<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the first Portuguese settlers arrived at the Northeast lands of Brazil they found a vast arid and hot zone that they referred to as \u201csert\u00e3o\u201d. Certain historians argue that it is a deviation of the term \u201cdesert\u00e3o\u201d (a big desert in Portuguese), however, its ethnography is still unknown. Nonetheless, its modern meaning, a part of signifying a \u2018wild and uncultivated place, away from settlements\u2019[1], it accommodates many other mythic and legendary connotations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, the sert\u00e3o\u2019s history is entwined with struggles such as the War of Canudos that was a conflict between Brazilian army and the social movements led by the messianic Ant\u00f4nio Conselheiro. Such stories were very important to the making of several films such as Glauber Rocha\u2019s films Black God, White Devil (1964) and Ant\u00f4nio das Mortes (1969); or the canga\u00e7o, the social-banditry, incarnated in the figure of Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, most known as Lampi\u00e3o, \u201cthe king of the canga\u00e7o\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lampi\u00e3o\u2019s figure is also recurrent in many of the films made between the 1950s and 1980s that have the sert\u00e3o as their setting. In addition to the two films already mentioned, Lampi\u00e3o appears in films like Lampi\u00e3o, The King of the Backlands directed by Carlos Coimbra (1964), Cori\u00e7o & Dad\u00e1 by Rosemberg Cariry (1996), Perfumed Ball by L\u00edrio Ferreira and Paulo Caldas (1997), etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perhaps, the most important \u201cchronicler\u201d of the sert\u00e3o\u2019s late colonial and first republican period is Euclides da Cunha. His Rebellion in The Backlands (<em>Os Sert\u00f5es – <\/em>1902) is one of the most influential and well-known pieces of Brazilian literature and it mixes science and fiction to describe the land, the man (people), and sert\u00e3o\u2019s people\u2019s fight. In it, one can find the ten real and now mythic elements that constitute the identity of the backlands: the sertanejo (the man of the backland), the jagun\u00e7o (the farmer\u2019s \u201cbodyguard\u201d), the cangaceiro (the social-bandit), the messianic leader, the pilgrims etc.; Even the droughts, the hunger, and the caatinga (the dry-like vegetation) contribute for the creation of such mythic space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sert\u00e3o until recently has always been seen as synonymous with being backwards due to the reason that most Brazilian big cities have always been located near the coast, a fact that can be explained by Brazil\u2019s colonial past. Production was always been run off to the seaboard to be exported to the European metropolis. Thus the backlands have been associated with the opposite of the modern city, that is to say, as a pre-modern place that could not be developed for economical, political and \u201cnatural\u201d reasons, such as the lack of water in the periods of drought. Despite the latter, however, the sert\u00e3o\u2019s marginal position has to do in a great extent to the political will of the rulers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other hand, the sertanejos could not dedicate themselves to the improvement of their \u201cown\u201d lands as wished; During those periods of drought many of them had to migrate, like the birds that appear in Nelson Pereira\u2019s Barren Lives, to the Southeasten cities and help their families to survive. Huge metropolises like S\u00e3o Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have been constructed with the working force of many Northeasterns, and the favelas too as one can see in Jo\u00e3o Batista de Andrade\u2019s O Homem que Virou Suco (lit. The Man Turned into Juice – 1981).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">New Brazilian cinema has changed its way of representing the sert\u00e3o from the 1960\u2019s Cinema Novo movement\u2019s denunciation of the mysthical and social injustices; passing through the exploitation of the symbols and mythic figures of the sert\u00e3o for entretainment in the 1980s, to a more grounded and realistic sert\u00e3o that aims to demystify the images and the contradictions of the backlands through more personal stories without the aim of producing any metanarrtive or national alegory. This tendency can be seen in films like Walter Salles\u2019 Central Station (1998) – although some old myths are exploited, – Love for Sales (2006) and I Travel because I Need To, I Come Back Because I Love You (2009) both directed by Karim Ainouz, or Bog of Beast by Cl\u00e1udio Assis (2007). The latter is more impressive in its localization, however, as the story reveals a backland far away of being a mythical, moralistic and conservative space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No one can predict how Brazilian cinema will represent the sert\u00e3o in the future, however, what is sure is that we have now very diverse and artistically engendered representations of the Brazilian Northeastern backlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Antonio Filho, F. D. \u201cAbout The Word \u201cSert\u00e3o\u201d: Origins, Meanings And Uses In Brazil (From The Point Of View Of Geographical Science)\u201d. [Ci\u00eancia Geogr\u00e1fica – Bauru – XV – Vol. XV – (1): Jan\/Dec \u2013 2011]. Associa\u00e7\u00e3o dos Ge\u00f3grafos Brasileiros. 21-05-2015. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.agbbauru.org.br\/publicacoes\/revista\/anoXV_1\/AGB_dez2011_artigos_versao_internet\/AGB_dez2011_11.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">http:\/\/www.agbbauru.org.br\/publicacoes\/revista\/anoXV_1\/AGB_dez2011_artigos_versao_internet\/AGB_dez2011_11.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[1] “sert\u00e3o”, in Dicion\u00e1rio Priberam da L\u00edngua Portuguesa [online], 2008-2013, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.priberam.pt\/dlpo\/sert%C3%A3o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">http:\/\/www.priberam.pt\/dlpo\/sert%C3%A3o<\/a> [accessed on 20-05-2015].<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"vimeo-player\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/8728241?h=8aee79ff2a\" width=\"700\" height=\"512\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/535848058?h=e532873621&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" title=\"Imigrante\"><\/iframe><\/div><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"vimeo-player\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/48232969?h=c937fae3e9\" width=\"700\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sert\u00e3o: The Brazilian Backlands When the first Portuguese settlers arrived at the Northeast lands of Brazil they found a vast arid and hot zone that they referred to as \u201csert\u00e3o\u201d. Certain historians argue that it is a deviation of the term \u201cdesert\u00e3o\u201d (a big desert in Portuguese), however, its ethnography is still unknown. Nonetheless, its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ermesonvieiragondim.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}