Performance e convocação do espectador na obra César Deve Morrer

This paper analyses the acclaimed Italian film Caesar Must Die (2012), directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, which is starred by inmates from Rome’s high-security prison Rebibbia. The present work aims at investigating how the movie’s performances appeal to audience, once reality and fiction intentionally mingle within the picture. Thus, it also approaches how directors use strategies considered as belonging to documentary aesthetics, pushing the boundaries of fiction and documentary genres. Authors such as Richard Schechner (2006), Bruno Leal (2005), Andre Brasil (2011), Jean Comolli (2008), Ruben Caixeta, and Cesar Guimaraes (2008) are included in the theoretical framework. From the definition used by both David Bordwell (2008) and Fernao Pessoa Ramos (2012), the conception of mise-en-scene is taken as an analytical operator. Keywords: performance, mise-en-scene , Caesar Must Die , fiction, documentary.