“Films on Fire”: Cinema, Press and Sensationalism in Rio de Janeiro’s Belle Époque

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the journalistic coverage on fires that had place in cinemas in the turn of the twentieth century, when some structuring traits of Rio de Janeiro’s society emerged in relation to cinematographic consumption and to the role of the press. Our main question is: how was sensationalism used as a key factor in the interpretation of these fires? Our hypothesis is that it can be seen as a practice of communication between different social groups, since its marks permeate different ways of experimenting modernity. We will try to understand how sensationalism was articulated as a key of interpretation in relation to cinematographic consumption, in a historical moment in which hierarchies of class, gender and race were reinforced by the logic of the new occupation of the urban space.

Keywords:
cinema; sensationalism; Belle Époque; press