O ‘opsigno' de Gilles Deleuze em Machuca (2004): cinema e história após a ditadura militar / Gilles Deleuze's "opsign" in Machuca (2004): cinema and history after military rule

Abstract

This article explores how Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the "opsign", from Cinema 2 (1985), functions in Andrés Wood’s film, Machuca (Chile/Spain/UK/France, 2004) and the role it plays in the film’s reconstruction of national history. Machuca attempts to reconsider a key moment in recent Chilean national history, the military coup of 1973, thirty years after the fact. By focusing on the key moment in the film, during which the young protagonist gazes at an empty football pitch which is bursting with social and political significance, I show how Deleuze’s concept of the "pure optical situation" or "opsign" can help us understand the complex way in which the film enables the spectator to consider recent national history through the eyes of a child. In this way Deleuze’s potentially Eurocentric conclusions in his Cinema books can also be slightly reconsidered through the use of a South American example. Finally, viewing the entire film as a reconstructed layer of the past that can similarly be considered a pure optical situation, I explore the reasons for its popularity in Chile and internationally, in relation to the historical engagement enabled by the opsign