ABSTRACT
This article intends to analyze the debates around the notion of underdevelopment in Brazilian culture during the 1960s and 1970s, as first expressed in Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes essay “Cinema: trajetória no subdesenvolvimento” (1973). The comparison with articles written by Glauber Rocha (1965), Antonio Candido (1973) and Ferreira Gullar (1969) indicates fundamental differences in approaching this matter. While Paulo Emílio understood the concept of underdevelopment as a structure to be overcome in the cinematographic field, the other authors used this concept as a mean to express the aesthetic precariousness of the country’s cultural production.
KEYWORDS
Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes; Brazilian cinema; underdevelopment; intellectual commitment