If there is a unanimous book as large Portuguese novel, is The Maya , Eca de Queiroz, a huge fresh from chronic high morals and literature, of a nineteenth-century Portugal that continues to speak to today as rare literary works have succeeded. Hardly less would find unanimous filmmaker to adapt The Maya to the big screen than John Botelho, 65, author of one of the most natural and least consensual universes of Portuguese cinema since its debut in 1981 with Unfinished Conversation . Out of the success of Film of Disquiet (2010) – who released no distributor on tour across the country, totaling 30 000 spectators who hardly have gone to see the traditional circuit – if abalançou to the novel by Eça without fear.
“I do not want to do a period film,” says a terrace overlooking the Avenida da Liberdade, one afternoon in late summer, referring to the artificiality of the whole movie made it indoors on the Lisbon physically impossible to recreate outdoors . By means of many cigarettes and an enthusiastic speech, an interval between the completion of The Art of Light has 20,000 Years (average film that will debut this weekend in Foz Coa under Cinecoa festival) and demands the release of The Maya , which arrives this week to the display circuit (in two versions, a “short” of 2:20 a.m. and another, “long”, with three hours), explains how Botelho your bet on a movie “by distancing artifice.”: true to the story and the spirit, if not the letter, of a novel about Portugal yesterday that talks a lot to Portugal today
What is the true duration of The Maya : one two-hour movie that expands to three, or three-hour film shortened to two
If we were faithful to Eça, should be 20 … But it’s a three-hour film. Lusomundo was interested in distributing – it is not for me, is the Maya , by Eça … – and asked me a shorter version. Which is not much different – it’s more concentrated, faster, scenes are shorter, goes the narrative of the Customs and incest. I’ll have the long version just in Ideal Cinema in Lisbon, but then I’ll do the same distribution of the Film of Disquiet [in schools and provincial theaters cine circuit] with the short afternoon , and at night the long version. And there’s a larger version for television, with four hours.
How is “chopping” The Maya for three hours?
The big job was to get focus. The [Movie] Disquiet was easier because although [the book] is more abstract was more fragmented, more dispersed. This does not, is an interwoven narrative. The adaptation work took months. But this is the work of cinema: cut and paste. What I tried to do was find equivalences to the wonderful descriptions of Eça, try this with light and not with her voice off . The key to the movie is generic; from the moment they show the drawings, models, wardrobe and put Jorge Vaz de Carvalho, who is an opera singer, to make the narrator, installed the device. From the moment there is an installation of the device, the die is cast and what interests me is text or gestures that the characters do say that text.
For me, the key is the text of Eça . Which has prodigious feats; he has other wonderful novels, but this is the book that can translate to today. The Portugal of Maya is equal to Portugal today, and allows me to talk about this anger. Imitations of D. White, who, poor thing, invented the pyramid or copied from other sites and was arrested and it ran him very badly. These Salgados all the world copied his system nor paid him the copyright and walk around loose. And this Portuguese ronceirice is very funny, because it keeps – the intrigue of Silveirinha, Damaso Salcede, the boredom of the rich living of proceeds … Even incest is a political incest, incest is a class: as has already anyone to sleep, to keep the breed sleeps with his sister! And then the story of the Portuguese do not go either to the government or for glory, but for the little dinner yes … They are always late and only rush for Comidinha … Priests, demagoguery, politicians, poets, music, Sonata Pathetique … Dinner Central is an amazing invention – begin by criticizing the singers and beeches and stabbed with a distance of aristocrats, civilized, and after a while they are worse
Portugal is always a recurring theme in your film.
I filmed the Frei Luís de Sousa of Almeida Garrett at a time when the Avenue Freedom was all Spanish – stores, banks were all Spaniards, and were Filipes money. The Who Art Thou? [2001] was an idea to talk about it. When I Tough Times [1988], had finished the Portuguese Goodbye [1986] and needed a strong text, and which led me to Tough Times was the Eisenstein, who said that whoever invented the cinematograph was not Dickens and Griffith, that it was full of film formulations. And we were in that euphoria of the nouveaux riches in Portugal after the April 25. The Jacques the Fatalist of Diderot [<> The Fatalist , 2005] too, was the idea of talking about the debauchery on the false target; when I Traffic [1998], was to announce bandalheira this would happen …
There is a side of ridiculous skit, bonfire of the vanities.
I like to create a sort of montage of attractions, almost like frames in an opera – because it is more open to be theater. The most spectacular show from the point of view of emotions is the opera. You can have a fat lady 60 years but sing well to do a 17, and people can cry, they can go to tears with it since she sing well and represent well.
Speaking of opera, it is impossible not to think of Visconti. So who
That is much better than me. But the only movie that showed the actors in early labor was Intruder [1976], the Visconti. Did not show anything. [Pause] Why is not that, but it’s a very similar idea, especially for the representation. The artistic attitude of this film, which is to make cardboard is not Visconti. Cardboard made for two reasons: first because I like fireworks, secondly because it is economically fair to Portugal. It is impossible to shoot the Chiado today was ridiculous, making frameworks around cars and traffic signs, electrical. Could not and had no money to do it. The film is full of anachronisms and games: there lay a lady reading The Capital , which only came out after the Eça die, have a Brazilian that does not exist, only opened in 1905, there is no abroad, are all screens, everything is false. What is not fake is the text and situations. I played a lot with the idea of bringing the device to the limit to stay true.
But merit is the Eca. I did not invent anything, everything is there – the Beethoven, the Meyerbeer, fado … Even the Traviata , which gave me a huge way, was in San Carlos at the time he wrote The Maya and when it comes to action. Descriptions Bouquet [in the book] are Son Nom de Venise dans Calcutta Desert of Marguerite Duras: corre walls, you read the text in off and it gives a fantastic movie . I respect the texts, even though the cut. The person said the light that illuminates the shoes must match the light that illuminates the faces of the saints. It is a term that indicates to me the light that I do! I really like the sentence of Manoel de Oliveira: “There is no money to film the chariot? Shoots up the wheel, but you have to shoot well to wheel. “Cinema is a false thing. Truth is what people feel, because what is there is all fake. For me, the cinema are two assumptions. The first, the light and shadows and afflicted humans there in the middle, leaving the light to the shade when they are pessimistic or shadow to the light when they are optimistic. A second is that the film is not what is happening or when goes: it’s like shooting The Maya with ten different directors gives ten different films is that joke of Flaubert, “Madame Bovary is me” – and then there are many wonderful and different Bovary <..? / p>
Ega. But we did not invent anything, steal all the others. Filmmaker is a vampire, will seek to literature, theater, poetry, the abstract arts, architecture. Cinema is a point of view. When you see a movie Oliveira, Pedro Costa, José Álvaro Morais, these new kids, Miguel Gomes, João Salaviza, there is a point of view. People choose. Choose a way of filming. We have no market, we do not have industry … When people talk of the industry, I think that they should emigrate to the USA. Because there is that is industry; here is something else, is the craft. It is something that has no market, no sense, but it is a luxury. There is no Portuguese film that has paid the market. None. What gives us a great impotence in relation to life, but it gives us a freedom that is priceless. Power so shoot The Maya is a luxury, a privilege. Another thing I learned from Mr. Oliveira: a person must prostitute themselves to get money to film, to sell the film, but never during the film, you can not interfere in the work. A single tax that had [here] was compared to the shorter version to be able to do four sessions a day and not two. When I Disquiet in Lisbon and Porto lost a lot of people because I did a few views. But I did very well in the province, the cine theaters, did two afternoon sessions for kids from schools and evening for parents, and people dressed up to rigor. I have not seen it long ago. Fur coats, gentlemen in suit and tie …
An event?
was a soiree! Once in Theatre D. Maria II, went to see the Miserere of Luís Miguel Cintra on a day when it was full of kids. An incredible noise, agitation, suddenly they asked to switch off mobile phones that would start to play and everyone fell silent. Why can not I have this attitude to cinema? Why is theater has this relationship with the spectators in the theater but to get there bandalheira and popcorn? Why can not I have that dignity? And I created it. Now, I wash out the hair: I did 160 sessions and was there to introduce the film. Therefore, you must create events. We can not fight the American industry can not lie with the films. I can not say that this is a French American film or a cop or a Spanish comedy. This is a Portuguese film. It is what it is. The cinema is not a single thing. And by creating these situations met people who did not go to the movies for ten years and they were because there was an event. And takes work, but it’s good.
I heard several people say they go to movies to have fun and not think about anything. I like is the concern. I like the sentence of Kafka in which he says that a novel is not to comfort, is to unsettle. People are all different. I have to allow people a chance to choose between one who cares more for the light in the eyes of an actor and one who cares more for voice, or the kick that gives Ega. That has to change a little the lives of people. Is not to teach, because the film does not give lessons of nothing but movies. But it takes an opening for people to be restless, do not get comfortable.
Before Maya , videotaped Agustina Bessa-Luís ( The Court North , 2008), Fernando Pessoa and Eça now. As if you you were to measure the “figures”.
This is so rare that a guy can only shoot important things. I will not make the Lusiad because I’m not 50 hours, but I loved doing a D. João II in Portugal … There are things that are important and that people are neglect. The Agustina is not important? The person is not important? It is as if we had become the kingdom of bestseller that sell much …
But are the great names of Portuguese literature.
Because I like to adapt texts. Love it. If they write better than I, why am I going to write? I wrote two or three movies in my life, and it’s hard. But it also has to do with age, with the desire to do. I have raised three children, have separate lives, I’m alone, I love working. I like doing things, I’m here for that, I’m not here to engonhar, I’m not that thing to change the world, to perfection, to win 10% when a movie can correct the errors in the following. I have this attitude towards life – is so fast that one can not play with it. I have fun at work is huge but seriously. There were things that I missed in the Disquiet and this has been improved, and hopefully the next one will be better than this. Errors and virtues are mine. Not anyone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment