page_title: Manoel de Oliveira
section_title: 1990–2014: Continued success as a filmmaker
hierarchical_section_title: Manoel de Oliveira / Career / 1990–2014: Continued success as a filmmaker
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Manoel de Oliveira et Michel Piccoli au festival de Cannes
context_page_description: Manoel Cândido Pinto de Oliveira GCSE, GCIH was a Portuguese film director and screenwriter born in Cedofeita, Porto. He first began making films in 1927, when he and some friends attempted to make a film about World War I. In 1931 he completed his first film Douro, Faina Fluvial, a documentary about his home city Porto made in the city symphony genre. He made his feature film debut in 1942 with Aniki-Bóbó and continued to make shorts and documentaries for the next 30 years, gaining a minimal amount of recognition without being considered a major world film director. Among the numerous factors that prevented Oliveira from making more films during this time period were the political situation in Portugal, family obligations and money.
  In 1971, Oliveira directed his second feature narrative film, Past and Present, a social satire that both set the standard for his film career afterwards and gained him recognition in the global film community. He continued making films of growing ambition throughout the 1970s and 1980s, gaining critical acclaim and numerous awards.
context_section_description: Oliveira's work since the 1990s was the most prolific of his entire career and he made at least one film a year (usually feature narratives but sometimes shorts or documentaries) between 1990 and 2012. During this period he established and consistently worked with a loyal troupe of regular actors including his grandson Ricardo Trêpa, Luís Miguel Cintra, Leonor Baldaque, Leonor Silveira, Diogo Dória, John Malkovich, Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli. He also worked with international stars such as Jeanne Moreau, Irene Papas, Bulle Ogier, Chiara Mastroianni, and Marcello Mastroianni in the actor's last film.
  In 1990 Oliveira directed No, or the Vain Glory of Command (Non, ou a Vã Glória de Mandar), starring Cintra, Dória and Silveira. The film depicts the military history of Portugal, focusing on its defeats over its victories. The film's historical action includes the assassination of Viriathus, the Battle of Toro, the Battle of Alcácer Quibir and the Portuguese Colonial War. The only exception to the historical scenes is a sequence depicting the mythical Isle of Love, which celebrates Portuguese explorers and discoverers, instead of its military figures. The Isle of Love features winged cupids, beautiful nymphs and the goddess Venus. The film competed at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, Oliveira directed The Divine Comedy (A Divina Comédia). Set in a mental institution, the film is not an adaptation of Dante Alighieri's famous work but derived from stories on the Bible, José Régio's play A Salvação do Mundo, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, and Friedrich Nietzsche's Antichrist. Oliveira stated that all of the texts he uses "deal in some way with the problem of sin and the possibility of redemption, and in this sense they all derive ultimately from the same source." The film stars Maria de Medeiros, Miguel Guilherme, Luís Miguel Cintra, Leonor Silveira and Diogo Dória and competed at the 1991 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Special Jury Prize award.
  In 1992, Oliveira returned to the adaptation of works by Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco with Day of Despair (O Dia do Desespero). The film stars Mário Barroso as Branco, with actors Teresa Madruga, Luís Miguel Cintra and Diogo Dória playing both themselves and Ana Plácido, Freitas Fortuna and Dr. Edmundo Magalhães, respectively. The film was shot in the house where Branco lived his final years and committed suicide and is both a documentary and a narrative film about the famous Portuguese writer. In 1993 Oliveira made Abraham's Valley (Vale Abraão), based on the novel by Agustina Bessa-Luís. Oliveira had wanted to film Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, but was dissuaded by producer Paulo Branco due to budgetary restraints. Oliveira then suggested to Bessa-Luís that she write an updated version of the novel set in Portugal, which resulted in the novel in 1991. Abraham's Valley is not a retelling of the Flaubert book, however Madame Bovary is both a subtext and a physical presence in the film. The film stars Leonor Silveira as Ema, a discontent Portuguese woman who wants a passionate life like the one she reads about in Flaubert's novel. Like Madame Bovary, Ema marries a doctor that she does not love and has many extramarital affairs before dying in an accident that may or may not be a suicide. Unlike Madame Bovary, there is no scandal in her love affairs, which are simply accepted by both her husband and the society that she lives in. The film won the Critics award at the 1993 São Paulo International Film Festival, as well as an award for Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 1993 Tokyo International Film Festival. In 1994 Oliveira made The Box (A Caixa), based on a play by Hélder Prista Monteiro. The film stars Luis Miguel Cintra as a blind homeless man whose only means of support in a poor neighborhood in Lisbon is his official, government issued alms box. It was screened in competition at the 1994 Tokyo International Film Festival.
  In 1995 Oliveira's reputation had grown and his films were internationally
caption: Oliveira and Michel Piccoli at the 2001 Cannes Film festival
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