Images of progress: cinema, history painting and the historiography in the visual narrative of the film Metrópole de Anchieta (1952), by B. J. Duarte

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the film Metrópole de Anchieta (1952), from the director and critic B. J. Duarte, produced in the context of the preparations for the celebration of the 4th Centenary of the City of São Paulo. The film tells the story of the city, based on the historical narrative produced in São Paulo in the first half of the 20th century and on the visual discourse of the Museu Paulista, curated by Sérgio Buarque de Holanda at that time, who was also the historical consultant of the production. This article seeks to understand how the film dialogues with traditional historiography, history painting and the museographic discourse of the Museu Paulista itself. The film takes part in the historical culture (as conceptualised by Rüsen) built from multiple layers of representations, with which the visual culture collaborated to praise the “progress” in line with the Paulista regionalism.