City of God Third-Party Individuals

City of God

Third-party individuals as they attempt to make a connection between two groups

With discrimination being a contemporary issue, some people focus on identifying with particular groups with the purpose of feeling that they belong. These people are likely to express disproval in regard to individuals belonging to other groups and claiming that they are able to understand feelings experienced by persons in communities that have nothing to do with them. Fernando Ferreira Meirelles' 2002 film City of God has generated much tension among lower class individuals in Brazil who felt that the director was unable to tell a story about the favelas in Rio de Janeiro because he did not experience life in these locations first-hand.

The fact that Ferreira Meirelles chose to film the motion picture in a location that was far from the favelas contributes to having audiences consider that he did not actually want to have anything to do with the harsh conditions in Brazilian slums. However, the director inspired from Paulo Lins' 1997 book Cidade de Deus, a novel that was told from a first-person perspective and that related to the actual conditions in favelas across the second half of the twentieth century. It is surely problematic for an individual who is unacquainted with life in Brazilian slums to make a movie discussing it, but does not mean that he cannot attempt to provide viewers with information meant to raise their awareness regarding the critical state of people in the favelas.

Ferreira Meirelles does not attempt to employ Hollywoodian techniques with the purpose of making the film seem appealing to a public interested in seeing action, adventure, and violence. In order to make the motion picture seem as real as possible, he presents people with the harsh reality of the favelas through filming scenes that most viewers are likely to consider exaggerated. Although the director has nothing to do with the storyline present in his film, he manages to provide audiences with a complex account regarding conditions in Brazilian slums. He demonstrates that a person can also tell a story from the perspective of an observer. Moreover, the fact that he is impartial in this situation makes it possible for him to refrain from using subjectivity.

Art typically presents people with divisive topics and makes it difficult for them to fully comprehend an artist's message. Individuals can have a diverse set of reasons for producing art and when they relate to a particular environment that they are not actually connected to it does not mean that they are not entitled to put across their point-of-view. Most people are likely to agree that a person who was eyewitness to an event is better equipped to engage in debates regarding the respective happening. For example, it is very probable that Ferreira Meirelles would have had trouble producing a motion picture on life in the favelas if he did not have access to Lins' manuscript. However, a successful artist needs to gather information from immediate sources in order to be able to efficiently tell a story from his perspective. This is basically what Ferreira Meirelles did at the time when he used Lins' book with the purpose of directing City of God.

Denying a person the right to talk in regard to a certain subject can be categorized as an act of discrimination. As long as she or she is familiar with the topic that he or she tackles, it would seem absurd to claim that he or she is not entitled to relate to the respective subject. A person who is well acquainted with social problems and psychology can encounter little to no difficulties speaking in regard to something that can be better explained through using these two domains. People fail to understand that fiction is not very different from reality and that a person who is familiar with an event that actually happened can employ his abilities to narrate or to direct with the purpose of emphasizing the issues related to that particular incident. While Lins' book received credit for the fact that it presented matters in a straightforward manner, Ferreira Meirelles also managed to highlight the gravity of conditions in Brazilian favelas with the help of his motion picture. His film impressed through the explicit messages that it conveyed and through the fact that it had been one of the best motion pictures to describe life in favelas. It used a limited amount of Hollywoodian elements because Lins' account was already enough for the director to build a film on.