ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Ivan Cardoso's cultural cannibalism, his reworking of situations, scenes, and stereotypes, can be interpreted in the light of Gothic parodies. The chapter contextualizes and describes situations, cultural items, concepts, relationship between people to give a better idea of Cardoso's cinema, its connection with the Gothic, and his position in the intellectual and cultural climate. "Tupi or not Tupi, that is the question", famously spoken in at a banquet during the Modern Art Week, summarizes the Dilemma of national identity: a parodic version of a famous quotation by William Shakespeare, invoking the once largest indigenous group to live in the territory now called Brazil. The chapter also argues that Ivan Cardoso's films exemplify a return of Brazilian cinema to a national movie genre derived from the old chanchadas. It also argued that Cardoso exposes a dialectic of horror and laughter, employing parodic forms and conventions which characterize the artificiality of the Gothic mode.
