Juiz de Fora e o “amigo do povo”: uma biografia de João Gonçalves Carriço

Abstract

This thesis is a biography of João Gonçalves Carriço (1886-1959), an artist of multiple mediums: painter, scenographer, poster artist, photographer, filmmaker, film producer, and film exhibitor. Carriço owned the movie theater “Cine-Theatro Popular” and “Carriço Film”, a film production company responsible for recording the daily life of Juiz de Fora for more than two decades (1933-1956). At the theater, he allowed free admission or offered reduced prices - calling himself “the friend of the commoner”. His cinematographic production is characterized by the attention to political themes, sports practices, and religious, military, and popular festivals, such as carnival. At street parties, the commoners who lived on the margins in the lower strata joined other layers of society, gaining a platform in Carriço's films. These commoners inserted in the urban environment are the focus of this research analysis, since they witnessed a series of events held in the municipality, reported by the filmmaker. The material was approved by the Department of Press and Propaganda and was shown throughout the country by the “Brazilian Film Distributor” (“Distribuidora de Filmes Brasileiros”). The volume produced is significant, which places him as an important figure of the cinema in Minas Gerais and Brazil, mainly because he contributed to decentralize the hegemonic production of the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo axis. Throughout his life, this citizen of Juiz de Fora built a path as an intellectual mediator acting, above all, in the political and social spheres. The films bring materiality about the nationalist concepts, contributing to the construction of the collective memory of a moment in history. This historiographic exercise was to promote the viewing of all newsreels, a total of 125 films that make up 16 hours of material, in addition to the observation of about three thousand original photos that make up his collection. Documental analysis also included other historiographical sources that reveal the grandeur of this character and his legacy, still little studied by national researchers.