“With the death of Manoel de Oliveira is an example. He was the mainstay of all that interesting was done in Portuguese cinema, and did a lot, and it was all from your work. It’s like Oliveira had opened the door to let the people go by a way he never mistook his work of filmmaker with the commercial cinema. And that was always the defense of cinema as artistic activity, absolute creation in which, of course, the director is the great creator, on a par with a painter or a writer.
That was the very hallmark of Portuguese cinema, not only de Oliveira but other filmmakers that followed, and owe much to him and his intransigence.
In my case, it worked as a fact of deep admiration. I began to realize what was the cinema, and the like film, when I saw The Spring Act . I was not an actor, it was nothing. Suddenly went to the cinema to see it, which for me was just shooting a Passion Self Made by amateurs of Tras-os-Montes, and the film showed to me an absolutely ravishing thing. Not only the religious aspect, which, of course, was very important. But also for the camera revealed about those people, about man’s relationship with God and with life. And I realized that cinema was a very important art when viewed that way. Then came an attitude that lasted throughout his life.
The film is not a profession. I was never a professional film, I was always an actor who worked as an artist in the work of other artists. And this is a brand that Manoel left, and whom all the directors of Portuguese cinema have to be thankful.
Not to say that will make a film equal to the Manoel. In fact, there is good that the young filmmakers have the respect normally is a great artist, but the movie they do has no longer anything to do with the Manoel. At that time, it was very important to a movie theater in which the word was also very important. This was also a connecting factor between me and him. Because I have training in literary and linguistic studies. It was a very important meeting, when invited me and started working with him.
The Manoel had a huge shame in human relations. Very few times I saw him share more intimate issues, more delicate aspects or over which they felt safe. He was a man who liked the doubt. Just look at his films to realize that is permanently looking for a certainty about life. About human existence, about the relationship with something transcendent, with what is usually called God. His movies are the permanent search. Not in special movie one, but all in sequence. It’s like the very activity of thinking, to reflect on the life and figure out through the chamber. It’s his journey, his life through cinema.
Never had a great intimacy with him, because he always had a great respect for other people, and it was not just me. In the sense that I am me, you are you, you think you have to think; I think I have to think. Interestingly, whether we oppose or agree, do it always as adults. It was always like that.
But the Manoel was an extremely emotional person. Realized that I had for him a huge personal friendship. Often came to visit, and our conversation went further. They played points that had to do, in fact, what you think about being alive. Sometimes, it was me that was a long time waiting, saying nothing. But then, suddenly, the conversation began to flow, and he would say amazing things, with a profound reflection, and always very curious about what I think about the same issues.
It was clear that it gave me great satisfaction, and realized that he also had a very great respect for me. When was the award of the Prize Person [2005], I was open-mouthed when I see the Manoel enter the room inside. It was the purpose of Lisbon to be present in the assignment. As if he had very proud that I had a separate existence from it.
It was also very exciting. But not to say that he liked both of the shows I did as I liked the films he made. He went to see the Cornucopia often – was not more often, because of their deafness problems. And the few observations that made me, but I have always been in the head because he always gave much importance to what he thought, this example: ‘Are you more effects and, in the theater, it does not take anything; just be an actor on the stage ‘. These are things that, deep down, also touch on deep convictions on my part, but we never have the courage to take this with clarity, with this radical.
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