Criticism as historical reception: interfaces between the thought of Walter da Silveira and Brazilian cinema

Abstract

From the writings of the baiano film critic and essayist Walter da Silveira, we try to comprehend how the Brazilian cinema was endorsed and judged by him in some newspapers from Bahia between the 1950s and 1960s. We share the conceptual ideas from David Bordwell (1992) and Janet Staiger (1992; 2000) that understand the critic work as a fundamental part of the process of reception of the film from its historical context and not only from the immanent features of the critic text. In the case of Walter da Silveira, we noted that his view equilibrates between the valorization of the national movies and the analytical detachment important in any critical evaluation.