Paulo Rocha in Portuguese Cinema

Abstract

A study about the films of Paulo Rocha, that brings together modernism and modernity with both tragic and lyrical, epic e mythical characteristics in its unfolding between the New Portuguese Cinema of the 60’s, his presence in the Far East and his return to Portugal with a creativity that made him more a pursuer of the classics, namely Kenji Mizoguchi, than a contemporary of the “nouvelle vague” and the new cinemas, which he also was. The phases of his creation are marked alongside his own life, with special attention to formal aspects, namely the use of long shot with deep length in new terms and of collage. His place in Portuguese cinema goes way beyond founding the New Portuguese Cinema to place itself at the level of the best cinema of the 20th, early 21st centuries, with a poetics of his own, close to Manoel de Oliveira and future influences.