#Júlia Buisel

[whileiamdying]

MANOEL DE OLIVEIRA: A CAREER by Richard Peña

Chances are that within a few years Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira will be the first filmmaker in history to celebrate his own centenary with the release of a brand-new film. Having just turned 96 (at the time of this writing), and showing no signs of slowing down, the remarkably vigorous Oliveira, who could easily pass for a man 20 years younger, is brimming with plans and ideas for the future. Yet Oliveira's longevity is really just a footnote on what already is one of the extraordinary bodies of work in film history.

Born in 1908 in Oporto, the son of a successful and innovative industrialist, Oliveira developed a passion for cinema early, influenced at first especially by the work of Griffith, Stroheim and the French avant-garde. He recalls the tremendous impact Dreyer's JEANNE D'ARC had on him, as well as the first Soviet montage films screened in Portugal. Joining in with a group of like-minded enthusiasts, Oliveira attempted to make a film about Portugal's involvement in World War One-the first of many projects throughout his career that he would be forced to abandon. After gaining some practical experience working with Italian director Rino Lupo on a film about the Virgin of Fatima, Oliveira in 1931-at the age of 23-completed his first film, the half-hour HARD LABOR ON THE RIVER DOURO. A portrait of a river that geographically defines Oporto, as well as of the workers who make their livings along its bank, the film demonstrates Oliveira's familiarity with the "city symphony" genre that by then was a staple of avant-garde work. Here as in so much of his later work Oliveira's approach to editing is essentially musical, more focused on creating rhythms and movements than establishing temporal or spatial relationships.

Throughout the 1930's, Oliveira mainly worked in the family's business, helping supervise his father's factories when he wasn't driving race cars (another early passion) or, occasionally, making short films on subjects ranging from baroque sculpture to the Portuguese automotive industry. In 1941, he began work on what would become his first feature, ANIKI-BOBO. A quietly powerful look at children's games, and their relationship to adult behavior, ANIKI-BOBO was shot almost entirely in real locations using natural light sources. Two professional actors headed the cast, but the rest of his players were kids recruited off the streets. Widely criticized when released-the Salazar dictatorship was in full swing-the film was also a failure at the box office, but today is commonly cited as a kind of precursor to the neo-realist style that would sweep across Italy and then the rest of Europe in just a few years.

Discouraged, and by then a husband and father, Oliveira again devoted himself primarily to his family business endeavors, partially satisfying his artistic urges by working on scripts that he would only share with a small circle of friends. In the mid-1950's, intrigued by the possibilities of color, he embarked on his next film, THE PAINTER AND THE CITY, a stunning visual essay on his friend, the Oporto painter Antonio Cruz. The film was well received and was even shown in o number of international film festivals. A commission from the government enabled him to make

BREAD (1959), a brilliantly edited, Vertov-like study of the Portuguese baking industry.

THE PASSION OF CHRIST (1963) brought Oliveira to the small town of Curalha, in the remote Tras-os-Montes region of northeast Portugal. Each year, its inhabitants re-enact the passion and death of Christ—a common enough spectacle throughout Europe, yet here Oliveira masterfully shows how the experience of putting on and then performing the actual play affects its players throughout the rest of the year. In a decade known for various experiments in mixing documentary with fic-tion, Oliveira's THE PASSION OF CHRIST is surely one of the most remarkable, patiently revealing the complex interpersonal relationships and tensions that lay just below the surface of the spectacle.

In 1971, Oliveira turned 63, and he finally released his second feature, THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. All of Oliveira's work up to this point had had its basis in the documentary, in the encounter or confrontation of the camera with the physical world; beginning with this film, his work would shift 180 degrees and focus almost obsessively on notions of theatricality, on artifice and convention. Based on Vicente Sanchez's play, THE PAST AND THE PRESENT is a deceptively light (but actually quite brutal) dissection of upper-class morality; it was followed relatively quickly (for Oliveira) with his third feature, and one of his best, BENILDE OR THE VIRGIN MOTHER (1973). Adapted from a play by his friend Jose Regio, BENILDE deals with a case of "hysterical pregnancy" that increasingly takes on religious overtones; Oliveira refuses to "open up" the play, as is so often done in screen adaptations of theatrical works, but rather uses his camera to explore the limits of the theatrical.

If Oliveira had stopped filming after ANIKI-BOBO, he most probably would have deserved a generous footnote in film history; if he had stopped after BENILDE, that note might have been expanded to a paragraph or two, lamenting the director's great but unfulfilled potential. With his next film, however, Oliveira leapt into the first ranks of contemporary directors. Commissioned by Portuguese television, and originally broadcast in six episodes, DOOMED LOVE (1978) tells the story of two young lovers, Teresa and Simao, whose families oppose their union. Here, Oliveira perfects the style he had been developing since returning to fiction: shots are very long and generally static; his actors, facing frontally, deliver their lines often with a minimum of inflection; the sets make little or no attempt at verisimilitude. And yet, by emphasizing the artifice, by highlighting conventions of speech and movement, Oliveira manages to create a purer expression of the red-hot emotions that lay at the heart of Castelo Branco's classic novel.

This strange artifact from what had been an almost unknown only just thrown off the shackles of dictatorship a few years before landed like a UFO on the international festival circuit in the late 1970's, and after producing equal amounts of bafflement and amazement, became one of the most talked about films of the time. DOOMED LOVE would have been a tough act for anyone to follow, but Oliveira came through with the film that for many critics remains his masterpiece. FRANCISCA (1981) is based on a novel by Agustina Bessa Luis, another of Oliveira's favorites, that deals with an incident in the life of Castelo Branco, the author of DOOMED LOVE. In love with Fanny, a young English girl, he is despondent when she chooses his friend Jose Augusto instead. Yet after marriage, Jose Augusto refuses to have anything to do with her, and she dies a virgin. Critics had already written about Oliveira's "trilogy of frustrated loves," noting the thematic similarities between THE PAST AND THE PRESENT, BENILDE and DOOMED LOVE; with FRANCISCA one could now speak of a "tetralogy," as the film deepened Oliveira's treatment of that theme as well as moved even further into his "theatricalized" cinematic style.

With the relative box office success and critical acclaim of DOOMED LOVE and FRANCISCA, Oliveira could finally look forward to a "normal" career as a director-only of course he was now in his mid-70s. Happily, his age proved no limitation on his output, and over the next two decades he would direct sixteen additional features, a number of shorts, and a masterful seven-hour screen adaptation of Claudel's THE SATIN SLIPPER (1985). He would also begin work on a feature for which he is shooting several minutes a year that will be released only after his death.

Oliveira's filmmaking style has continued to evolve; the rigidly formal theatricality of his 70's and early 80's features has given way to more conventional styles of staging action. He has also had the chance to work with some of cinema's finest actors-Marcello Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas, Michel Piccoli, John Malkovich, etc.—so his work with actors has become more naturalistic. Yet there is rarely any mistaking a film by Manoel de Oliveira for one by anyone else. There has continued to be in his work a fascination with the process of A Talking Picture (2003) adaptation: what happens to a text, something Oliveira regards as inherently unstable, when it is "fixed" on the screen? There is an extraordinary economy of gesture in his work, as he seems almost painfully aware how each cut, camera movement or framing will affect the text. Another recurring feature of Oliveira's work is his sense of narrative rhythm; as noted earlier, his approach to montage has much less to do with the demands of storytelling then they do with his attention to rhythm, tone and movement. Shots and even sequences are often repeated, held what might seem to be too long or glimpsed only briefly.

A TALKING PICTURE (2003) exemplifies much of what is best and most distinctive in Oliveira's work. The film examines the interaction of history and myth, and the interaction of both with the monuments, buildings and places in the world around us. A kind of guided tour of the Mediterranean basin given by a history professor to her young daughter, their journey becomes a kind of modern odyssey, reversed in direction and now an attempt to re-join the husband instead of the wife. On their journey, they are joined by three famous actresses-Catherine Deneuve, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli — each in their way linked to the sites of civilization visited along the way. As each is also depicted as a kind of legend in her own right, the actresses take on a kind of mythic quality, the contemporary version of goddesses or muses or some other supernatural deities. Their halting dialog, caused at least partially by their often being asked to speak languages with which they don't feel entirely comfortable, makes them seem as if at times they're actually quoting, another aspect of their otherworldliness.

Oliveira weaves a dense, provocative allegory here, with the education of the child seen as a complex mix of both the world and the ideas that have shaped it over time. Yet, lurking in the background is humanity's capacity for negation, for a violence and destructiveness that all the works of civilization visited on the journey here have tried to tame or at least control. The final image of the film, in a sense, says it all: Malkovich's, and our, confrontation with the darkest corner of the human psyche.

It's a stunning and harrowing moment, and one that only Oliveira could have pulled off.

— Richard Peña, Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center Associate Professor, Film Studies, Columbia University

A Talking Picture (2003) Kino Video 333 West 39th Street NY, NY 10018 www.kino.com

[pt-tiagosantos]

Selecção Caminhos (2018)

O Cinema, e o seu visionamento,foi desde sempre um fenómeno social , um prodígio dependente do movimento exterior num processo isócrono ao ritmo interior. Dentro de nós (imaginação e sonho) tudo é movimento, associado a um profundo e íntimo desejo de produzir e libertar essa afluência emocional e visual ao encontro da catarse. No fundo pretendemos libertar-nos dos limites físicos da nossa condição material, apresentando-se o Cinema como o método de uma outra forma de existir, de ver sonhos, de conhecer mundos interiores e viajar para os exteriores.

A vida é um género de orquestra de formas e ritmos, de história e metahistória, tendo o espectador a grande tela para conciliar (ou até desassossegar) aquilo que consensualmente considera garantido, autêntico ou com uma estranha convicção de obrigatoriedade. Este ritmo cinemático, que apenas se cria se o vemos, fornece uma visão abrangente do que são os múltiplos mundos dos nossos autores cinematográficos e, em última instância, vão respondendo a Bazin (que impôs grandeza dos autores cinéfilos) sobre aquilo que será cinema.

Ao absorver a atenção do espectador o filme substitui o seu ritmo privado, abraçando-o e à sua velocidade, entrando em cada um e dando vida à obra que sai da tela directamente para as discussões, especulações e até à crítica. Tem sido função da “Selecção Caminhos” em particular, e do nosso festival em geral, divulgar o melhor do que é produzido em Portugal, dando voz e imagem a todos os que alimentam a chama da criatividade desta arte.

A condição de programador dos Caminhos, chamamos condição por envolver um contexto e noção de uma conjectura actual constante, implica o sobrepor da razão geral à comoção individual, da concepção ampla ao gosto pessoal. O importante é levar o espectador à sala, apelar ao seu gosto individual que – segundo Bénard da Corsta – tem de ser instruído por uma pedagogia cinematográfica e por ganho de prazer e consciência artística. Para nós resta-nos o gosto de mostrar e fazer gostar, não sendo esses sentimentos menores!

Programar é um dos passos finais desta “mise-en-scène”, onde se vê tudo e se mostrar parte de acordo com quem vai ver. Nesta XXIV Edição do festival Caminhos do Cinema Português, continuamos a acreditar que os criadores cinematográficos devem ser sempre equiparados aos autores de todas as outras artes já historicamente estabelecidas e por isso tratados com o mesmo cuidado e consideração. Seja qual for o seu formato, género, localidade ou até suporte financeiro, seremos sempre um catálogo vivo das principais manifestações audiovisuais que marcaram o ano desde a nossa última edição.

Os Caminhos do Cinema Português defendem, tal como Peter Von Bah, que a projecção tem de ser “a” projecção, um acontecimento que o espectador se lembre “talvez toda a vida”, reservando a nossa equipa os melhores espaços e as melhores telas para esta secção competitiva que visa enaltecer, reconhecer e premiar todos os que produzem cinema em Portugal.

Desta forma, a “Selecção Caminhos” desta edição prosseguirá a dar o merecido destaque ao conjunto de animações, ficções e documentários nacionais (autonomamente da sua duração), naquela que por nós é considerada uma das edições mais ricas de sempre. É a possibilidade de o nosso espectador assíduo, e daquele que pela primeira vez nos conhecerá, continuar a aprender e capturar o significado desta linguagem universal cuja gramática se apresenta – apesar de por vezes complexa – a que mais transversal entre o real e o ficcionado.

Desde os apelos ao que ocorre no país e no mundo, ao recordar do que sucedeu e até ao imaginar o que nunca aconteceu, esta é a oportunidade de em sala vermos sonhos dos nossos artistas, de olhos abertos e ouvidos atentos, com grande imagem, grande som e a possibilidade de conhecer in loco os principais intervenientes desta manifestação (e manifesto) pelas artes cinematográficas.

Segue a lista das obras presentes na “Selecção Caminhos” da XXIV Edição dos Caminhos, num dos anos com mais inscrições e horas de visionamento para analisar e seleccionar de sempre. E agora, citando a programadora Iris Barry, vamos ver filmes!

Animações

Título Realizador Categoria Produtora Duração 28 de Outubro Tiago Albuquerque Animação Animanostra 00:10:41 Agouro David Doutel, Vasco Sá Animação Bando à Parte 00:15:00 Desempregato Sara Marques Animação Take It Easy 00:04:54 Ensaio sobre a morte Margarida Madeira Animação Pickle Films 00:05:43 Entre o Verão e o Outono Maria Francisca Pinto Animação Univ. Católica Portuguesa 00:03:30 Entre Sombras Mónica Santos, Alice Guimarães Animação Animais AVPL 00:13:25 Porque é este o meu ofício Paulo Monteiro Animação Animanostra 00:10:17 Razão entre dois volumes Catarina Sobral Animação Animanostra 00:08:08

Documentário

Título Realizador Metragem Produtora Duração Madness João Viana Curta Doc Papaveronoir 00:12:24 Os Mortos Gonçalo Robalo Curta Doc Errar Filmes 00:27:56 Pele de Luz André Guiomar Curta Doc Promarte / Real Ficção 00:18:36 A Casa Rui Simões Longa Doc Real Ficção 01:18:00 À Tarde Pedro Florêncio Longa Doc Zêzere 00:56:54 Até que o porno nos separe… Jorge Pelicano Longa Doc Até ao Fim do Mundo 01:30:00 Bostofrio, oú le ciel rejoint la terre Paulo Carneiro Longa Doc Paulo Carneiro 01:10:00 O Canto do Ossobó Silas Tiny Longa Doc Divina Comédia 01:23:37 O Homem-Pykante Edgar Pêra Longa Doc Bando à Parte 01:15:00 Terra Franca Leonor Teles Longa Doc Uma Pedra No Sapato 01:20:00 Turno do Dia Pedro Florêncio Longa Doc Zêzere 01:58:17

Ficção

Título Realizador Categoria Produtora Duração

20-02-80 Jerónimo Rocha Curta Ficção Take It Easy Film 00:04:44 3 Anos Depois Marco Amaral Curta Ficção Ukbar Filmes 00:13:00 A Estranha Casa na Bruma Guilherme Daniel Curta Ficção Suspício Filmes 00:15:00 Anjo Miguel Nunes Curta Ficção Videolotion 00:24:00 Anteu João Vladimiro Curta Ficção terratreme filmes 00:29:00 Aquaparque Ana Moreira Curta Ficção CRIM 00:15:58 California Nuno Baltazar Curta Ficção Nuno Baltazar 00:13:45 Calipso Paulo A. M. Oliveira Curta Ficção 50cuts 00:15:00 Como Fernando Pessoa salvou Portugal Eugène Green Curta Ficção O Som e a Fúria 00:27:00 Descobrindo a Variável Perfeita Rafael Almeida Curta Ficção ARTEiMANHA 00:15:00 Equinócio Ivo M. Ferreira Curta Ficção ARQUIPÉLAGO FILMES 00:19:20 Filomena Pedro Cabeleira Curta Ficção Trienal Arquitectura de Lisboa 00:14:00 Inversão Miguel Ângelo Curta Ficção EFE 00:10:32 Letters from Childhood José Magro Curta Ficção Cimbalino Filmes 00:02:46 Luana Pedro Magano Curta Ficção Pixbee 00:23:00 Maria Catarina Neves Ricci Curta Ficção Ukar 00:29:00 Nevoeiro Daniel Veleoso Curta Ficção terratreme filmes 00:15:00 O Coração Revelador São José Correia Curta Ficção Ukbar | MVR 00:10:03 O Quadro Paulo Araujo Curta Ficção Paulo Araújo 00:12:59 O Segredo da Casa Fechada Teresa Garcia Curta Ficção CRIM 00:29:58 Por Tua Testemunha João Pupo Curta Ficção terratreme filmes 00:18:00 Pródigo João Lourenço Curta Ficção Lightbox 00:10:58 Quando Pudermos Miguel Cardoso Faria Curta Ficção TAKE 2000 00:19:40 Quantas Vezes Tem Sonhado Comigo? Júlia Buisel Curta Ficção Real Ficção 00:17:47 Russa João Salaviza, Ricardo Alves Jr. Curta Ficção KARÕ FILMES 00:19:57 Segunda-Feira Sebastião Salgado Curta Ficção Bro 00:15:00 Self Destructive Boys André Santos, Marco Leão Curta Ficção Blackmaria 00:27:00 Sombra Luminosa Francisco Queimadela, Mariana Caló Curta Ficção 00:22:00 Terra Amarela Dinis M. Costa Curta Ficção B’lizzard / Kinétika 00:18:00 A Árvore André Gil Mata Longa Ficção CRIM 01:44:00 A Portuguesa Rita Azevedo Gomes Longa Ficção Basilisco Filmes 02:17:00 Amantes na Fronteira Atsushi Funahashi Longa Ficção Bando à Parte 02:18:00 Aparição Fernando Vendrell Longa Ficção David & Golias 01:55:00 Cabaret Maxime Bruno de Almeida Longa Ficção Blackmaria et al 01:35:00 Caminhos Magnéticos Edgar Pêra Longa Ficção Bando à Parte 01:29:00 Carga Bruno Gascon Longa Ficção Caracol Protagonista 01:53:00 Leviano Justin Amorim Longa Ficção Promenade Productions 01:42:00 Mariphasa Sandro Aguilar Longa Ficção O Som e a Fúria 01:26:00 Os Dois Irmãos Francisco Manso Longa Ficção TAKE 2000 01:34:00 Pedro e Inês António Ferreira Longa Ficção Persona Non Grata Pictures 02:00:23 Peregrinação João Botelho Longa Ficção Ar de Filmes 01:45:00 Soldado Milhões Gonçalo Galvão Teles, Jorge Paixão da Costa Longa Ficção Ukbar Filmes 01:25:02