Why has Portugal's vibrant and creative cinema industry not been more commercially successful?

Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime provides groundbreaking analysis of Portuguese feature films produced in the first three decades of the New State (Estado Novo), a right-wing totalitarian regime that lasted between 1933 and 1974. These films, sponsored by the National Propaganda Institute (Secretariado Nacional de Propaganda), convey a conservative image of both mainland Portugal and the country's overseas African colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and St. Thomas and Principe). The films about the mainland emphasize traditional values, the importance of obedience to authorities and a strict division of gender roles, whereby women are relegated to the domestic sphere. The Portuguese countryside, where age-old customs and a strong social hierarchy prevailed, is presented in these movies as a model for the rest of the country. The films about the colonies, in turn, underline the benefits of the Portuguese presence in Africa and portray the colonized as docile subjects to Portuguese rule. The book includes chapter summaries in the introduction, in-depth analyses of the most important Portuguese films produced between 1930 and 1960, a discussion of the main topics of Portuguese cinema from the New State, and a comprehensive bibliography that guides students who wish to read further on a specific topic. First published in Portuguese to wide acclaim, Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime fills a gap in English-language scholarship on the history of the national cinema of the Iberian peninsula. Films covered include Fatima, Land of Faith (Terra de Fe), Spell of the Empire (Feitico do Imperio), and Chaimite.

"Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime provides groundbreaking analysis of Portuguese feature films produced in the first three decades of the New State (Estado Novo), a right-wing totalitarian regime that lasted between 1933 and 1974. These films, sponsored by the National Propaganda Institute (Secretariado Nacional de Propaganda), convey a conservative image of both mainland Portugal and the country's overseas African colonies (Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and St. Thomas and Principe). The films about the mainland emphasize traditional values, the importance of obedience to authorities and a strict division of gender roles, whereby women are relegated to the domestic sphere. The Portuguese countryside, where age-old customs and a strong social hierarchy prevailed, is presented in these movies as a model for the rest of the country. The films about the colonies, in turn, underline the benefits of the Portuguese presence in Africa and portray the colonized as docile subjects to Portuguese rule. The book includes chapter summaries in the introduction, in-depth analyses of the most important Portuguese films produced between 1930 and 1960, a discussion of the main topics of Portuguese cinema from the New State, and a comprehensive bibliography that guides students who wish to read further on a specific topic. First published in Portuguese to wide acclaim, Portuguese Film, 1930-1960: The Staging of the New State Regime fills a gap in English-language scholarship on the history of the national cinema of the Iberian peninsula. Films covered include Fatima, Land of Faith (Terra de Fe), Spell of the Empire (Feitico do Imperio), and Chaimite"--

A compelling account of the role of Fado and the fadista in Portuguese film and the wider culture. Colvin studies the evolution of Fado music as the soundtrack to the Portuguese talkie. He analyzes the most successful Portuguese films of the first two decades of the Estado Novo era, showing how directors used the national songto promote the values of the young Regime regarding the poor inhabitants of Lisbon's popular neighborhoods. He considers the aesthetic, technological, and social advances that accompany the progress of the Estado Novo---Futurism;the development of sound film; the inception of national radio broadcast; access to the automobile; and urban renewal---within a historical context that considers Portugal's global profile at the time of António de Oliveira Salazar's rise to power and the inauguration of António Ferro's Secretariado da Propaganda Nacional; Portugal's role as a secret ally of the Falange during the Spanish Civil War; Lisbon's role as a neutral refuge during World War II; and the Portuguese colonial empire as an anachronism in the post-World War II years. Colvin argues that Portuguese directors have exploited the growing popularity of the Fado and Lisbon's fadistas to dissuade citizens from alien values that promote individual ambitions and the notion of an easy life of poverty in the capital. As the public image of the Fado evolves, the fadista's role in film becomes more prominent and eventually the fadista is the protagonist and the Fado the principal concern of national film. The author exposes the irony that as the social profile of the Lisbon fadista improves with the international fame of singer Amália Rodrigues, Portuguese film perpetuates and validates the outdated characterization of the fadista as a social pariah that Leitão de Barros proposed in the first Portuguese talkie, A Severa (1931). Michael Colvin is Associate Professor of HispanicStudies at Marymount Manhattan College.