Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Glauber Rocha’s name remains synonymous with Cinema Novo, and he continues to serve as a poster child for Brazilian film more generally. But throughout his career, Rocha was a committed internationalist, and his copious writings on film attest to the eclectic nature of his interests. These ranged from Hollywood westerns to Soviet cinema, from the films of “Our Lord Buñuel” to the experiments of many European new waves. On the one hand, this eclecticism is simply the sign of Rocha’s certifiable cinephilia. On the other, it is worth remarking in the context of a volume like this one, because it invites us to put pressure on the very notion of a national cinema. That is, Rocha’s example prompts us to ask: What happens to the category of Brazilian cinema if we recognize the contact and even the contamination at its heart? This chapter pursues answers to this question by analyzing Rocha’s contact with Pier Paolo Pasolini, who made a poetics of contamination central to his filmmaking.</jats:p>