 years later. The article is attempt at disentangling the articulation of Eduardo Coutinho´s speech as the discourse of truth for, from beginning to end, it is posed as a documentary, and neutral as a result, which would the excesses and violence generated by Brazilian politics as that time. By analyzing the images and their editing in connection with the narrator´s speech, the article tries to show that a new interpretation of facts taken as background has been made, and such interpretation surely has much more to say about a certain view on the Brazilian peasantry and a way of making politics - and therefore history - rather than about the narrated facts as such. As a result of that fluctuation the subject-character keeps changing places all the time, thus confirming the very same tricks the firm primarly strives to denounce.