Uma Escola de Médicos

Benedito Junqueira Duarte and scientific cinema

Abstract

Benedito Junqueira Duarte is the most well-known Brazilian director of science-related documentaries. Among several other activities, he devoted himself extensively to the creation of films with medical themes. The movie Uma Escola de Médicos, made by the documentary filmmaker to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Escola Paulista de Medicina in 1963, presents itself as a general informative film with “scientific” characteristics. However, it is also a commercial movie made by commission, with the objective of exalting its sponsors. From an analysis of this work and Duarte’s career, this article seeks to understand how the filmmaker created a certain kind of visual experience of the activity of science, specifically in the medical field, by manipulating elements from the history of medicine, film language, and values typical of the cultural elite of São Paulo.