Preamble Narratives and Social Memory - Universidade do Minho

The Subject-Matter of Audiovisual Historical Fiction in Portugal (1909-2010)Eduardo Cintra Torres & Catarina Duff Burnayterminus of the dictatorship (1961-1974), which left physical and psychological marks in somegenerations and (3) the height of the Estado Novo (1939-1960). These findings are betterunderstood by the analysis of the main themes, ambience or script background (Table 1).Main theme #Colonial issues 8Opposition to Estado Novo 8Social life 7Biography 7Monarchy/Republic 5World Wars 3Social-political life 3Portuguese Civil War, 1832-4 2French invasions 2Discoveries 1Spanish Civil War 1Portugal foundation 1Corruption (bank) 1Fantasy 1Table 1. Main themes in Portuguese TV drama productions (1990-2010)Colonial issues, the opposition to the Estado Novo, the squabble between Monarchy/Republic and the World Wars are the subject-matter of 24 titles, almost half of the total,which corroborates our ideas. If social life was treated as apolitical, these contents exploredpolitical themes, indicating a tendency to create or manage a collective memory absent inthe previous periods. In fact, television fictional titles produced in the last two decades showthe recovery and the re-creation of a First Republic memory, the “dark side” of Estado Novo(repression, etc.) and “the dark side” of the colonial war and its scars, subject-matters thatwere impossible to be discussed by any kind of media in previous decades.ConclusionsRegarding transpositions from literature to the screen, we note that the most adaptedauthors are the 19 th century romantic (Almeida Garrett) and realist authors (Eça de Queirós,Júlio Dinis and Camilo Castelo Branco) that have survived in the literature canon, whileothers of the same period, considered to have less quality, disappeared from the preferencesof cinema and television. Eça de Queirós, the main realist author of the nineteenth century,was adapted since silent cinema, but his daring descriptions of bourgeois society gained anew impetus in later audiovisual fiction, while Júlio Dinis’ tender realism and well-craftednarratives maintained its attraction until the present (Table 2). The growing autonomy ofaudiovisual production and language shows, nevertheless, that the resort to literary transpositionshas lost its strength in historical and costume drama: in silent movies, adaptationsrepresented 85% of all historical fiction, in sound cinema they represented 50% and intelevision drama only 32%.We also note the interest in two reality themes since silent movies until the present:Fátima’s devotion and miracles, made into fiction in a silent film and twice in sound films,the last one with a participation of RTP as co-producer; Zé do Telhado, the 19 th centuryNarratives and social memory: theoretical and methodological approaches198