The style of the author/screenwriter in Brazilian telenovelas: a study from the works and trajectory of João Emanuel Carneiro.
telenovela; brazilian telenovela; style; author; screenwriter; João Emanuel Carneiro.
The present dissertation (doctorate degree) undertakes an analysis of the style of the author/screenwriter in telenovelas, working as case study the trajectory and works of João Emanuel Carneiro. The author-screenwriter established himself in the last decade as one of the main contemporary Brazilian novelists, and to date has written six telenovelas for Rede Globo, the Brazil‟s leading broadcaster, those are: Da cor do pecado (2004), Cobras e Lagartos (2006), A Favorita (2008), Avenida Brasil (2012), A regra do jogo (2015) e Segundo Sol (2018). The research path presented here, therefore, understands what is style in telenovelas. To that, the theoretical-methodological path is based on the perspective of David Bordwell (2008a; 2013), for which style in an a film refers to the choices of filmmakers in certain historical circumstances. We consider telenovelas as expressive works, taking into consideration their traits of intentionality and the solutions of problems from the author‟s choices in the elaboration of the product (Bordwell, 2008a; Baxandall, 2006). Articulating formulations of these two authors, we understand the problem/solution model (Bordwell, 2008a; 2013) as an exercise of inference and idealization that considers the author of the work a historical and social agent situated in a context and in a tradition, with principles and techniques agreed upon. Thus, we aim to understand how the author-screenwriter reorganizes certain possibilities, constructing a particular rearrangement of these techniques and configuring what we define as his style. In analyzing telenovelas as historical objects, we infer the circumstances of their creation from the relation between the notion of Order and Directives placed on the work author, which, in the case of telenovelas, is attributed by the screenwriter in a historically constructed position within the field of dramaturgy for TV (Souza, 2004b; and the cultural circumstances and descriptions we make of those works. As an analytical support for the contextual questions of the works, we discuss concepts from the sociology of art of Pierre Bourdieu (1996), which takes the context to understand the product, incorporating the study of the author's trajectory as a way to better understand his or her choices. From the notion of author-writer, our analysis of style refers to the elements under the responsibility of this craft in the work, which relate to the aspects of dramaturgical and narrative construction, since the telenovela is a product based on dialogue, seriality and multiple plots (Pallottini, 2012). By analyzing the mentioned telenovelas, we perceived elements that denotes the style of the author, such as the amplified us of melodramatic elements in order to reverse archetypes and expectations of the audience from a shared repertoire, or the recurrence of protagonists with moral ambiguity.