Literariness in Playing

A proposal of a relationship between cinema and literature

Abstract

Playing has accumulated commentators since its launch in 2007. Among the works that have immersed themselves into its materiality, there is a recurring discussion about the film's dialogue with cinematographic and theatrical language. Less frequent is the concern with what is literary in it and to what extent its literariness, a concept that originated in Russian formalism, contributes to discussions about cinema and literature from a perspective that understands the social and the historical as components of the artistic form. In this way, I review the more traditional approaches between cinema and literature and revisit some of the relationships between these artistic languages in Coutinho's production and, more specifically, in Playing. Among the characteristics highlighted by scholars are: the relationship with the viewer/reader, the approximation to the essay, the prominence of the word, the poetic tone of testimonies, the incidental motivation of names and the entanglement with the literary through the citation of literary works. Then, the notion of literariness is revisited, especially regarding the characteristics of the narrative, dramatic and epic genres. The reinterpretation of those characteristics from a socio-historical point of view is based on the analysis centered on the first sequence of the film, exemplifying the motto of the feature film which revolves around three axes: between the commodity form and the artistic form; between fiction and non-fiction and between transparency and opacity. In this way, I hope to contribute to broadening the scope of the literary and the literary reading in cinematographic, theatrical, and literary works.