Oliveira rocks. New York had a great retrospective of his work, when was that, last summer I think? What a fantastic filmmaker. His last film got dismissed as a trifle but it was just a far simpler, more pure version of the best of his work.
Well, he changed my life as Abraham Valley, set in the beautiful Douro, really got me fascinated with Portugal, and not long after i upped stick to move to North Portugal. lost loads of money, but determined to try again, in the lovely area bordering Galicia in Spain, where he went to college. Aniki Bobo from 1942 is an absolute charmer shot on location with some “neo-realist” tendencies but a lighter touch worthy of Vigo. And his Eccentricities of a Blonde-Hair Girl is described as a timeless gem in the latest Sight and Sound article on the Berlin Film Festival. I understand he actually started making Douro Faina Fluvial in 1929 (though released later) which would make him an active film-maker in 10 different decades next year. How does he do it? Well, he was something of an athlete, tennis-player, racing driver in his youth and he’s certainly looked after himself. He should be a legend.
jimmymarkum
“it seems like 100 years”…….
From Guardian.co.uk
“Born on December 11, 1908, Portuguese film-maker Manoel de Oliveira began his career making silent movies. Need we point out that he is, and has been for some time, the last surviving original practitioner of this form? In 1931, the year he made his first film, James Ramsay MacDonald was the British prime minister, Charlie Chaplin released City Lights, and construction was completed on the Empire State Building. He is OLD.
But even more remarkably, he’s still active: since 1990, he has averaged one film per year. Much more than half his body of work dates from after his 80th birthday – an almost unparalleled achievement. (Edward Said was remiss to omit him from his excellent study On Late Style.) While many film-makers a third of his age moan about the crushing debilitation of making movies, this centenarian continues to cheerfully, tirelessly outpace them. He has just completed his 27th feature, and has another – titled Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loira – already in pre-production"