RE-CAMÕES

Luís Vaz de Camões is one of Portugal’s national symbols, universally regarded as one of the greatest exponents of the Portuguese language. His epic poem Os Lusíadas [The Lusiads] is the pinnacle of Portuguese literature, displaying the very “essence” of the nation's cultural and historical identity. As an epic celebration of Portugal's great deeds and conquests in the Age of Discovery, The Lusiads crystallises a heroic and glorious vision of the “homeland”, so dear to the romantic-nationalist ideals of the 19th century that would later fuel the propaganda of the Estado Novo.

The figure and work of the soldier-poet were, in fact, used abundantly to praise the idea of a united nation, destined for greatness: eloquent representations of moral and spiritual values such as courage, loyalty to the homeland and, of course, devotion to Portugal's imperial and legitimately colonial destiny. Despite being “horribly expensive” – Salazar's expression – cinema could not fail to make its contribution to patriotic instigation, and a film like Camões (1946), directed by José Leitão de Barros and sponsored by António Lopes Ribeiro, the regime’s cinematographic ideologue, is symptomatic. After the 1974 Carnation Revolution, revisitations of Camões became more critical and pluralistic, reinvesting the homeland symbol as an expression of freedom and “universalism”. In the cinema, no one would take Camões’ symbolic deconstruction further than Manoel de Oliveira, be it in NON or A Vã Glória de Mandar (NON, or the Vain Glory of Command, 1990), which he himself describes as “The Lusiads in reverse”, or in his final film, O Velho do Restelo (2014), where through the voice of this controversial figure he poses questions to the present that are unlikely to be answered immediately.

This film and talks programme, featuring guests from different disciplinary areas, proposes a critical journey through some of the most emblematic and significant cinematic invocations of Camões and The Lusiads.