Minimalismo musical com ritmo africano: a música no filme Félicité (2017), de Alain Gomis

Luíza Beatriz Alvim; Morgana Gama de Lima

doi:10.15448/1980-3729.2025.1.47371

Authors

Luíza Beatriz Alvim University of Sao Paulo (USP), Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4816-6790
Morgana Gama de Lima Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, BA, Brazil. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7589-8332

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-3729.2025.1.47371

Keywords:

music, cinema, African cinemas, orality, Félicité.

Abstract

The use of classical music is commonly part of the musical design of several award-winning films at European festivals, but some of them, depending on the cultural context in which they are produced, subject such compositions to new arrangements and meanings in the film narrative. Within this context, this article proposes an analysis of the film Félicité (2017), by French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis, with the aim of verifying the aesthetical use of music based on the observation of the resources used by the filmmaker to articulate two distinct musical strands – the minimalist music of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt and that of the Congolese group Kasai Allstars – to observe how these musical choices interact with the film's narrative and, thus, how they relate to sonic conventions associated with African films. The analysis focuses primarily on European composition, showing how it is configured in a very distinct context. To this end, we provide an overview about the use of music in films produced in the African context, also considering how the performance of the voice in such productions relates to orality.

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Author Biographies

Luíza Beatriz Alvim, University of Sao Paulo (USP), Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil.

She holds a PhD in Communication and Culture (UFRJ), with a doctoral internship at the University of Paris 3 under the supervision of Michel Chion. She also holds a PhD in Music (UNIRIO) and a postdoctoral degree in Music (UFRJ). She is currently pursuing a postdoctoral degree at the School of Communications and Arts at the University of São Paulo, with a CNPq scholarship, on the use of classical music in contemporary cinema. She has published several works on sound and music in cinema. She is a member of the Editorial Team of the Brazilian Journal of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies (REBECA), affiliated with the Brazilian Society of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies (SOCINE).

Morgana Gama de Lima, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, BA, Brazil.

PhD in Communication and Contemporary Culture (PÓSCOM/UFBA), with a doctoral internship at the University of Beira Interior (Portugal) and a postdoctoral fellowship on the relationship between narratives of oral tradition and cinemas produced in Africa and its diasporas (CNPq 25/2021). Member of the Film Analysis Laboratory (LAF) research group, she collaborates on audiovisual dissemination projects and is a member of the Editorial Team of the Brazilian Journal of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies (REBECA), linked to SOCINE.

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