Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira, GCSE (mɐnuˈɛɫ doliˈvɐjɾɐ; born December 11, 1908) is a
PortuguesePortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
film directorA film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
born in
CedofeitaCedofeita is a Portuguese parish, located in the municipality of Porto. It has a population of 24,784 inhabitants and a total area of 2.66 km²....
,
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
. He began working on films in the late 1920s, but did not receive international recognition until the early 1970s. Since the late 1980s he has been one of the most prolific working film directors and continues to make an average of one film per year past the age of 100. In March 2008 he was reported to be the oldest active film director in the world, and is possibly the second oldest film director ever after
George AbbottGeorge Francis Abbott was an American theater producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than nine decades.-Early years:...
. He is also the only filmmaker whose active career has spanned from the
silent eraA silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
to the
digital ageThe Information Age, also commonly known as the Computer Age or Digital Age, is an idea that the current age will be characterized by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have been difficult or impossible to find previously...
. Among his numerous awards are two Career Golden Lions from the
Venice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
.
Early life
Manoel de Oliveira was born in
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, on December 11, 1908, to Francisco José de Oliveira and Cândida Ferreira Pinto. His family were wealthy industrialists and agricultural landowners. His father owned a dry-goods factory, produced the first electric light bulbs in Portugal and built an electric energy plant before he died in 1932. Oliveira was educated at the Colegio Universal in Porto before attending a Jesuit boarding school in Galicia,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. As a teenager his goal was to become an actor. At 17, he joined his brothers as an executive in his father's factories, where he remained for the majority of his adult life when not making films. In a 1981
Sight and Sound article, John Gillett describes Oliveira as having "spent most of his life in business...making films only when circumstances allowed."
From an early age, Oliveira was interested in the poverty of the lower classes, the arts and especially films. While he has named
D. W. GriffithDavid Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
, Eric von Stroheim,
Charlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
,
Max LinderMax Linder was an influential French pioneer of silent film.-Birth and early career:Born Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle in Saint-Loubès, Gironde, France to a Catholic wine-growing family, he grew up with a passion for the theatre and as a young man joined a theatre troupe touring the country...
, Carl Dreyer's
The Passion of Joan of ArcThe Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film produced in France in 1928. It is based on the record of the trial of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti...
and
Sergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's
The General LineThe General Line aka Old and New is a 1929 Soviet film directed by Sergei Eisenstein.The General Line was begun in 1927 as a celebration of the collectivization of agriculture, as championed by old-line Bolshevik Leon Trotsky. Hoping to reach a wide audience, the director forsook his usual...
as early influences, he was also disappointed to have virtually no
PortuguesePortuguese cinema has a long tradition, reaching back to the birth of the medium in the late 19th century. In the 1950s, Cinema Novo, sprang up as a movement concerned with showing realism in film, in the vein of Italian Neorealism and the French New Wave...
filmmakers to emulate. The Portuguese film industry was also highly censored and restricted under the fascist
Salazar regime that lasted from the early 1930s until the mid-1970s. His later films, such as
The CannibalsThe Cannibals is a 1988 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra - Viscount d'Aveleda* Leonor Silveira - Margarida* Diogo Dória - Don João* Oliveira Lopes...
and
Belle ToujoursBelle Toujours is a 2006 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was Portugal's submission to the 80th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.-Plot:...
(a sequel to
Belle du Jour), suggest an affinity with Spanish filmmaker
Luis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
.
1927- 1942: Early documentaries and first feature
His first attempt at filmmaking was in 1927 when he and his friends worked on a film about the Portuguese experience in
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, although the film was never made. He enrolled in
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
film-maker Rino Lupo's acting school at age 20 and appeared as an extra in Lupo's film
Fátima Milagrosa. Years later in 1933 he also had the distinction of having acted in the second Portuguese sound film,
A Canção de LisboaA Canção de Lisboa is a Portuguese film comedy from 1933, directed by José Cottinelli Telmo, and starring Vasco Santana, Beatriz Costa, António Silva, Alfredo Silva, Ana Maria, Artur Rodrigues, Coralia Escobar, Eduardo Fernandes, Elvira Coutinho, Fernanda Campos, Francisco Costa, Henrique Alves,...
. Eventually Oliveira turned his attention back to filmmaking when he saw Walther Ruttmann's
documentaryDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
Berlin: Symphony of a City. Ruttman's film is the most famous of a small, short lived silent documentary film genre: city symphony films. These films portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-
documentaryA documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
style, without the narrative content of more mainstream films, though the sequencing of events can imply a kind of loose theme or impression of the city's daily life. Other examples include
Alberto CavalcantiAlberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was a Brazilian-born film director and producer.-Early life:Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a...
's
Rien que les heuresRien que les heures is a 1926 experimental silent film by Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti showing the life of Paris through one day in 45 minutes...
and
Dziga VertovDavid Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
's
Man with a Movie CameraMan with a Movie Camera , sometimes called The Man with the Movie Camera, The Man with a Camera, The Man With the Kinocamera, or Living Russia is an experimental 1929 silent documentary film, with no story and no actors, by Russian director Dziga Vertov, edited by his wife Elizaveta...
. Oliveira has said that Ruttman's film was his "most useful lesson in film technique", but that he also found it cold, mechanical and lacking humanity.
The discovery of Ruttman's film prompted Oliveira to direct his own first film in 1931, a documentary short titled
Douro, Faina FluvialDouro, Faina Fluvial is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along the cities main river, the Douro River...
. The film is a portrait of his hometown
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
and the labor and industry that takes place along the cities main river, the Douro River. Rino Lupo invited Oliveira to show the film at the International Congress of Film Critics in Lisbon, where the majority of the Portuguese audience booed. However other foreign critics and artists who were in attendance praised the film, such as
Luigi PirandelloLuigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
and Emile Vuillermoz. Oliveira re-edited the film with a new soundtrack and re-released it in 1934. And again in 1994, Oliveira modified the film by adding a new, more avant-garde soundtrack by Freitas Branco. Over the next 10 years Oliveira struggled to make films, abandoning several ambitious projects and making a handful of short documentaries on subjects ranging from artistic portraits of coastal cities in Portugal to industrial films on the origins of Portugal's auto industry. One of these shorts was a documentary about the inauguration of the hydro-electrical plant that his father built,
Hulha Branca. He also first met and befriended Portugese playwrite
José RégioJosé Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
during this time period. Oliveira would go on to adapt four of Régio's plays as films.
Fifteen years after his first attempt at filmmaking, Oliveira made his feature film debut in 1942.
Aniki-BóbóAniki-Bóbó is a 1942 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It is his first feature-length film. Mostly children, from Oliveira's hometown, Porto, play in its story. The script was adapted by Manoel de Oliveira from a short story by José Rodrigues de Freitas, Meninos Milionários...
is a portrait of Porto's street children and based on a short story by Rodrigo de Freitas. Oliveira used non-professional actors to portray the children. The story centers around two young boys who compete for the attention of a young girl. One of the boys in an extroverted bully, while the other is shy and innocent. The film was a commercial failure when it opened, and its merit only came to be recognized over time. Oliveira has stated that he was criticized for portraying children that lied, cheated and stole, which in his mind made them act more like adults. The poor reception of the film forced Manoel de Oliveira to abandon other film projects he was involved in, and to dedicate himself to a vineyard that his wife had inherited. In the early 1950s he and playwrite José Régio attempted to submit a screenplay to the Estado Novo run Film Fund commission, but the commission refused to either accept or reject the film. Oliveira attributed this to his own well known dislike for the Salazar regime.
1955- 1970: Return to filmmaking
In 1955 Oliveira traveled to Germany to study new techniques in color cinematography. He re-emerged onto the film scene in 1956 with
The Artist and the CityThe Artist and the City is a 1956 short Portuguese documentary film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. The film shows a series of watercolor panting by Portuguese artist António Cruz of what he sees while walking through different parts of the city of Porto. It was the director Oliveira's first film...
, a twenty six minute documentary short film shot in color. Much like his first film,
The Artist and the City is a portrait of
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, juxtaposing color shots of the city with paintings being created by local artist António Cruz. The film was shown in a number of festivals to positive reviews. In 1959, Portugal's National Federation of Industrial Millers commissioned
O Pão, a color documentary on Portugal's bread industry.
In 1963,
Rite of SpringRite of Spring is a 1963 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. The inhabitants of Curalha, a small village in western Portugal, perform the Passion of Jesus every year according to a 16th century text...
(
O Acto de Primavera), a partly
documentaryDocumentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, partly narrative film depicting an annual
passion playA Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....
, marked a turning point for his career. The play is based on a 16th Century passion play by Francisco Vaz de Guimaraes and was actually performed by villagers in northern Portugal. Along with the performance of the play, Oliveira staged the actors rehearsals, spectators watching the actors and even himself and his crew preparing to film the performance. Oliveira has said that making the film "profoundly altered his conception of cinema" as a tool not to simulate reality, but merely represent it.
O Acto de Primavera was called the first political film from Portugal by film critic Henrique Costa and gave Oliveira his first world wide recognition as a filmmaker. The film won the Grand Prix at the Siena Film Festival and Oliveira had his first film retrospective at the Locarno Film Festival in 1964.
This was shortly followed by
The HuntThe Hunt is a 1963 short Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* António Rodrigues Sousa as José* João Rocha Almeida as Roberto* Albino Freitas as Sapateiro, shoe-maker* Manuel De Sa as Maneta, one-handed man...
(
A caça), a grim, surrealistic short narrative film that contrasted with the positive tones of his previous film. Due to censorship issues, Oliveira was forced to add a "happy ending" to the initial release of the film and was unable to restore his original ending until 1988. Because of this film and anti- Salazar comments Oliveira made after a screening of
O Acto de Primavera, he was arrested by the
PIDEIn 1969, Marcello Caetano changed the name PIDE to DGS . The death of Salazar and the subsequent ascension of Caetano brought some attempts at democratization, in order to avoid popular insurgency against censorship, the ongoing colonial war and the general restriction of civil rights...
in 1963. He spent 10 days in jail and was interrogated until finally being released with the help of his friend Manuel Meneres. His career again slowed down and he only completed two short documentaries in the next 9 years.
In 1967, the Cineclube do Porto sponsored a Week of Portugese Cinema, where many filmmakers from the blossoming
Cinema NovoCinema Novo was practised by Brazilian filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s. In Portugal, Novo Cinema flourished after the 1960s, where it lasted, inspired by Italian Neo-Realism and the French movement of the New wave, the direct cinema techniques, and by the ideals the Carnation Revolution up to...
movement screened films and discussed "the precarious situation of Portugese cinema in the marketplace, and the decline of the film club movement." This resulted in the
Calouste Gulbenkian FoundationThe Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is a Portuguese private foundation of public utility whose statutory aims are in the fields of arts, charity, education, and science...
's creation of the Centro Portuges de Cinema, which would help to finance and distribute films in Portugal. The first film that the foundation chose to sponsor was Oliveira's next feature, and the early 1970s would come to be known as the Gulbenkian Years of Portugese cinema.
1970- 1989: Artistic Breakthrough: Tetralogy of Frustrated Love and Worldwide Recognition
Since the 1970s, Oliveira has been at his most active, with the vast majority of his films having been made after his seventy-fifth birthday. Whether a late bloomer or a victim of unfortunate delays and political censorship, he has become Portugal's preeminent filmmaker during the later part of his long life. Film critic
J. HobermanJames Lewis Hoberman , also known as J. Hoberman, is an American film critic. He is currently the senior film critic for The Village Voice, a post he has held since 1988.-Education:...
has said "at an age when many men think of retirement, Oliveira emerged from obscurity as one of the 70s leading modernists, a peer of
StraubJean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet were a duo of filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006...
,
SyberbergHans-Jürgen Syberberg is a German film director, whose best known film is his lengthy feature, Hitler: A Film from Germany.- Early life :...
and
DurasMarguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...
." With a new found artistic freedom after
António de Oliveira SalazarAntónio de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...
's stroke in 1968 and the April 1974
Carnation RevolutionThe Carnation Revolution , also referred to as the 25 de Abril , was a military coup started on 25 April 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, coupled with an unanticipated and extensive campaign of civil resistance...
, Oliviera's career began to flourish and receive international acclaim. Ironically the Carnation Revolution also resulted in his families factories being occupied by factions of the Left and subsequently going bankrupt. Due to this, Oliveira lost most of his personal wealth and his home of thirty-five years.
Oliveira's second return to filmmaking came in 1971 with
Past and PresentPast and Present is a 1972 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Maria de Saisset as Vanda, a widow* Manuela de Freitas as Noémia* Bárbara Vieira as Angélica* Alberto Inácio as Ricardo...
(
O Passado e o Presente), a satirical
black comedyA black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
on marriage and the
bourgeoisieIn sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
. With its lyrical surrealism and farcical situations, the film was a shift from his earlier work about lower class people. Based on a play by
Joao Cesar MonteiroJoão César Monteiro was a Portuguese film director, actor, writer and film critic . He was born in Figueira da Foz on February 2, 1939 and died of cancer in Lisbon on February 3, 2003.- Life and career :...
, the film stars Maria de Saisset as Vanda, a woman who only falls in love with her husbands after they have died.
Past and Present was the first of what has become known as Oliveira's "Tetralogy of frustrated loves". It was followed by
Benilde or the Virgin MotherBenilde or the Virgin Mother is a 1975 Portugese drama film based on the play by José Régio and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Maria Amélia Matta as Benilde* Jorge Rolla as Eduardo, Benilde's cousin...
,
Doomed Love and
FranciscaFrancisca is a 1981 Portugese drama film based on the novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Teresa Menezes as Francisca 'Fanny' Owen* Diogo Dória as José Augusto* Mário Barroso as Camilo...
. Each of these films share the theme of unfulfilled love, the backdrop of a repressive society, and the beginning of Oliveira's unique cinematic style.
Benilde or the Virgin MotherBenilde or the Virgin Mother is a 1975 Portugese drama film based on the play by José Régio and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Maria Amélia Matta as Benilde* Jorge Rolla as Eduardo, Benilde's cousin...
(
Benilde ou a Virgem Mãe) was based on a play by Oliveira's long-time friend and fellow Salazar regime dissident
José RégioJosé Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
and released in 1975. This would be the first of many films that would examine the relationship between film and theater in Oliveira's work, and the film opens with roaming exterior shots of the
Tobis StudiosTobis Portuguesa was created on June 3rd 1932, in order to support and foster the development of Portuguese cinema, goal that kept during its 75 years of activity.-History:Tobis originally focused its activity on film production and lab processing...
in Lisbon until reaching the constructed set of the film. In the film Benilde is a sleepwalking eight-teen-year-old who mysteriously becomes impregnated and believes herself to have been chosen for immaculate conception, despite the angry and dismissive reactions of her bourgeoisie family and friends. Upon its release, the film was criticized for being irrelevant to the political climate of 1975 Portugal. However Oliveira defended its depiction of a moralistic and social repression on its characters as not being "in opposition to or in contradiction with our own times."
Doomed Love (
Amor de Perdição ) is a tragic love story based on the
novelAmor de Perdição is a 19th century Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco. It has been adapted into several films, like Amor de Perdição and a telenovela.-Adaptations:...
by
Camilo Castelo BrancoCamilo Ferreira Botelho Castelo-Branco,1st Viscount de Correia Botelho , was a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having authored over 260 books . His writing is, overall, considered original in that it combines the dramatic and sentimental spirit of Romanticism with a highly personal...
. The film depicts the doomed love affair of Teresa and Simao, who come from two rival wealthy famalies. Teresa is sent to a convent for refusing to marry her cousin Baltasar, and after Simao kills Baltasar he is sentenced to death and eventually sent into exile. Teresa dies after Simao is sent away, and Simao dies at sea. Oliveira made two versions of the film: a six-part television miniseries that was broadcast in 1978 to disasterous reviews, and a shorter theatrical film released in 1979, which received rave reviews and was profiled on the cover of
Le MondeLe Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
. Oliveira has stated that whereas most film adaptations of literature attempt to adapt the narrative to film, he wanted instead to adapt "the text" of Branco's novel, much like
Jean-Marie StraubJean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet were a duo of filmmakers who made two dozen films between 1963 and 2006...
and Daniele Huillet's
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena BachThe Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach is a 1968 film by the French filmmaking duo of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet. It was their first full-length feature film, and reportedly took a decade to finance. The film stars renowned harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt as Johann Sebastian Bach and...
was a film more about music itself than about its own story. He has stated that "in a novel where a lot happens, it would be a waste of time to show everything. Besides, the literary narration, the way of telling the story, the style, the sonorousness of the phrases, [and] the composition are all just as beautiful and interesting as the events that unfold. Therefore, it seemed convienent for me to focus on the text, and that is what I did." The film achieves this idea by including extensive narration, characters that speak their thoughts or read letters aloud and shots of written text.
In 1981 Oliveira made
FranciscaFrancisca is a 1981 Portugese drama film based on the novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Teresa Menezes as Francisca 'Fanny' Owen* Diogo Dória as José Augusto* Mário Barroso as Camilo...
, based on the novel by Agustina Bessa Luis. The film is a tragic love triangle detailing a real life relationship between Fanny Owen,
Amor de PerdiçãoAmor de Perdição is a 19th century Portuguese novel by Camilo Castelo Branco. It has been adapted into several films, like Amor de Perdição and a telenovela.-Adaptations:...
author Camilo Castelo Branco and Branco's best friend Jose Augusto. Oliveira's wife was a distant relative of Owen and had access to private letter's written by all three protagonists in the film. The film was screened to great acclaim at the Director's Fortnight at the
1981 Cannes Film Festival- Jury :*Jacques Deray *Ellen Burstyn *Jean-Claude Carrière *Robert Chazal *Attilio D'Onofrio *Christian Defaye *Carlos Diegues *Antonio Gala...
and furthered Oliveira's global recognition. In addition to
Francisca, Oliveira has adapted six other novels or stories from author Augustina Bessa Luis, as well as collaborated on the screenplay for the documentary
Visita ou Memórias e Confissões. This was also the first film which Oliveira made with producer
Paulo BrancoPaulo Branco is a Portuguese film producer.-Selected filmography:* The Territory * Three Crowns of the Sailor * City of Pirates * Manoel's Destinies * Treasure Island...
, who would go on to produce the majority of Oliveira's film, and with actor
Diogo Dória.
Following the success of
Francisca, Oliveira made three documentary films.
Visita ou Memórias e Confissões is a autobiographical documentary about Oliveira's family history. After completing the film, he decided that it will not be released until after his death. He then made
Lisboa Cultural and
Nice... À Propos de Jean Vigo , a documentary for French television on the city of
NiceNice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
, and also a tribute to French filmmaker
Jean VigoJean Vigo was a French film director, who helped establish poetic realism in film in the 1930s and was a posthumous influence on the French New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s.-Biography:...
.
Oliveira then made his most ambitious film to that date,
The Satin SlipperThe Satin Slipper is a 1985 Portugese- French drama film based on the play by Paul Claudel. It was directed by Manoel de Oliveira and screened at the 1985 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra as Don Rodrigue...
(
Le Soulier de Satin), based on the notorious
1929 epic playThe Satin Slipper is a long play by the French dramatist and poet Paul Claudel. It was written in 1929, but first performed on stage in 1943. Today it is rarely staged because of its extreme length and its challenging production requirements...
by
Paul ClaudelPaul Claudel was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. He was most famous for his verse dramas, which often convey his devout Catholicism.-Life:...
, which is rarely performed in its entirity due to its length. The seven hour film took Oliveira two years to complete. It was Oliveira's first film in french, as well as his first film with actor
Luís Miguel Cintra, who would go on to act in all of his films from then on. The story of
The Satin Slipper is about the unrequited love of sixteenth century conquistador Don Rodrigue and nobelwoman Dona Prouheze with the backdrop of colonialism in Africa and the Americas. The film opens with a theater gradually being filled with an audience and an introduction to the film on stage. The film itself uses very theatrical set pieces, such as cardboard waves and backdrops. The film was never released theatrically, but was screened at both the
1985 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Miloš Forman *Claude Imbert *Edwin Zbonek *Francis Veber *Jorge Amado *Mauro Bolognini *Michel Perez *Mo Rothmann *Néstor Almendros *Sarah Miles...
and the 1985
Venice Film FestivalThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, where Oliveira received a special Golden Lion for his career up to that point. Later the Brussels Cinematheque awarded the film its L'Age d'Or Prize.
In 1986 Oliveira made one of his most experimental films,
My CaseMy Case is a 1986 French drama- fantasy film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Bulle Ogier as Actrice # 1* Luís Miguel Cintra as L'Intrus* Axel Bogousslavsky as L'Employé* Fred Personne as L'Auteur...
(
Mon Cas), partially based on
José RégioJosé Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
's one act play
O Meu Caso, although the film also takes inspiration from
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
's
FizzlesSamuel Beckett used the word "fizzles" to describe eight short prose pieces written between 1973-1975.Most fizzles are unnamed, and identified by their numbers or first few words:* Fizzle 1 [He is barehead]* Fizzle 2 [Horn came always]* Fizzle 3 Afar a Bird...
and the
Book of JobThe Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
. Oliveira takes a surreal and meta-narrative approach to examine the relationship between art and life. The film begins with a theater being filled with the audience and actors before a play is about to begin. A mysterious man play by Luis Miguel Cintra enters the stage and presents "his case" about the fallacies of theater and its illusions. One by one all of the play's actors and technicians state their cases about what bothers them about the play and its relation to their own lives. An audience member then takes the stage to make a case for what the collective audience wants. This is followed by three consecutive but very different versions of the one act play: the first is a straight forward farce, the second is presented as a slapstick silent movie, and the third is performed with the dialogue read backwards. The stage performance ends with video footage of war and disasters from around the world and
Pablo PicassoPablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
's painting
GuernicaGuernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, Basque Country, by German and Italian warplanes at the behest of the Spanish Nationalist forces, on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War...
. The entire film then shifts to a retelling of the
Book of JobThe Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
, with Cintra as Job and
Bulle OgierBulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
as his wife. This sequence ends with a close-up of Leonardo Di Vinci's
Mona LisaMona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
.
My Case opened the 1986 Venice Film Festival and was released in 1987.
Olivier next made a satirical film in the tradition of
Luis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
,
The CannibalsThe Cannibals is a 1988 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra - Viscount d'Aveleda* Leonor Silveira - Margarida* Diogo Dória - Don João* Oliveira Lopes...
(
Os Canibais) in 1988. The film is based on a short story by Álvaro Carvalhal and stars
Luis Miguel Cintra,
Leonor Silveira and
Diogo Dória. José Régio first showed Oliveira the little known story, and Oliviera decided to make the film his only opera in collaboration with composer Joao Paes. The film also contains a demonic narrator Niccolo who appears and disappears from scenes magically. In the film, the beautiful young Margarida (Silveira) falls in love with the mysterious Viscount of Aveleda (Cintra), while rejecting the advances of the notorious
Don JoãoDon Juan is a legendary, fictional libertine whose story has been told many times by many authors. El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra by Tirso de Molina is a play set in the fourteenth century that was published in Spain around 1630...
(Dória). On their wedding night, the Viscount reveals to Margarida that his great mystery is that he has no arms or legs and is "a living corpse". Margarida throws herself out of their bedroom window in horror and the Viscount attempts to drink poison but rolls into the fireplace instead, singing an aria as he burns to death. Just then Don João enters intending to murder the Viscount in jealously and witnesses the Viscounts death. The next morning, Margarida's father, brothers and family magistrate wake up and want to be served breakfast, but find an empty house. They look for the Viscount, but only discover a strange meat cooking in the fireplace, and conclude that it is a strange delicacy being prepared for them. The four men unknowingly eat the Viscount's body for breakfast with great delight. Suddenly they hear a gunshot and rush to the garden where they find Margarida's dead body and Don João sitting next to her with a self- inflicted gunshot wound in his chest. As Don João dies, he explains everything that has happened to the family and tell they they can find the Viscount in the fireplace. Horrified at their own cannibalism, the father and brother's decide to commit suicide until the magistrate points out that they are now the sole heirs to the Viscount's fortune. The father and brother's decide to live, and turn into rapid dogs and eat the magistrate, who has turned into a pig.
The Cannibals was screened in competition at the
1988 Cannes Film Festival- Jury :*Ettore Scola*Claude Berri*David Robinson*Yelena Safonova*George Miller*Hector Olivera*Nastassja Kinski*Philippe Sarde*Robby Muller*William Goldman-Feature film competition:* A World Apart by Chris Menges...
and won the Critics Special award at the 1988
São Paulo International Film FestivalThe São Paulo International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in São Paulo, Brazil since 1976. In 2004 Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was a member of the jury.-International Jury Award:*2001: The New Country ...
.
1990- present: Continued International Success
Oliveira's work since the 1990s has been the most prolific of his entire career and he has made at least one film a year (usually feature narratives but sometimes shorts or documentaries) since 1990. During this period he established and consistently worked with a loyal troupe of regular actors including
Luís Miguel Cintra,
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
,
Ricardo Trêpa (Oliveira's grandson),
Leonor Silveira,
Diogo Dória,
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
,
Catherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
and
Michel Piccoli. He would also work with such international stars as
Jeanne MoreauJeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director.She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française...
,
Irene PapasIrene Papas is a Greek actress and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years.-Life:...
,
Bulle OgierBulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
,
Chiara MastroianniChiara Charlotte Mastroianni is a French actress and singer.-Biography:Mastroianni was born in Paris, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. Her elder half-brother is Christian Vadim; her elder half-sister is Barbara Mastroianni.She had relationships with the actors Benicio...
, and
Marcello MastroianniMarcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...
in the actor's last film.
In 1990 Oliveira made
No, or the Vain Glory of Command (
Non, ou a Vã Gloria de Mandar), starring Luis Miguel Cintra, Diogo Dória and Leonor Silveira. The film depicts the military history of
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, focusing on its defeats more than its victories. The historical action include the assassination of
ViriathusViriathus was the most important leader of the Lusitanian people that resisted Roman expansion into the regions of Western Hispania , where the Roman province of Lusitania would be established...
, the
Battle of ToroThe Battle of Toro was a Royal battle from the War of the Castilian Succession, fought on 1 March 1476, near the city of Toro, between the Castilian troops of the Catholic Monarchs and the Portuguese-Castilian forces of Afonso V and Prince John....
, the
Battle of Alcácer QuibirThe Battle of Ksar El Kebir, also known as Battle of Three Kings, or "Battle of Oued El Makhazeen" in Morocco, and Battle of Alcácer Quibir in Portugal , was fought in northern Morocco, near the town of Ksar-el-Kebir and Larache, on 4 August 1578...
and the more recent
Portuguese Colonial WarThe Portuguese Colonial War , also known in Portugal as the Overseas War or in the former colonies as the War of liberation , was fought between Portugal's military and the emerging nationalist movements in Portugal's African colonies between 1961 and 1974, when the Portuguese regime was...
. The one exception is the sequence that depicts the mythical Isle of Love, which celebrates Portuguese explorers and discoverers, not its military figures. The Isle of Love includes winged cupids, beautiful nymphs and the goddess
Venus Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
. The film was shown in competition at the
1990 Cannes Film Festival- Jury :*Bernardo Bertolucci *Alexei Guerman *Anjelica Huston *Bertrand Blier *Christopher Hampton*Fanny Ardant *Françoise Giroud *Hayao Shibata *Mira Nair *Sven Nykvist...
. Oliveira then made
The Divine ComedyThe Divine Comedy is a 1991 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1991 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Maria de Medeiros as Sónia* Miguel Guilherme as Raskolnikov...
(
A Divina Comédia) in 1991. Set in a mental institution, the film is not an adaptation of
Dante AlighieriDurante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's famous work but is derived from stories in the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, José Régio's play
A Salvacao do Mundo, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's
Crime and PunishmentCrime and Punishment is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments during 1866. It was later published in a single volume. This is the second of Dostoyevsky's full-length novels following his...
and
The Brothers KaramazovThe Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880...
, and
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's
AntichristThe Antichrist is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1895. Although it was written in 1888, its controversial content made Franz Overbeck and Heinrich Köselitz delay its publication, along with Ecce Homo...
. Oliveira has stated that "all of the texts he uses deal in some way with the problem of sin and the possibility of redemption, and in this sense they all derive ultimately from the same source." The film stars
Maria de MedeirosMaria de Medeiros Esteves Vitorino de Almeida, DamSE , better known as Maria de Medeiros , is a Portuguese actress, director, and singer who has been involved in both European and American film productions.-Personal life:...
,
Miguel Guilherme-External links:...
,
Luís Miguel Cintra, Leonor Silveira and Diogo Dória and was shown in competition at the
1991 Venice Film FestivalThe 48th Venice International Film Festival was held on September 3 - September 14, 1991.-Jury:*Gian Luigi Rondi head of jury*Silvia D'Amico Bendico*James Belushi*John Boorman*Michel Ciment*Moritz de Hadeln*Naum Kleiman*Oja Kodar*Pilar Miró-Awards:...
, where it won the Grand Special Jury Prize award.
Oliveira then returned to the works of Portuguese writer
Camilo Castelo BrancoCamilo Ferreira Botelho Castelo-Branco,1st Viscount de Correia Botelho , was a prolific Portuguese writer of the 19th century, having authored over 260 books . His writing is, overall, considered original in that it combines the dramatic and sentimental spirit of Romanticism with a highly personal...
with
Day of DespairDay of Despair is a 1992 Portuguese drama film based on the life of Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco. It was directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Mário Barroso as Camilo Castelo Branco* Teresa Madruga as Ana Plácido...
(
O Dia do Desespero) in 1992. The film stars
Mário BarrosoMario Barroso is a Portuguese film director, actor and cinematographer born in Lisbon.-External links:...
as Branco, with actors
Teresa MadrugaTeresa Madruga is a Portuguese actress. She has appeared in 71 films and television shows since 1977. She starred in the 1983 film In the White City, which was entered into the 33rd Berlin International Film Festival....
,
Luís Miguel Cintra and
Diogo Dória playing both themselves and Ana Plácido, Freitas Fortuna and Dr. Edmundo Magalhães, respectively. The film was shot in the same house that Branco lived his final years and committed suicide and is both a documentary and a narrative film about the famous Portuguese writer. In 1993 Oliveira made
Abraham's ValleyAbraham's Valley is a 1993 Portuguese-language drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira, based on a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís.-Reception:...
(
Vale Abraão), based on the novel by
Agustina Bessa-LuísAgustina Bessa-Luís, GOSE is a Portuguese writer.From 1986 and 1987, she was Director of the daily O Primeiro de Janeiro . From 1990 to 1993, she was director of the Teatro Nacional D...
. Oliveira had wanted to film
Gustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
's
Madame BovaryMadame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
, but was dissuaded by producer
Paulo BrancoPaulo Branco is a Portuguese film producer.-Selected filmography:* The Territory * Three Crowns of the Sailor * City of Pirates * Manoel's Destinies * Treasure Island...
due to budgetary restraints. Oliveira then suggested to Bessa-Luís that she write an updated version of the novel set in Portugal, which resulted in the novel in 1991.
Abraham's Valley is not a retelling of the Flaubert book, however
Madame Bovary is both a subtext and a physical presence in the film. The film stars
Leonor Silveira as Ema, a discontent Portuguese woman who wants a passionate life like the one she reads about in Flaubert's novel. Like Madame Bovary, Ema marries a doctor that she does not love and has many extramarital affairs before dying in an accident that may or may not be a suicide. Unlike Madame Bovary, there is no scandal in her love affairs, which are simply accepted by both her husband and the society that she lives in. The film won the Critics award at the 1993
São Paulo International Film FestivalThe São Paulo International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in São Paulo, Brazil since 1976. In 2004 Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was a member of the jury.-International Jury Award:*2001: The New Country ...
, as well as an award for Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 1993
Tokyo International Film FestivalTokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
. In 1994 Oliveira made
The BoxA Caixa is a 1994 Portuguese comedy film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1994 Tokyo International Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra as Blind Man* Glicínia Quartin as Old Woman* Ruy de Carvalho as Taverner...
(
A Caixa), based on a play by Helder Prista Monteiro. The film stars Luis Miguel Cintra as a blind homeless man whose only means of support in a poor neighborhood in
LisbonLisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
is his official, government issued alms box. It was screened in competition at the 1994
Tokyo International Film FestivalTokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
.
In 1995 Oliveira's reputation had grown and his films were internationally acclaimed. That year he made his first of many films starring international movie stars:
The Convent (
O Convento), starring
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
and
Catherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
. The film is based on the novel
As Terras Do Risco by
Agustina Bessa-LuísAgustina Bessa-Luís, GOSE is a Portuguese writer.From 1986 and 1987, she was Director of the daily O Primeiro de Janeiro . From 1990 to 1993, she was director of the Teatro Nacional D...
and examines the
FaustFaust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. Faust's tale is the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical...
ian theme of good versus evil. In the film Malkovich plays an American writer who travels to Portugal with his wife (Deneuve) to research his theory that
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
was really Jacques Perez, a Jewish Spaniard who fled his native country to avoid the Spanish Inquisition. The couple stay in a monastery a with strange, demonic- looking staff and they eventually end up having affairs with two staff members. The film was screened in competition at the
1995 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Jeanne Moreau *Gianni Amelio *Jean-Claude Brialy *Nadine Gordimer *Gaston Kabore *Michele-Ray Gavras *Emilio Garcia Riera *Philippe Rousselot *John Waters...
and won the Prize of the Catalan Screenwriter's Critic and Writer's Association at the 1995 Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival. In 1996 Oliveira worked with French star
Michel Piccoli and Greek film star
Irene PapasIrene Papas is a Greek actress and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years.-Life:...
in
PartyParty is a 1996 Portuguese-French comedy-drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1996 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Michel Piccoli as Michel* Irene Papas as Irene* Leonor Silveira as Leonor...
. The film was co-written by Oliveira and Agustina Bessa-Luís from an original idea by Oliveira. In the film, a married couple played by Leonor Silveira and Rogério Samora have a dinner party that includes a famous Greek actress (Papas) and her lover (Piccoli) and the film consists of conversations between these four characters at parties over the course of five years. The film was screened in competition at the 1996 Venice Film Festival and won Oliveira the award for Best Director at the 1996 Portuguese Golden Globe Awards.
In 1997 Oliveira made
Voyage to the Beginning of the WorldVoyage to the Beginning of the World is a 1997 Portuguese-French drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and starring Marcello Mastroianni...
(
Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo), which was the final film of Italian film star
Marcello MastroianniMarcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...
. In the film Mastroianni plays an aging film director named Manoel who travels on a road trip across Northern Portugal with French film actor Afonso (Jean-Yves Gautier) and two other young companions, Judite (Leonor Silveira) and Duarte (Diogo Dória). Afonso wants to see the Portuguese village that his father grew up in and see the relatives that he has never met. On the way, Manoel stops at several locations on the road that he remembers from his childhood, only to find them much different than he had remembered. The film is autobiographical in that the locations on the road are real locations from Oliveira's childhood. The film is also based on the experiences of actor
Yves AfonsoYves Afonso is a French actor. He was born in Saulieu in the Côte-d'Or département. Since his uncredited debut in the movie Masculin, féminin in 1966, he has had many roles, both in movies and on television...
, whose father had immigrated from Portugal to France and who had met his long lost relatives during a French-Portuguese co-production in 1987. The film was screened out of competition at the
1997 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Isabelle Adjani *Gong Li *Mira Sorvino *Paul Auster *Tim Burton *Luc Bondy *Patrick Dupond *Mike Leigh *Nanni Moretti *Michael Ondaatje -Feature film competition:...
and won the FIPRESCI Prize and a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. It won other awards at the 1997
Haifa International Film FestivalThe Haifa International Film Festival is an annual film festival that takes place every fall, during the week-long holiday of Sukkot, in Haifa, Israel. The festival was inaugurated in 1983, and was the first of its kind in Israel...
and the 1997
Tokyo International Film FestivalTokyo International Film Festival is a film festival established in 1985. The event was held biannually from 1985 to 1991 and annually thereafter...
.
Oliveira then made
AnxietyAnxiety is a 1998 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Afonso Araújo - Boy* Leonor Araújo - Girl* Leonor Baldaque - Fisalina...
(
Inquietude) in 1998. The episodic film contains three short films based on literary works by Helder Prista Monteiro (
Os Immortais), António Patrício (
Suzy) and Agustina Bessa-Luís (
Mãe de Um Rio). In
Os Immortais a 90-year-old man (José Pinto) concludes that old age is horrible and attempts to convince his middle aged son (Luís Miguel Cintra) to commit suicide. In
Suzy, an aristocrate (Diogo Dória) has an affair with a beautiful youngcocotte (Leonor Silveira), but social class differences prevent him from having a deep, meaningful relationship with her. In
Mãe de Um Rio,
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
plays a discontent small town girl who yearns for a more exotic life and seek advice from the Mother of the River (Irene Papas). The film won Oliveira another award for Best Director at the 1998 Portuguese Golden Globe Awards. In 1999 Oliveira made
The LetterThe Letter is a 1999 French-Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It tells the story of a married woman who has feelings for another man, and who confesses her feelings to her friend, a cloistered nun...
(
La Lettre), based on the 17th century French novel
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette. Oliveira had wanted to make a film from the novel since the late 1970s, but had initially thought that it was too complicated to be filmed. The film updates the novel to modern day and stars
Chiara MastroianniChiara Charlotte Mastroianni is a French actress and singer.-Biography:Mastroianni was born in Paris, the daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. Her elder half-brother is Christian Vadim; her elder half-sister is Barbara Mastroianni.She had relationships with the actors Benicio...
as Catherine de Clèves,
Antoine ChappeyAntoine Chappey is a French actor. He has appeared in over 80 films and television shows since 1989. He starred in the film Nelly, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
as the husband that she does not love, Leonor Silveira as her childhood friend who has become a nun and her confident, and Portugese rock star
Pedro Abrunhosathumb|250px|Pedro AbrunhosaPedro Abrunhosa is a Portuguese singer, musician and songwriter. Aside from his music, he is known for always wearing sunglasses in public. Abrunhosa also played himself in the 1999 film La Lettre. He is an active spokesman for the Associação Fonográfica Portuguesa...
playing himself in the role of the dashing Duke of Nemours, whom Catherine is in love with. Abrunhosa also wrote some original songs for the film. The film won the
Grand Jury PrizeThe Jury Prize is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of movies at the festival. It is considered the third most prestigious prize at the film festival, after the Palme d'Or and the Grand Prix....
at the
1999 Cannes Film FestivalThe 52nd Cannes Film Festival was held on May 12-23, 1999. The Palme d'Or went to the French-Belgian film Rosetta by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.-Jury:* David Cronenberg * André Téchiné * Barbara Hendricks...
.
In 2000 Oliveira made the film
Word and UtopiaWord and Utopia is a 2000 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 2000 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Lima Duarte as Padre António Vieira...
(
Palavra e Utopia), a biography of the Portugese Jesuit priest Padre
António VieiraFather António Vieira was a Portuguese Jesuit and writer, the "prince" of Catholic pulpit-orators of his time.-Life:Vieira was born in Lisbon to Cristóvão Vieira Ravasco, the son of a mulatto woman, and Maria de Azevedo. Accompanying his parents to Brazil in 1614, he received his education at the...
based upon letters and sermons that the priest wrote between 1626 and 1695. Vieira is played by Oliveira's grandson
Ricardo Trêpa as a young man,
Luis Miguel Cintra in middle age and
Lima DuarteLima Duarte is a Brazilian actor. He has played a number of characters in Brazilian soap operas, such as Zeca Diabo in "O Bem Amado" and Sinhozinho Malta in "Roque Santeiro"...
as an old man. The film chronicles Vieira's missionary work in South America, testimony before the
Spanish InquisitionThe Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...
and work as a trusted advisor to Queen Christina of Sweden (
Leonor Silveira). The film was shown in competition at the
2000 Venice Film FestivalThe 57th Venice International Film Festival was held on 30 August - 9 September, 2000.-Jury:* Milos Forman * Jennifer Jason Leigh* Samira Makhmalbaf* Tahar Ben Jelloun* Giuseppe Bertolucci* Claude Chabrol* Andreas Kilb...
, where it won the Filmcritica "Bastone Bianco" Award. It also won Oliveira his third award for Best Director at the 2000 Portuguese Golden Globe Awards. In 2001 Oliveira made two faeture films at the age of 92.
I'm Going Home (
Je rentre à la maison) stars
Michel Piccoli as Gilbert Valence, an aging stage actor that never achieved great success who deals with the sudden deaths of his wife, daughter and son-in-law after a car accident, turning down undignified roles in commercial TV shows and raising his 9-year-old grandson.
Catherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
,
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
,
Antoine ChappeyAntoine Chappey is a French actor. He has appeared in over 80 films and television shows since 1989. He starred in the film Nelly, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
,
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
, Leonor Silveira and Ricardo Trêpa also co-star. The film was shown in competition at the
2001 Cannes Film FestivalThe 2001 Cannes Film Festival started on May 14 and ran until May 25. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.-Jury:* Liv Ullmann, President * Mimmo Calopresti * Charlotte Gainsbourg...
, won awards at the
Haifa International Film FestivalThe Haifa International Film Festival is an annual film festival that takes place every fall, during the week-long holiday of Sukkot, in Haifa, Israel. The festival was inaugurated in 1983, and was the first of its kind in Israel...
and the
São Paulo International Film FestivalThe São Paulo International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in São Paulo, Brazil since 1976. In 2004 Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami was a member of the jury.-International Jury Award:*2001: The New Country ...
, and won the award for Best Film at the 2001 Portuguese Golden Globe Awards. Later that year Oliveira made the autibiographical, partially documentary film
Porto of My ChildhoodPorto of My Childhood is a 2001 Portuguese/French film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. Manoel de Oliveira narrates a documentary which features staged dramatic scenes of memories and stories told to him during his of his childhood in Porto....
(
Porto da Minha Infância). The film includes archival footage of
Douro, Faina FluvialDouro, Faina Fluvial is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along the cities main river, the Douro River...
and
Aniki-BóbóAniki-Bóbó is a 1942 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It is his first feature-length film. Mostly children, from Oliveira's hometown, Porto, play in its story. The script was adapted by Manoel de Oliveira from a short story by José Rodrigues de Freitas, Meninos Milionários...
, reenactments of parts of Oliveira's childhood and documentary footage of
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
in the early 20th Century. Oliveira's grandsons Jorge Trêpa and
Ricardo Trêpa portray Oliveira at different ages of his life. The film was screened in competition at the
2001 Venice Film FestivalThe 58th Venice International Film Festival was held on 29 August – 8 September, 2001.-Jury:* Nanni Moretti * Amitav Ghosh * Jerzy Skolimowski* Jeanne Balibar* Taylor Hackford* Cecilia Roth* Vibeke Windeløv...
, where it won the UNESCO Award.
Oliveira made
The Uncertainty PrincipleThe Uncertainty Principle is a 2002 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Leonor Baldaque - Camila* Leonor Silveira - Vanessa* Isabel Ruth - Celsa...
(
O Princípio da Incerteza) in 2002. The film is based on the 2001 novel
O Princípio da Incerteza:Joia de Familia by Agustina Bessa-Luís, which won the Grand Prize from the Portugese Writer's Association. In the film,
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
plays Camila, who marries a man (Ivo Canelas) to help alleviate her famalies financial difficulties instead of her boyfriend (Ricardo Trêpa). Camila's husband begins an affair with Vanessa (
Leonor Silveira), which Camila is indifferent about. This infuriates Vanessa who proceeds to do everything she can to make Camila suffer. In then end Vanessa and Camila's husband become involved with an illegal deal with some gangsters, which Camila refuses to help them with. The film was screened in competition at the
2002 Cannes Film FestivalThe 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...
. This was followed by
A Talking PictureA Talking Picture is a 2003 Portuguese film written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It stars Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli and Leonor Silveira.- Plot :It is set in July 2001...
(
Um Filme Falado), starring
Leonor Silveira, Filipa de Almeida,
Catherine DeneuveCatherine Deneuve is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof and mysterious beauties in films such as Repulsion and Belle de jour . Deneuve was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1993 for her performance in Indochine; she also won César Awards for that...
,
John MalkovichJohn Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
,
Irene PapasIrene Papas is a Greek actress and occasional singer, who has starred in over seventy films in a career spanning more than fifty years.-Life:...
and
Stefania SandrelliStefania Sandrelli is an Italian actress, famous for her many roles in the commedia all'Italiana, starting from 1960s. She was 15 years old when she starred in Divorce, Italian Style, as Marcello Mastroianni's cousin, Angela.She was born in Viareggio, Tuscany. She had a long relationship with...
in 2003. In the film Silveira takes her young daughter (Almeida) on a cruise to Bombay to meet her father's family and teaches her about the history of theplaces that they pass through along the way. These sights include such places as
CeutaCeuta is an autonomous city of Spain and an exclave located on the north coast of North Africa surrounded by Morocco. Separated from the Iberian peninsula by the Strait of Gibraltar, Ceuta lies on the border of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Ceuta along with the other Spanish...
, Marseilles,
AthensAthens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
,
NaplesNaples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and
PompeiiThe city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
. They also meet and learn about three successful women (Deneuve, Papas and Sandrelli) from certain location and have long conversations with the ship's captain (Malkovich), often dealing with the conflicts between Christianity and Islam. The film was screened in competition at the
2003 Venice Film festivalThe 60th Venice International Film Festival was held on 27 August - 6 September, 2003.-Jury:* Mario Monicelli * Stefano Accorsi * Michael Ballhaus* Ann Hui * Pierre Jolivet...
, where it won the SIGNIS Award.
In 2004 Oliveira made
The Fifth EmpireThe Fifth Empire is a 2004 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as King Sebastian I of Portugal* Luís Miguel Cintra as Simão, Sapateiro Santo...
(
O Quinto Império - Ontem Como Hoje), a highly political film based on the play
El-Rey Sebastiao by
José RégioJosé Maria dos Reis Pereira, better known by the pen name José Regio was a Portuguese writer which lived most of his life in Portalegre...
. The film chronicles the history of
King Sebastian I of PortugalSebastian "the Desired" was the 16th king of Portugal and the Algarves. He was the son of Prince John of Portugal and his wife, Joan of Spain...
, and at a screening at the
2004 Venice Film FestivalThe 61st Venice International Film Festival was held on September 1 - 11th, 2004.-Jury:* John Boorman * Wolfgang Becker * Mimmo Calopresti * Scarlett Johansson * Spike Lee * Dusan Makavejev...
Oliveira acknowledged that US President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
had "a "Sebastianist" inclination in his expressed desire to spread democracy and freedom around the globe in his own version of the Fifth Empire." In the film King Sebastain (Ricardo Trêpa) contemplates pursuing his crusade in the Middle East that would lead to the
Battle of Alcácer QuibirThe Battle of Ksar El Kebir, also known as Battle of Three Kings, or "Battle of Oued El Makhazeen" in Morocco, and Battle of Alcácer Quibir in Portugal , was fought in northern Morocco, near the town of Ksar-el-Kebir and Larache, on 4 August 1578...
(where he would eventually die) and the counsil that he seeks from a variety of advisors, friends and family members. The film portrays King Sebastian as obsessed with his place in history and with his own myth of himself, whilecreqating violent situationa all around him. The film was screened at Venice out of competition as part of Oliveira's Career Golden Lion award. Olivier followed this film with
Magic MirrorMagic Mirror is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in January, 1946.It depicts a mirror standing vertically on wooden supports on a tiled surface. The perspective is looking down at an angle at the right hand side of the mirror. There is a sphere at each...
(
Espelho Mágico) in 2005. Based on the novel
A Alma dos Ricos by
Agustina Bessa-LuísAgustina Bessa-Luís, GOSE is a Portuguese writer.From 1986 and 1987, she was Director of the daily O Primeiro de Janeiro . From 1990 to 1993, she was director of the Teatro Nacional D...
, the film stars
Leonor Silveira,
Ricardo Trêpa,
Luís Miguel Cintra,
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
and
Michel Piccoli in a cameo, but was produced by José Miguel Cadilhe instead of
Paulo BrancoPaulo Branco is a Portuguese film producer.-Selected filmography:* The Territory * Three Crowns of the Sailor * City of Pirates * Manoel's Destinies * Treasure Island...
. In the film, Silveira plays a wealthy woman who is determined to see a real apparation of the Virgin Mary with the help of Trêpa, who has recently been released from prison.
In 2006 Oliveira made
Belle ToujoursBelle Toujours is a 2006 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was Portugal's submission to the 80th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.-Plot:...
, a sequel to
Luis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
's 1967 film,
Belle de JourBelle de Jour is a 1967 French film directed by Luis Buñuel. The film stars Catherine Deneuve as a woman who decides to spend her days as a prostitute while her husband is at work....
. The film stars
Bulle OgierBulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
as Séverine Serizy and
Michel Piccoli reprising his origional role of Henri Husson. In the film, Séverine reluctantly agrees to see Henri for the first time in forty years out of curosity to know if her former blackmailer told her dying husband about her secret life as a prostitute.
Ricardo Trêpa and
Leonor BaldaqueLeonor Baldaque is a Portuguese actress who currently lives in Rome. She regularly stars on films directed by veteran Manoel de Oliveira. She is grand-daughter of Award-winning writer Agustina Bessa-Luís...
also appear in supporting roles.
Oliveira's 2007 film
Christopher Colombus - The EnigmaChristopher Colombus - The Enigma is a 2007 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was filmed in both Portugal and the United States.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as Manuel Luciano...
(
Cristóvão Colombo - O Enigma) was shot partly in New York and starred Ricardo Trêpa. In 2009 Oliveira made
Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired GirlEccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl is a 2009 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as Macário* Catarina Wallenstein as Luísa* Diogo Dória as Francisco...
(
Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura), based on a short story by Eça de Queirós. The film starred Ricardo Trêpa and Catarina Wallenstein, who won Best Actress at the 2009 Portuguese Golden Globe Awards. Oliveira's 2010 film
The Strange Case of AngelicaThe Strange Case of Angelica is a 2010 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the Un Certain Regard section of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Pilar López de Ayala as Angélica* Filipe Vargas as Marido...
starred Spanish actress
Pilar López de AyalaPilar López de Ayala Arroyo is a Spanish film actress. She received a Goya for her role as Queen Joanna of Castile in the 2001 film Juana la Loca, directed by Vicente Aranda ....
and was entered into the
Un Certain RegardUn Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...
section of the
2010 Cannes Film FestivalThe 63rd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 12 to May 23, 2010, in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, hailed as being one of the most recognized and prestigious film festivals worldwide, was founded in 1946. It consists of having films screened in and out of competition during the...
.
In late 2011, Oliveira completed filming on the film
Gebo et l'OmbreGebo et l'Ombre is an upcoming Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira currently in production. It is based on a play by Raul Brandão.-Cast:* Claudia Cardinale as Doroteia* Jeanne Moreau as Candidinha...
, scheduled for a 2012 release. The film stars
Michael LonsdaleMichael Lonsdale , sometimes billed as Michel Lonsdale, is a French actor who has appeared in over 180 films and television shows....
,
Jeanne MoreauJeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director.She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française...
,
Claudia CardinaleClaudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
,
Leonor Silveira,
Ricardo Trêpa and
Luís Miguel Cintra and is based on a play by
Raul BrandãoRaul Germano Brandão was a Portuguese writer, journalist and military officer, notable for the realism of his literary descriptions and by the lyricism of his speech. Brandão was born in Foz do Douro, a parish of Porto, where he spent the majority of his youth...
.
Manoel de Oliveira has said that he directs movies for the sheer pleasure of it, regardless of critical reaction. He maintains a quiet life away from the spotlights.
Honors and decorations
In 2008, Oliveira was awarded a doctorate degree honoris causa by the
University of the AlgarveThe University of the Algarve is a Portuguese public university with administrative and financial autonomy. Its two campuses and the central administration are located in Faro, the capital city of the Algarve region. It has about 9,000 students.- History and organisation :It was founded at the end...
. He has also been awarded the
Order of St. James of the Sword by the
President of PortugalPortugal has been a republic since 1910, and since that time the head of state has been the president, whose official title is President of the Portuguese Republic ....
. In addition, he has received multiple honours such as those of the
CannesThe Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
,
VeniceThe Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
and
MontréalThe Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...
film festivals. He has been awarded two Career
Golden LionIl Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
s, in 1985 and 2004, and a Golden Palm for his lifetime achievements in 2008.
In 2002, Portugese architect
Eduardo Souto de Moura-Life and career:Souto de Moura was born in Porto, and studied sculpture before switching to architecture at the School of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, the current FAUP - Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto, and receiving his degree in 1980. From 1974 to 1979 he worked with...
completed "Cinema House" in Porto, which was designed to commeneorate the work of Oliviera.
Personal life
Manoel de Oliveira married Maria Isabel Brandão de Meneses de Almeida Carvalhais in
PortoPorto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
on December 4, 1940. They have two children: Manuel Casimiro Brandão Carvalhais de Oliveira (born 1941) and Adelaide Maria Brandão Carvalhais de Oliveira (born 1948). He has several grandchildren through his daughter Adelaide.
Manoel de Oliveira is not only a film director. He also competed as a race car driver in his younger days. In the
1937 Grand Prix seasonThe 1937 Grand Prix season was the fifth AIACR European Championship season. The championship was won by Rudolf Caracciola, driving for the Mercedes-Benz team...
he competed in and won the International
EstorilEstoril is a seaside resort and civil parish of the Portuguese municipality of Cascais, Lisboa District. The Estoril coast is close to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. It starts in Carcavelos, 15 kilometres from Lisbon, and stretches as far as Guincho, often known as Costa de Estoril-Sintra or...
Circuit race, driving a Ford V8 Special.
Manoel de Oliveira was chosen to give the welcoming speech at
Pope Benedict XVIBenedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
's meeting with representatives of the Portuguese cultural world on 12 May 2010 at the
Belém Cultural Center. In the speech, titled "Religion and Art", he said that morality and art may well have derived from the religious attempt at "a explanation of the existence of human beings" with regard to their "concrete insertion in the Cosmos". The arts "have always been strictly linked to religions" and Christianity has been "prodigal in artistic expressions". In an interview published the day before, Oliveira, who was raised a Catholic, said that, "doubts or not, the religious aspect of life has always accompanied me," and added, "All my films are religious."
Oliveira was born the very same day as fellow centenarian
Elliott CarterElliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
.
Features
- 1942 Aniki-Bóbó
Aniki-Bóbó is a 1942 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It is his first feature-length film. Mostly children, from Oliveira's hometown, Porto, play in its story. The script was adapted by Manoel de Oliveira from a short story by José Rodrigues de Freitas, Meninos Milionários...
- 1963 Rite of Spring
Rite of Spring is a 1963 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. The inhabitants of Curalha, a small village in western Portugal, perform the Passion of Jesus every year according to a 16th century text...
- 1972 Past and Present
Past and Present is a 1972 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Maria de Saisset as Vanda, a widow* Manuela de Freitas as Noémia* Bárbara Vieira as Angélica* Alberto Inácio as Ricardo...
- 1975 Benilde or the Virgin Mother
Benilde or the Virgin Mother is a 1975 Portugese drama film based on the play by José Régio and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Maria Amélia Matta as Benilde* Jorge Rolla as Eduardo, Benilde's cousin...
- 1978 Doomed Love
- 1981 Francisca
Francisca is a 1981 Portugese drama film based on the novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís and directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Teresa Menezes as Francisca 'Fanny' Owen* Diogo Dória as José Augusto* Mário Barroso as Camilo...
- 1985 The Satin Slipper
The Satin Slipper is a 1985 Portugese- French drama film based on the play by Paul Claudel. It was directed by Manoel de Oliveira and screened at the 1985 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra as Don Rodrigue...
- 1987 My Case
My Case is a 1986 French drama- fantasy film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Bulle Ogier as Actrice # 1* Luís Miguel Cintra as L'Intrus* Axel Bogousslavsky as L'Employé* Fred Personne as L'Auteur...
- 1988 The Cannibals
The Cannibals is a 1988 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra - Viscount d'Aveleda* Leonor Silveira - Margarida* Diogo Dória - Don João* Oliveira Lopes...
- 1990 No, or the Vain Glory of Command
- 1991 The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy is a 1991 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1991 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Maria de Medeiros as Sónia* Miguel Guilherme as Raskolnikov...
- 1992 Day of Despair
Day of Despair is a 1992 Portuguese drama film based on the life of Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco. It was directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Mário Barroso as Camilo Castelo Branco* Teresa Madruga as Ana Plácido...
- 1993 Abraham's Valley
Abraham's Valley is a 1993 Portuguese-language drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira, based on a novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís.-Reception:...
- 1994 The Box
A Caixa is a 1994 Portuguese comedy film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1994 Tokyo International Film Festival.-Cast:* Luís Miguel Cintra as Blind Man* Glicínia Quartin as Old Woman* Ruy de Carvalho as Taverner...
- 1995 The Convent
- 1996 Party
Party is a 1996 Portuguese-French comedy-drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 1996 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Michel Piccoli as Michel* Irene Papas as Irene* Leonor Silveira as Leonor...
- 1997 Voyage to the Beginning of the World
Voyage to the Beginning of the World is a 1997 Portuguese-French drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and starring Marcello Mastroianni...
- 1998 Anxiety
Anxiety is a 1998 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Afonso Araújo - Boy* Leonor Araújo - Girl* Leonor Baldaque - Fisalina...
- 1999 The Letter
The Letter is a 1999 French-Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It tells the story of a married woman who has feelings for another man, and who confesses her feelings to her friend, a cloistered nun...
- 2000 Word and Utopia
Word and Utopia is a 2000 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was screened in competition at the 2000 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Lima Duarte as Padre António Vieira...
- 2001 I'm Going Home
- 2001 Porto of My Childhood
Porto of My Childhood is a 2001 Portuguese/French film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. Manoel de Oliveira narrates a documentary which features staged dramatic scenes of memories and stories told to him during his of his childhood in Porto....
- 2002 The Uncertainty Principle
The Uncertainty Principle is a 2002 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Leonor Baldaque - Camila* Leonor Silveira - Vanessa* Isabel Ruth - Celsa...
- 2003 A Talking Picture
A Talking Picture is a 2003 Portuguese film written and directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It stars Catherine Deneuve, John Malkovich, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli and Leonor Silveira.- Plot :It is set in July 2001...
- 2004 The Fifth Empire
The Fifth Empire is a 2004 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as King Sebastian I of Portugal* Luís Miguel Cintra as Simão, Sapateiro Santo...
- 2005 Magic Mirror
Magic Mirror is a 2005 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was shown in competition at the 2005 Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Leonor Silveira as Alfreda* Ricardo Trêpa as José Luciano / Touro Azul...
- 2006 Belle Toujours
Belle Toujours is a 2006 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was Portugal's submission to the 80th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee.-Plot:...
- 2007 Christopher Colombus - The Enigma
Christopher Colombus - The Enigma is a 2007 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was filmed in both Portugal and the United States.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as Manuel Luciano...
- 2009 Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl
Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl is a 2009 Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* Ricardo Trêpa as Macário* Catarina Wallenstein as Luísa* Diogo Dória as Francisco...
- 2010 The Strange Case of Angelica
The Strange Case of Angelica is a 2010 Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. It was entered into the Un Certain Regard section of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Pilar López de Ayala as Angélica* Filipe Vargas as Marido...
- 2012 Gebo et l'Ombre
Gebo et l'Ombre is an upcoming Portuguese drama film directed by Manoel de Oliveira currently in production. It is based on a play by Raul Brandão.-Cast:* Claudia Cardinale as Doroteia* Jeanne Moreau as Candidinha...
- 2012 A Igreja do Diabo (Pre-Production)
Documentaries and Shorts
- 1931 Douro, Faina Fluvial
Douro, Faina Fluvial is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along the cities main river, the Douro River...
- 1932 Hulha Branca
- 1932 Estátuas de Lisboa
- 1937 Os Últimos Temporais: Cheias do Tejo
- 1938 Miramar, Praia das Rosas
- 1938 Já se fabricam automóveis em Portugal
- 1941 Famalicão
- 1956 The Artist and the City
The Artist and the City is a 1956 short Portuguese documentary film directed by Manoel de Oliveira. The film shows a series of watercolor panting by Portuguese artist António Cruz of what he sees while walking through different parts of the city of Porto. It was the director Oliveira's first film...
- 1958 O Coração
- 1959 O Pão
- 1963 The Hunt
The Hunt is a 1963 short Portuguese film directed by Manoel de Oliveira.-Cast:* António Rodrigues Sousa as José* João Rocha Almeida as Roberto* Albino Freitas as Sapateiro, shoe-maker* Manuel De Sa as Maneta, one-handed man...
(short narrative)
- 1964 Villa Verdinho: Uma Aldeia Transmontana
- 1965 As Pinturas do meu Irmão Júlio
- 1982 Visita ou Memórias e Confissões
- 1983 Lisboa Cultural
- 1983 Nice... À Propos de Jean Vigo
- 1986 Simpósio Internacional de Escultura em Pedra
- 1988 A Propósito da Bandeira Nacional
- 2002 Momento (short)
- 2005 Do Visível ao Invisível (short)
- 2006 O Improvável não é Impossível (short)
- 2007 Rencontre Unique
To Each His Own Cinema is a 2007 French anthology film commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a collection of 34 short films, each 3 minutes in length, by 36 acclaimed directors...
(short segment from To Each His Own CinemaTo Each His Own Cinema is a 2007 French anthology film commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a collection of 34 short films, each 3 minutes in length, by 36 acclaimed directors...
)
- 2008 O Vitral e a Santa Morta (short)
- 2008 Romance de Vila do Conde (short)
- 2010 Painéis de São Vicente de Fora, Visão Poética
- 2011 Do Visível ao Invisível (short segment from Mundo Invisível)
Bibliographic references
O Cais do Olhar by
José de Matos-CruzJosé de Matos-Cruz is a Portuguese writer, journalist, editor, high-school teacher, investigator, encyclopedist. From 1980 to 2010, he works at the Cinemateca Portuguesa , in Lisbon...
, Portuguese Cinematheque, 1999
- Manoel de Oliveira. Randal Johnson. University of Illinois Press. Contemporary Film Directors series. 2007.
External links