Modes of acting in the “stage trilogy”

the actor and the actress in Jogo de Cena, Moscou and As Canções

Abstract

The article assesses the different forms of performance in the documentary cinema, based on the work of Eduardo Coutinho, particularly the films Jogo de Cena (2007), Moscow (2009) and As Canções (2011). The research analyzes the professional actor in Coutinho's films, drawing a parallel with the participation of non-professional actors, frequent protagonists of his work. Each of these documentaries raises questions that arise from the previous work and, at the same time, point to developments that echo in the following film. Analyzing them together means understanding the discourse that goes beyond each work, delimiting the existence of a trilogy that researcher Fábio Andrade (2013) named “stage trilogy”, a term that we borrow in this article. It is to this final phase of Eduardo Coutinho's cinematography that we will dedicate our analyses. To support such reflections, we will use the Acting Studies methodology, mainly the work of James Naremore (1988) and Jacqueline Nacache (2012) as reference. Therefore, we have reinterpreted these tools to understand the actor's performance towards investigating forms of representation in the field of documentary.