Questões de Concurso Comentadas para engenheiro de equipamento júnior - inspeção

      The worn wooden floorboards squeak under Rafael Molina’s heavy steps as he paces the saloon. Outside, the sound of galloping horses breaks the silence of the surrounding desert. All around him, the Old West town’s empty shops and abandoned houses look as if they have just been ransacked by cowboy bandits. 

      “When I was a kid, I could only dream about all this,” says the 68-year-old former actor and stuntman. “My aspiration was to see a film set firsthand. Today I own one of the most famous ones in the history of Western movies.”

      But this busy movie site is located in Spain — not Montana or Texas. It’s one of three faux Old Western towns in the small village of Tabernas and the surrounding desert of the Almería province. Since the late 1950s, these rugged mountains, arid plains, and dry canyons have provided the backdrops for more than 170 movie Westerns, including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966) and Once Upon a Time in The West (1968). 

      Molina belongs to a small community of local cowboy actors and stuntmen in Tabernas who have played a role in movies and TV shows since the first productions in the 1950s. They can perform anything from fistfights to horse drags. Knowledge and skills often pass from father to son, keeping tricks of the trade in the family. Steeped in the golden era of Westerns, these actors embody the values of their movie heroes: pride, bravado, freedom, and a trusting relationship with horses. 

      “I’ve always liked horses and the [U.S.] West,” says 29- year-old Ricardo Cruz Fernández, a stuntman and cowboy who appeared in recent productions including Game of Thrones. Fernández started his career as a cowboy after completing a stuntman course a decade ago.

      Between productions, he performs daily shows at Fort Bravo for thousands of tourists who visit the set each year. In one show, Fernández portrays a bank robber who absconds with some gold. Visitors encounter him in the saloon, fist and (fake) gun fighting with actors playing his double-crossing accomplices. The town also offers cancan dance shows and set tours by horsedrawn wagon. 

      “I prefer to play the bad guy, because it gives me a wider range of possibilities,” says Fernández. “The good guy only has to keep things in order.”

      Almería has hosted more than 500 productions, including blockbuster films (Patton, Terminator: Dark Fate) and TV shows (Doctor Who). “Our landscapes are very convenient. We have sea, desert, and snowy mountains all within a short distance,” says local producer Plácido Martínez. “We can serve as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and endless other natural settings.” 

Matteo Fagotto. The Wild West lives on in southern Spain. In: National Geographic. Internet: (adapted)

      As tecnologias de contar e escrever histórias não seguiram um caminho linear. A própria escrita foi inventada pelo menos duas vezes, primeiro na Mesopotâmia e depois nas Américas. Os sacerdotes indianos se recusavam a escrever as histórias sagradas por medo de perder o controle sobre elas. Professores carismáticos (como Sócrates) se recusaram a escrever. Algumas invenções posteriores foram adotadas somente de forma seletiva, como quando os eruditos árabes usaram o papel chinês, mas não demonstraram nenhum interesse por outra invenção chinesa, a impressão. As invenções relacionadas à escrita tinham muitas vezes efeitos colaterais inesperados. Preservar textos antigos significava manter vivas artificialmente as línguas. Desde então, passou-se a estudar línguas mortas e alguns textos acabaram sendo declarados sagrados. 

Martin Puchner. O mundo da escrita: como a literatura transformou a civilização. Pedro Maia Soares (Trad.). São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2019, p. 18 (com adaptações).