An Ethical Cinema: An Interview with Manoel de Oliveira

by Jared Rapfogel from Cineaste 33 no3 18-21 Summ 2008 It's surely unprecedented for a retrospective organized on the occasion of a filmmaker's centennial, such as the one hosted by the Brooklyn Academy of Music this spring in honor of Manoel de Oliveira, to boast both a local premiere of a brand-new film (Christopher Columbus, The Enigma) and the presence of the man himself. But such was the case at BAM, with Oliveira making one well-attended public appearance (at a screening of the new work), and slipping into the audience unannounced for several other screenings as well. The series (which is currently touring North America) represented the best opportunity in many years for American audiences to experience the broad range of Oliveira's work, from his very first feature-length efforts (Aniki B6b6 and The Rite of Spring), through his acclaimed but rarely-screened Tetralogy of Frustrated Love, and on to the better-known films from the Nineties and beyond. But it also provided Cineaste with the opportunity to speak with Oliveira. Appearing hardly a day over seventy, wielding a cane which was less utilized than dragged along in his wake, and switching freely and seemingly unconsciously between Portuguese and French (to the frustration of the translator, who nevertheless rose to the challenge), Oliveira devoted almost two full hours to the interview, discussing his films in depth and with remarkable gracious-ness. We would like to thank Karen Sztajnberg for her simultaneous translation, and Ivone Margulies for additional translation from the recorded interview. JARED RAPFOGEL Cineaste: More than twenty years separate your first and second feature films, with another ten years before the third. Were these years of inactivity due to the censorship of the Estado Novo regime, or were there other factors? Manoel de Oliveira: The censorship of the Estado Novo. Cineaste: Were these years of frustration artistically, or did they allow you to work out your approach in theory while you weren't able to do so in practice? Oliveira: I dedicated myself to agriculture during this period. Agriculture was a great lesson, both from the perspective of nature and from a human point of view, thanks to the contact with the workers. At the same time, it allowed me time for a profound reflection about the act of filming. It gave me a deeper consciousness of cinema. Cineaste: Do you think your films would have developed differently if you hadn't had this long period of reflection? Oliveira: At times, I think if I had continued to shoot during this period, I would have been influenced by trends. I wouldn't have become as different a filmmaker -- I would say even, a resistance filmmaker. Cineaste: Would you nevertheless say that there were certain filmmakers from the period in which you were first beginning to gravitate towards the cinema that you were influenced by? Oliveira: That's practically a whole history. When cinema was invented by the Lumière brothers, there were no film schools. After Lumière, there was Méliès, and after Méliès, there was Max Linder. With the realism of Lumière, the imagination and the fantasy of Méliès, and the comic spirit of Max Linder -- all cinematographic expression was there. There's no more "real" left after that. All plays into this cinematic form -- realism, fantasy, and the comic. What evolves is technology. But art is an expression; technology is not an expression, it's science. The movie camera is a scientific machine, not a work of art. In current American films of the moment, the technique is extraordinary. And that's how expression is effaced, stunned by the technology. Expression takes the backstage. Cineaste: Critics have suggested that sound came too early to the silent cinema, that the cinema didn't have enough time to develop as a purely visual art form. Since language is so important to your films, is your perspective different? Oliveira: Language is very important. As it has been said about Donatello, the great Italian sculptor, he was looking for the simplicity of the Greek tragedies and the realism of the Renaissance, simple and exact, clear, so that the deepest things come to the surface. The Golden Age of silent films was during the Twenties, where the mix between expression and technique was balanced, and the motifs were rich. As did many others, I protested the coming of sound cinema, because silent cinema is an oneiric expression, dreamlike; in dreams there are no sounds or colors. When the word came about, and thereafter colors, films went from the oneiric to realism. There is no art as explicit about the reality of the world -- as complex -- as cinema, because cinema is the synthesis of all other art forms. On the other hand, cinema is a ghost, or phantasm, of reality. The other form of realism, concrete, is theater -- cinema is the offspring of theater. As theater is an offspring of life. Film is immaterial, and theater is material. In theater the spectator is there, in the flesh and blood. Paper, wood, all the materials are just as present as the theater itself, and the audience, thus it is material. In cinema, the camera, the screen, and the audience are also material, but the images are immaterial. In theater, the actor is present in the flesh and blood, as is the character he's playing. In cinema, only the character is there, not the actor. Voila! Cineaste: And yet, there's a particular materiality to your films. In Christopher Columbus, for instance, there's a concentration on objects, on the monuments that are being sought out and studied, on the displays at the museum at the end -- there's a focus on these objects and an unflinching gaze at them, that seems to be trying to ait through this immateriality of film, and to convey something in the world and convey its meaning. Oliveira: Exactly. It's a little complex -- it's a film that aims at giving us time to think, bit by bit. Movement is distracting. Somebody who's just seeing bustle on the street is only distracted. The steady shot brings us to another state, to see, as in Da Vinci's "Annunciation." In this picture there's no movement at all, positions are fixed, they're not simulating any movement -- even the trees in the background don't move. And I simulate internality. Somebody said that the present is eternal, but the present is immobile. It's just like the images in celluloid, every single one is still and we only see movement with a succession of them. So that's what the present is, only a succession of images, one second that's here and then it's gone. It's very complex. There was a philosopher, a disciple of Plato who was considered a master by Alexander the Great, who said that it took man a thousand years to achieve intelligence and thought, so the most important thing about man is intelligence -- without intelligence man wouldn't have thought. It's thought that distinguishes good from evil. Cineaste: One of the most interesting things about Christopher Columbus is this attempt to see the past in the present, which is also a part of A Talking Picture. These two films seem closely related, and I'm wondering if the new film was conceived as an extension of the earlier film. Oliveira: This is a very good question. The representation of the past in Christopher Columbus is a representation of the past in the present. This film has to do with discovery -- in Italy, during the Renaissance, they distinguished themselves by their art; the North, England and Holland, distinguished themselves by their theoretical humanism; and the peninsula by the discoveries. The discoveries were very important for the peninsula, because it had to do with discovering the nooks and crannies of the house where mankind lived. The people from the Iberian Peninsula discovered new people, new parts of the world. The explorers did not want to dominate, it was not an act of conquest but an act of giving life, bringing these people into the rest of the world. Even Captain Albuquerque would invite his sailors to marry with the natives, with people of other races, other colors. And that's how they put in practice the humanism, harking back to the theoretical humanism of northern Europe. They weren't worried about spreading the Portuguese language, they were concerned with learning their language, their habits, their culture. There was a certain exchange, they would take back knowledge of their culture, their ways, and give back knowledge of the mysteries of life, how to build something with wood, how to create machines. In other words, that's what the European Union is doing today, also America in the past, as an extension of this humanist state -- that's what the Statue of Liberty symbolizes. So my film, Christopher Columbus, is a melancholy film, because it has this nostalgia for what I think was the golden age of mankind, when there was this reaching out, in a good sense, not in order to enslave, to dominate, since this was not the real intent, but rather to exchange. So much so that Camões, the writer of the Lusíads, wanted to grant sailors and explorers eternity. In the tenth canto of the Lusíads, the gods created an island to receive sailors. To render them eternal, gods were married to the sailors. But Camões brought no warriors to this island, no matter how strong they were. This gift was not extended to warriors. I said this is a melancholic film. And now it's the opposite, it's no longer the state that reigns to extend wealth. It's like we're going back to the Crusades, which is horrible, that's what I wanted to comment on. So all this threat of war, and threat of pollution, the war in Iraq, the threats of terrorism, the sea levels rising, that continues. That's what's melancholy about Christopher Columbus. Cineaste: Your characters predominantly tend to he either artists, or scholars, or from the upper classes. In the later phase of your career at least, there are not many depictions of working-class characters, at least not as protagonists. Is there a reason for this? Oliveira: My films are not political films. They have a deep human character, in its different phases. And these human preoccupations -- hatred, jealousy, passion, vengeance, love -- take the same shape for all different classes. Man is always the same. Circumstances can give it a different aspect -- if a man's poor, it doesn't stop him from feeling love, hatred, lust, envy, it doesn't stop him from wanting to be rich. There's a Portuguese saying that says, "Don't serve those who have served you, nor ask those who have asked of you." When a poor man becomes rich, he is worse than the man who was always rich. Human nature is strange and unfathomable. At the same time, we are all victims because none of us chose to be born. Feelings, ways of being, are born with him, whether rebellious or peace-loving, whether rich or poor, it is terrible. It is the law of defense, we want to survive. Dostoevsky has said that if you put man in a space that was one foot square, man would still manage to survive standing on one foot. What makes him survive there? It is the hope that somebody will save him. Like I said, it's really terrible. Cineaste: I understand that you wrote and directed a play in 1987 [De Profundis]. Given the importance of theater in your films, I'd like to ask about your experience directing in the theater. Oliveira: It's the same, directing for the stage and directing for the camera. When I was very young, I went to the theater a lot. My father subscribed to the main theater in Porto, and he also subscribed to the opera, so we would go to the opera season every year. So, from a very young age, on until adulthood, this was my first cultural formation. A little unconsciously, but actually because I was a really young boy when I was attending these performances, my dream was just to fly over the spaces, over the loggia! I think the reason I had this desire to fly over the stage, was that it really spoke to my desire to inhabit that place. Cineaste: But the experiences of directing theater and film were not radically different in your opinion? Oliveira: No, cinema is an offspring of theater. You just add to the theater the cinematic technique of dividing things in shots. At a certain point cinema dominated the world of theater. And in many ways now you see stages cut up into various screens -- I don't think much of it. Cineaste: During the years of inactivity we were discussing earlier, did you always have the faith that filmmaking would ultimately be your life's work? Oliveira: Yes, I always knew, always. In a richer, more concrete, more correct way, I wanted cinematic expression to be brought to a point in which cinema itself would be ethical. Let us take care with fantasies, any nut can do this. I'm always looking for the greatest simplicity to render these deep things clearer, to be simple, not to rush, to give thought some time and tranquility, and to represent reality such as it is -- hate, jealousy, revenge, all of that. But vengeance not in an immediate sense -- when one practices terrorism, it is a form of vengeance. When the Jews were being burned at the stake, this too was a form of vengeance. Police films are also about vengeance, but they're very attractive, they want to know who killed who, why, how, creating an interest for it. Vengeance is a deep human act. So often in films an executor and a victim are created, who are just going to torture and inflict pain, as if that was really needed, to create a victim and a punisher. So the more pain is inflicted on the victim, the more the audience identifies with the victim, to the point where the spectator himself becomes a victim -- and the other one a creator of pain. And when the victim finally takes revenge on the executor, the whole audience feels relieved, and that's how good police films work -- it's a very simple way to get the public. It is terrible when a creative person is asked, who do you paint for, or make films for? I think it is really offensive to ask a musician, a composer, whoever, who are you making your art for? I tell the anecdote of a composer who was asked this, and who was totally befuddled, and said, look, I write music for the musicians to play. It's one thing to write to make money. The other is to write for intuition, an interior need. A painter who has painted his whole life, who never sold a painting in his lifetime, but now there are museums devoted to his art, and that didn't stop him from painting. Cinema is different, because film is a very expensive, industrial art -- I can't just forgo lunch and buy paints instead. Cineaste: People have criticized your films for being "uncinematic" and I wonder if you think our conception of what is and isn't cinematic has become impoverished or misguided? Oliveira: What's cinematic is what comes out of the camera -- that can be good or bad. The cinematic doesn't exist. What exists is life. That's what everyone is looking for; even the most abstract expression is life. We wish we had been stars in the sky; an expression is just a vibration of oneself. Sometimes, with a child, he will start drawing without anyone asking for it -- funny pictures, where you can't see anything clearly. And if you ask the child, the child will say, this is a car, this is an egg, this is whatever. He has a pure necessity to express himself through doodling, drawing. There's no proper glory for the artist; it doesn't exist. When Rembrandt presented "The Night Watch," the people of the court ridiculed him. The next day when he was having lunch with his students, he complained that the businessman has his glory and his profit; military men have glory and victory; but what about the artist? I think the artist can have glory only by starving himself to death, as happened to Caravaggio -- he died of hunger. And now his paintings are sold for a fortune. It's an inner necessity. Commerce and industry have to worry about pleasing their audience. Some people say that film is an industry -- film is not an industry. The film cameras are industrial, the film itself is industrial, labs are industrial. But artistic expression is not industrial. Cineaste:J'd like to ask about the texts that you choose to found your films upon. You've talked before about your role being that of an "interpreter" of the texts you choose. I don't think that's the way most filmmakers would describe their role -- do you think your approach is radically different or do you just formulate it differently? Oliveira: I'm not an intellectual, erudite, a scholar, I'm much more intuitive. There's a Portuguese philosopher, Spinoza -- who went to Holland because he was Jewish and was being persecuted by the Inquisition -- who said, "We are free because we ignore the dark forces that govern our impulses." How can I explain why I pick this text over that one? It's a matter of affinity. I'm only an interpreter of the material, even of the material I generate. It's very important never to confuse the model and the portrait. In the Middle Ages, they all did the Madonna, they all did the same thing. Cineaste: Most filmmakers, when they adapt a text, use it as a starting-off point, but for you the text seems more inviolable. Oliveira: I have a lot of respect for the text. I may alter one thing here or there but never the spirit of the text itself. Same thing with historical films, when I do these I always work with an historian, Professor Joao Marques, who I always consult with before I make any changes so everything is very accurate. The spirit of the work I do not betray. I'm especially aware of the dialog. I want to make sure that the better ones, those lines that are especially rich and indispensable, are kept. I keep some lines of dialog, omit others, but whatever is there is very accurate. When I work with a book, a text that is not mine, if s because I like it, andbecause I like it, it becomes mine. Cineaste: But you write the screenplays, you do the adapting? Oliveira: No, I don't adapt, I just write the story and the decoupage -- it's easier for me. I like adapting. Cinema was greatly influenced by literature at a certain point. Hemingway's writing is very cinematic. I don't like books that are very cinematic. I like literary books, where one is forced to discover, conjure up the images that fit the text. Cineaste: Belle Toujours is an interesting film in this sense -- after so many films based on novels and plays, it's the first of your films that's explicitly based on another film [Belle de Jour]. Why after all these years didyou decide to use a film as a starting point, and why this film? Oliveira: The filmmaker I like the most is Dreyer, and the film I like the most is Gertrud, his last film. I also like very much Bunuel's films, his magical realism. Dreyer is from the North, from Denmark -- it's a different synchrony than the Iberian Peninsula, which I'm closer to, so it would be harder for me to pay homage to Dreyer. Bunuel opted for neo-realism because it deals with exploring the subconscious. Because he is an aggressive author, shocking institutions, he became a filmmaker of great ethics. He always distinguishes between private and public -- he never shows the private in public, there are no love scenes, kisses. Very few filmmakers stick by this ethics, of separating the public and the private. Both film and theater expressions are public acts as opposed to all other arts. Charlie Chaplin also respected this separation, Griffith, Bergman, Orson Welles, Hitchcock -- a few, but so many others just don't care, they show kissing, smooching, messing around. The creator gave men hunger, if we didn't have hunger we wouldn't eat, if we didn't eat we wouldn't survive. He gave us desire between man and woman to guarantee the continuation of the species, not for pleasure -- he added pleasure to the sexual act so it would repeat itself, he added pleasure to the act of eating so it would repeat more often. Why is that purposeful? I don't know why he gave us the cinema obsession. Cineaste: Did he make it pleasurable? Oliveira: Yes, it's pleasurable, because it's an interpretation of life. Life has so many different, complex things to be dealt with. Not all the films, not all the books, not all the plays, can give us the totality of what life is. We just try to give meaning to parts of it. And today's films are very limited -- violence for its own sake, sex for its own sake. That's not life, that's just a part of it.