Violence In City Of God

Violence is a big factor in City of God. It is almost the main narrative of the film as one murder or death sparks another at continues to cause a chain reaction throughout the film. Brazil favelas is common knowledge around the world as being highly dangerous place to dwell or inhabit. The film does well in a certain extent to portray the violence that would occur in such a poor society as the favelas but the film embellishes the murders so it attracts more viewers. It stylises the violence in such ways as if it was a western.

“City of God borrows certain conventions of the Western to suggest the theme of the frontier, and violence is, in part, framed by this frontier sensibility. The dusty, brown streets and buildings of the favela bring

With the violence becoming naturalised to the audience some aspects of the murders seem very extreme or fictionalized to once again please the viewers. One scene in particular is when lil ze (little dice at this stage of the film) goes on a killing spree in the hotel. The scene seems very extreme or dramatic for a child to commit such an atrocity. I feel this such crime was told to help develop Lil zes character, to become this powerful drug lord more so than the truth. Violence in the film represents how much control or power a character has within the favelas. Violence is almost like currency, the more violent you are the richer you become, with not only power but drugs and guns. The film shows how the others fear the powerful whilst in the

His death is also the cas of revenge. In this case it’s to do with a young male avenging his father’s death which once again feels fabricated for the viewer’s benefit. To keep the viewer enthralled. Although the film does contain a great deal of fabrication, quite a few of the main characters were either real or based of real people. This is only touched upon at the end of the film where newsreel footage is intercut with the credits. An almost identical interview of the character of Knock Ned is played with regards to framing, dialogue and delivery; along with stills of other characters. Even in Roger Ebert’s review of the film he indicates the character of Rocket is indeed based of a real Brazilian photographer Wilson Rodriguez. Whether or not the circumstances that led him to becoming a photographer were much like Rockets is debatable as there is very little information surround his early life in Brazil. “A note at the end says it is partly based on the life of Wilson Rodriguez, a Brazilian photographer” (Erbert