The article analyzes Alba Zaluar’s ethnography A Máquina e a Revolta [the Machine and the Revolt], confronting it with the fictional discourses of Paulo Lins’ novel Cidade de Deus and the homonymous movie directed by Fernando Meirelles. In so doing, it seeks to discuss the ethical dilemmas of an anthropological investigation when confronted with the discourses exposed by the novel and the film, discussing as well some specific problems raised by the different forms of representation of theCidade de Deus dwellers, as appeared in the anthropological research, in the novel, and the film. The historical context of each of the discourses is also analyzed in order to show their particularities. Attention is also given to the public debate confronting these different discourses on the press, what gave opportunity to reveal their different political and ethical positions about poverty and urban violence.
Cidade de Deus; Urban anthropology; Ethics in Ethnography; Contemporary Brazilian cinema; Intertextuality