Manoel de Oliveira

Manoel de Oliveira (born December 11, 1908, Porto, Portugal—died April 2, 2015, Porto) was a Portuguese filmmaker, known for richly meditative and often self-reflexive films that were frequently inspired by literary and theatrical works. Although his career began in the silent film era, he did not attain international recognition until the late 20th century, and his most prolific period was in his senescence.

Oliveira, whose father was a prominent industrialist, grew up in Porto before attending a Jesuit boarding school in Galicia, Spain. As a young man, Oliveira engaged in athletic pursuits and excelled at auto racing, although he was also interested in the performing arts. After enrolling in an acting school in his hometown in 1928, his attention turned to filmmaking. Influenced by German Expressionist cinema and by Soviet directors’ pioneering use of montage, Oliveira produced Douro, faina fluvial (1931; “Douro, Working River”), a short silent documentary that offered a sober portrait of working life in Porto. He continued to make documentary shorts throughout the 1930s and also acted in A canção de Lisboa (1933; “The Song of Lisbon”), Portugal’s first sound film.

In 1942 Oliveira made his feature filmmaking debut with Aniki-bóbó, a naturalistic tale of children in Porto that was later seen as a forerunner of Italian Neorealist cinema. Although the film eventually emerged as a national favourite, it performed poorly at the box office upon its release. Furthermore, its underlying critique of social conditions did little to endear Oliveira to the repressive regime of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.

Facing difficulties obtaining support for future projects, Oliveira for a time focused on managing a family farm and vineyard. In the mid-1950s, however, he traveled to Germany to study colour film techniques and, upon his return, resumed making documentary shorts. In the feature-length Acto da primavera (1963; “Rite of Spring”), which documents a small village’s performance of a Passion play, Oliveira mused on the complexities of artistic representation by introducing fictional elements and depicting on-screen his own role in the film’s creation.

Not long after Salazar’s death, in 1970, Oliveira returned to full-fledged narrative cinema with a series that became known, after its central theme, as his “tetralogy of frustrated love.” Notably, all four films were adapted from works by Portuguese writers: O passado e o presente (1972; “The Past and the Present”) from a play by Vicente Sanches; Benilde; ou, a Virgem Mãe (1975; “Benilde; or, The Virgin Mother”) from a play by José Régio; Amor de perdição (originally presented as a TV miniseries, 1978; “Doomed Love”) from a novel by Camilo Castelo Branco; and Francisca (1981) from a novel by Agustina Bessa Luís. In their rigid adherence to their source texts and in their overtly theatrical mise-en-scène, the films revealed an inventive interplay between artistic forms, with language as a crucial component. Their masterful direction contributed significantly to Oliveira’s growing international critical reputation.

Oliveira’s ambitiousness found further purpose in Le Soulier de satin (1985; “The Satin Slipper”), a nearly seven-hour adaptation of Paul Claudel’s French-language drama set during the Spanish Golden Age. It was followed by Mon cas (1986; “My Case”), which presented multiple interpretations of a one-act play by Régio, and Os canibais (1988; “The Cannibals”), a darkly comic film opera.

Beginning with ‘Non’; ou, a vã glória de mandar (1990; “ ‘No’; or, The Vain Glory of Command”), a rumination on Portuguese military history, Oliveira began directing at the prodigious clip of at least one film per year. Literary history provided inspiration for O dia do desespero (1992; “The Day of Despair”), which traced the last days of Castelo Branco’s life, and Vale Abraão (1993; Abraham’s Valley), an adaptation of a Bessa Luís novel that paid homage to Madame Bovary. The mystery O convento (1995; The Convent) added international stars Catherine Deneuve and John Malkovich to Oliveira’s repertory of actors, and Viagem ao princípio do mundo (1997; Voyage to the Beginning of the World) featured Marcello Mastroianni’s final screen role.

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By the 21st century the tireless Oliveira had become vaunted as “the world’s oldest active filmmaker.” His later films include the character drama Je rentre à la maison (2001; I’m Going Home); the nostalgic autobiography Porto da minha infância (2001; “Porto of My Childhood”); Um filme falado (2003; A Talking Picture), a polyglot parable about Western civilization; and Belle toujours (2006), a slight sequel to Luis Buñuel’s 1967 film Belle de jour. After his 100th birthday, Oliveira enjoyed acclaim for the romance Singularidades de uma rapariga loura (2009; Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl), the ghost story O estranho caso de Angélica (2010; The Strange Case of Angelica), and the family drama O Gebo e a sombra (2012; Gebo and the Shadow), adapted from a 1923 play by Raul Brandão.