Reflections on Stephen Selka Lecture November 7, 2011

I attended Stephen Selka's lecture Catching Spirits on Film: Representations of Candomblé in Brazilian Cinema last week at City College New York. It was part of the Trans-Carribean Reflections City Seeds Lecture Series, on Aesthetic and Cultural Expressions of African Derived Religions. I learned about the lecture series from my colleague Nia I'man Smith, education fellow at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

The series was extremely intellectually stimulating, hosting an earlier lecture by Yvonne Daniel, a personal academic hero of mine. I had not heard of Stephen Selka prior to this series. The subject mater Selka was exploring was so interesting I was excited to attend, and definitely left more than satisfied. The lecture took place in a small auditorium at CCNY's downtown building near Wall Street and the Occupy Movement. Selka, visiting New York from Indiana University where he is on Faculty, mentioned his visit to Occupy as a preface to his discussion about Black Religion and Cinema and the black consciousness movement growing out of Salvador, Bahia.

Selka's talk toured through his academic interests, focusing on his interest the consumption of culture through cultural and commercial appropriations and cultural tourism in Salvador, Bahia.

Selka is an anthropologist by training, but used Brazilian cinema as a point of departure to discuss cultural climates and shifting discourse in the late 20th century to present Brazil.

He began his lecture in the Cinema Novo Movement (1950s-1960s), of which most notable filmmakers were Glaber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Carlos Diegues and Jaoquim Pedro de Andrade.

Next, Selka briefed us on the Bahian Renaissance, 1960s-1970s
We watched brief clips from
-O Pagador de Promessas (The Payer of Promises) 1962 by Anselmo Duarte
-Barrenvento (The Turning Wind) 1962 by Glaber Rocha

Then we interrogated the 1970's Films in Brazil, Post Cinema Novo
-O Amulteto de GOgum (1974)
-Provo do Fogo (1981)
-A Força de Xango (1977)
-Tenda dos Milagres (1977)
-Cordão de Ouro (1978)

Following breif descriptions and clips from these films, Selka began to discuss contemporary Brazilian Cinema in more depth. Selka provided a healthy length clip and discussion of the recent film Besouro (2009) by João Daniel Tikhomiroff. My colleage Gerald Leavell shared this film with the 2011 cohort of Expanding the Walls. Gerald explored Besouro for it's visual intricacy of storytelling, whereas Selka explored the presence of the Orixa in the characters on screen, specifically the Eshu or trickster Orixa.

Lastly, Selka discussed Jardim das Folhas Sagradas (2011) The Garden of the Sacred Leaves. For Selka, this film represents a culmination of the themes and ideas previously discussed from the cinema novo movement beyond.

Selka concluded that Candomblé became more than a politicized movement, when the black movement in Brazil began using Candomblé symbols, it was a drive toward ethnic affirmation.

Selka can be reached at sselka@indiana.edu
http://www.transcarib.org/?page_id=142