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Abstract
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In the recent research work entitled Monuments, Territory and Identity in Estado Novo we have found
that a specific political ideology materialised in the Portuguese spatial organisation based on the definition
of a project towards the consciousness of a legacy, an unchallenged strategy devised in the early revival
of a Portugueseness defended by the regime led by António de Oliveira Salazar. The notion of Estado
Novo would thus be presumably seen as a personal programme seriously committed to nationalist and
anti-democratic convictions, projected and sanctioned in a new Constitution responsible for imposing a
tendentially totalitarian power. However, due to a number of episodes and facts surrounding the Dictatorship
period, such a plan for Portugal was implemented across the land through many and varied works
and transformations, which certainly shaped the unmistakable images of the Salazarist Nation. They
were known as portraits of Portugueseness, however, as we have found, they not only highlighted those
much desired nationalist and regionalist features, but also revealed an international, modern, allegedly illegitimate
and forbidden character. The campaigns for the reintegration of national monuments implemented
under official technical guidance, which expressly ordered that all old and historical structures had to be
returned to their original state, supported the required general aspect and fascistic plans from the North
to the South of the territory. The energetic propaganda activity carried out in the first two decades by the
Diário de Notícias special delegate, António Ferro, allowed the Portuguese people, and hopefully the world,
to idealise about the fairy tale homeland that was believed to be under (re)construction. The ambition
was to domesticate everyone’s views of Portugal. To that end, commemorations, exhibitions, publications,
awards and many other events were organised to disclose and popularise such an ideal. While the
cinema, on a smaller scale, was not one of those privileged instruments of indoctrination, it nevertheless
reproduced some frames that represented well the animated version of national life, especially through
various documentaries on everyday life in the countryside, or the unparalleled history of monuments. Our
purpose takes that line to uncover how this industry was appropriated for the sake of the irreproachable
ideological myths mustered by the Estado Novo, and how the national monuments portrayed the idea of
being Portuguese on canvas. This short-film retrospective of Salazarist Monuments consists of a total of
fourteen documentaries shown at Cinemateca Portuguesa.
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| 关键词 |
Monumentos,
Território,
Identidade,
Salazarismo,
Cinema,
Documentários,
Monuments,
Territory,
Identity,
Salazarism,
Documentaries
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