Cidade e cinema: Alice Guy-Blaché e a representação da cidade de Paris no final do século XIX e início do século XX

Abstract

This dissertation explores how Alice Guy, a pioneer of cinema in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, represented the city and its transformations through innovative cinematographic techniques. The main objective of this research is to establish a dialogue between city and cinema, analyzing the contributions of Alice Guy and her films. The methodology employed is qualitative in nature and uses theoretical, documentary, and bibliographic sources, culminating in the filmic analysis of the following works: "Avenue de l'Opéra" (1900), "Les Résultats du Féminisme" (1906), "Madame a des Envies" (1906), "La Course à la Saucisse" (1907), and "L'Enfant de la Barricade" (1907). The research begins with a discussion of Alice Guy's trajectory, in dialogue with current bibliography, and continues with an analysis of her evolutionary narrative. The investigation also addresses how cinema, since the end of the 19th century, has allowed the urban classes to experience adventures, romances, and other worlds without leaving their homes, thanks to its poetic capacity to engage viewers. Alice Guy explored diverse genres, demonstrating the versatility of the city as a backdrop for different stories. As a result, it is observed that one of the possible perspectives for analyzing Alice Guy's films is directed towards the space-image binomial. From this macro-discussion, questions such as the modern relationship between city and cinema, its representations and its scope, as well as the approximation between the areas of knowledge of Architecture and Cinema, are addressed.