IMAGES OF SCIENCE: EDUCATIONAL CINEMA AND SCIENTIFIC SPEECH IN THE VARGAS ERA (1930-1945)
Educational Cinema, History of Science, Roquette-Pinto, Scientific Dissemination.
The Brazilian Educational Cinema is defined as a film genre that was established in the first half of the twentieth century, and its national legal support established in the government of Getúlio Vargas, more specifically in 1932, from the promulgation of decree 21.240 / 32, and It focuses mainly on the use of documentaries to help the school process of teaching, or to transmit knowledge of various shades to the general public. Educational Cinema is strengthened in Brazil through the performance, above all, of scientists and educators linked to the Escola Nova Movement, who sought a transformation in the traditional forms of education, while seeing in the cinematic potential a way of putting their own education into action. modernization agenda of the country and its population. Film studies from a cultural perspective have grown exponentially since the 1980s, with a growing focus on the “cinematic fact” or the entire contextual construction in which films are embedded. In this way, the construction of a film is analyzed not only as an artistic or communicational act, but focusing on which contexts, articulations, representations and social, political and cultural attributions the cinema carries in itself. In the case of Educational Cinema, an analysis of this aspect allows us to understand how this tool was used in congruence with a scientific discourse in Brazil in the first half of the twentieth century, aligning this work with recent trends in studies of film history and history of science. In this work, divided into two chapters, we will deal with: in chapter 1, the general bases that allowed the structuring of the Brazilian Educational Cinema, identifying the main legal frameworks - especially occurred in the educational reforms of some states - as well as identifying the main international influences that guided this process in Brazil. Chapter 2 will discuss the influences of physician and anthropologist Edgard Roquette-Pinto, a frequent advocate of Educational Cinema as a form of popularization of scientific discourse in the process of consolidation of this type of cinema. Roquette-Pinto pioneered the use of cinema as an educational tool, and her entire career is marked by the exchange between science - especially natural science - and cinema. An approach to Roquette-Pinto's main professional initiatives will be contextualized with discussions about the moral and political construction embedded in the films.