Novo Cinema

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Novo Cinema is a film direction in Portuguese cinema from 1962.

history

prehistory

After a comedy-dominated high phase of film production in Portugal from the 1930s to the 1950s, the country's established filmmakers found no answers to the deteriorating social mood in the country and the rigid stance of the dictator Salazar in the midst of the changing world. The rise of television (1956 start of the Rádio e Televisão de Portugal / RTP) was another reason for the dwindling public interest, especially in domestic cinema. Manuel Guimarães had tried in vain to produce more sophisticated films for the general public. The country's film production continued to decline. In addition, the censorship made it more difficult for the young directors to come up with innovative scripts, who were engaged in critical discussions and exchanges with foreign countries in the country's growing film club movement.

Manoel de Oliveira , who anticipated neorealism with Aniki Bóbó in 1942 , shot a forerunner of the Novo Cinema with his film Acto da Primavera (“Act of Spring”, English title: “The Passion of Jesus in Curalha”) at the end of the 50s. Released in 1963, Oliveira was briefly arrested by the secret police PIDE because of some dialogues in the film

Emergence

From 1962 onwards, the Novo Cinema developed with directors who went beyond traditional cinema. The term was only used in the course of time for the Portuguese films of that era, also inspired by the socially critical Brazilian Cinema Novo . Os Verdes Anos (“Green Years”) by Paulo Rocha is considered the first work in a new Portuguese film. Released in 1963, and with music by Carlos Paredes that has become popular , the audience is confronted here with the contradictions between modern consumer society and conservative society, with the problems of restricted youth and exploitation. The film shows a young couple who find each other in the big city, but then fail. It reflects Portugal under Salazar, caught between the onset of modernity and traditional social conditions. During these years, the country of the Estado Novo stood between the fronts of the Cold War and accepted the Portuguese colonial war in order to prevent any change and to maintain its repressive and socially precarious conditions. This lack of perspective determines the film, and it is awarded the Silver Sails at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1964. Fernando Lopes' semi-documentary film about the boxer Belarmino (1964) in changing Lisbon became another major Novo Cinema film . With its aesthetics, its contemporary jazz film music and its imagery between sophisticated Lisbon and bohemianism and the social problems of the city caught between modernity and retrograde, it became another groundbreaking film for its generation.

A number of young directors, including Fernando Lopes and Paulo Rocha, criticized the Gulbenkian Foundation , which with its extensive funds supported a large number of cultural activities in the country, but largely ignored the cinema and its emerging actors. In 1961 the foundation began to award foreign scholarships in the field of film, but criticism and demands from filmmakers continued to grow. In 1967 the foundation set up a department for film after it complied with a request for funding from a film club in Porto for a Semana de Estudos sobre o Novo Cinema Português (“Study Week on New Portuguese Cinema”). Representatives of the foundation appeared there and asked the assembled film activists for concrete suggestions as to how structured funding of the foundation for domestic cinema production could be designed from their point of view. The foundation then began promoting film production in the country more intensively, in particular through the Centro Português de Cinema (CPC), a group of committed filmmakers founded in 1969. The Gulbenkian Foundation sponsored the establishment of the CPC in order to have a representative and competent contact person. With the filmmakers organized in this way, she was able to plan her film funding and align it with the needs of the actors.

Maria Cabral in O Cerco

The film O Cerco ("The Enclosure"), by António da Cunha Telles and with music by António Victorino de Almeida , was a pioneering film among cineastes in 1970 that consolidated the Novo Cinema. The censors circumcised it with unusual restraint and, not least thanks to its leading actress Maria Cabral, it was also a commercial success, in Portugal as well as in France. The film shows the life of a young woman who strives for an emancipated, independent life, but fails in spite of all modernity because of the rigid, male-dominated social conditions. The vigor of Novo Cinema threatened to wane after its initial enthusiasm, and the success of O Cerco was instrumental in maintaining the confidence of filmmakers until the films made possible by the new funding initiatives were completed, which then further established the new film languages.

The broad film collective CPC, u. a. Founded by Fernando Lopes, António da Cunha Telles , Paulo Rocha, Manoel de Oliveira, Alberto Seixas Santos , José Fonseca e Costa and Alfredo Tropa , it has now become a major driving force behind the Novo Cinema. Influenced by neorealism and especially the Nouvelle Vague , they developed a new narrative style that questioned social conditions and public discourse. Still restricted by the censorship of the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal, they criticized the various grievances in Portugal on film, mostly with hints, symbols and poetry, driven by their enthusiasm for cinema, which they gained from their film clubs and the impulses especially from Italian and French cinemas.

With films such as Uma Abelha na Chuva ("A Bee in the Rain") by Fernando Lopes, O Recado ("The Message") by José Fonseca e Costa, or Pedro Só ( Eng . "Only Peter") by Alfredo Tropa, that brought the novo Cinema continues to produce very different films. They all had a critical point of view and, owing to the censorship, had ambiguities and allusions. After the establishment of the national Instituto Português de Cinema ("Portuguese Film Institute"), today's Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual , financial opportunities improved due to increased film subsidies from 1973 onwards. However, the social conditions and censorship of the underdeveloped, warring colonial power Portugal remained exist unchanged.

resolution

With the Carnation Revolution in 1974, censorship ended and an ideologically turbulent period began in Portugal, which also left its mark on the cinema. After a phase of euphoria and the political film, the social climate cooled down after the more bourgeois camp within the Revolutionary Forces ( MFA ) prevailed in November 1975 . This general disenchantment in the face of the unfulfilled hopes of the revolution also confronted filmmakers with new questions, also with a view to the lack of interest of broad sections of the population in their films. In the now increasing discussion about the task of film, some of the Novo Cinema directors decided in favor of film as an art with socially critical responsibility (including Fernando Lopes, Paulo Rocha, Alberto Seixas Santos), while others decided to use cinema as a means the conversation with food for thought (António-Pedro Vasconcelos, José Fonseca e Costa, António da Cunha Telles and others). In 1978, an important Novo Cinema institution, the CPC, dissolved.

heritage

After decolonization, EU - accession and comprehensive democratization followed economic and social improvements, but also profound social changes. The realities in Portugal have constantly changed, and so the filmmakers looked for new answers and film languages. The influences and principles of Novo Cinema continued to have an effect, both in the work of award-winning auteur filmmakers such as João Botelho and João Canijo , as well as in the films of young directors such as Fernando Vendrell , Joaquim Sapinho and João Pedro Rodrigues . To this day, Portuguese film has retained its own narrative style between poetry and criticism, characterized by financial deficiencies and artistic freedom. Contemporary Portuguese film has adopted its requirements for form and content, and its inappropriate attitude towards commercial cinema, from Novo Cinema, and the country’s cinema is internationally known for its high-quality films that result from this spirit.

The main films of the Novo Cinema

Literature evidence

  • Jorge Leitão Ramos "Dicionário do cinema portugués 1962 - 1988" 1st edition, Editorial Caminho, Lisbon 1989 (pages 228ff, 339ff, 382ff, 398)
  • A.Murtinheira & I. Metzeltin "History of Portuguese Cinema" 1st edition, Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-7069-0590-9 (pages 90ff)

Web links

See also

Single receipts

  1. ↑ A.Murtinheira & I. Metzeltin "History of Portuguese Cinema" 1. Edition, Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2010, page 87
  2. ↑ Jorge Leitão Ramos “Dicionário do cinema portugués 1962 - 1988” 1st edition, Editorial Caminho, Lisbon 1989, pages 50 and 398
  3. ↑ A.Murtinheira & I. Metzeltin "History of Portuguese Cinema" 1. Edition, Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2010, page 90ff
  4. ↑ http://www.bocc.ubi.pt/pag/monteiro-filipe-margem-novo-cinema.html#SECTION00060000000000000000
  5. ↑ A.Murtinheira & I. Metzeltin "History of Portuguese Cinema" 1. Edition, Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2010, page 97f
  6. ↑ Jorge Leitão Ramos "Dicionário do cinema português 1962 - 1988" 1st edition, Editorial Caminho, Lisbon 1989, page 92f
  7. ↑ A.Murtinheira & I. Metzeltin "History of Portuguese Cinema" 1. Edition, Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2010, page 116
  8. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from June 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.filmfestivals.com