Blain Brown's City Of God

City of God (2002) is a crime/drama film, which presents the lives of underprivileged youths residing in a favela in the shadow of Rio de Janerio; Cidade de Deus. The film’s protagonist, Rocket, provides the voice-over narration, providing a portal insight into gang warfare which has divided the favela. Author and cinematography, Blain Brown’s book Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors, catalogues various cinematography techniques utilised in filmmaking. The book explores the creation and communication of meaning created by a camera lens.

In his publication, Brown examines the variety of cinematographic approaches towards constructing and enriching the film’s narrative. In addition to this, he
The lighting, set and actors all fade chronologically into one another to connote the passing of time. However, the shot remains static, uncut and central within the scene. In his book, Brown suggests that audience immersion is one of the most important aspects of filmmaking and cinematography and references the wide angle lens and it’s distortion of depth and size, Brown states “This exaggerated sense of depth has psychological implications” and gives the viewer a “greater sense of presence in the scene”. Within the apartment scene, the wide angle camera lens exaggerates the depth and distorts reality - an interesting choice of lens as the film uses many techniques associated with realism. However, Brown neglects to mention the importance of a static shot in regards to ‘psychological implications’ In the apartment scene, the audience is positioned within the scene, observing drug deals, abuse and murder however as the shot is static, they are immobilised to act on any of the crime, much like the film’s protagonist Rocket who has virtuous aspirations to become photographer. Therefore, within the scene the lack of movement creates more meaning than the