Skip to content
1981
New Perspectives in Film and Realism, Part 1
  • ISSN: 1474-2756
  • E-ISSN: 2040-0578

Abstract

The work of Pedro Costa predominately focuses on impoverished communities living in Lisbon’s periphery. Furthermore, his stylistic choices, editing rhythms and use of non-professional actors have been considered as part of the ‘slow cinema’ tradition. This is further supported by an often harsh and unromantic . Costa’s cinema, paradoxically, embraces and rejects much of this discourse. His films can be considered an interstice within the murky realms of docudrama. What is present throughout Costa’s work is a sense of ‘realist’ portrayals of under- and working-class communities through (literal) moving image portraits. Indeed, through specific composition and lighting that resembles portrait photography, Costa captures performances by non-professionals, actors without traditional training who are often found in Lisbon. Here, the analysis will explore Costa’s approach to realism, particularly in (2014) and (2019) which share characters, though are not sequels to one another. What is proposed in this article is an attempt to understand the facets that reflect Costa’s challenges to traditional cinematic realism as he incorporates numerous creative strategies, from aspects of slow cinema to photographic portraiture and, finally, performances of non-professional actors.

© 2024 Intellect Ltd
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/ncin_00050_1
2025-10-23
2026-04-12

Metrics

Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aitken, I (2020), Cinematic Realism: Lukás, Kracauer and Theories of the Filmic Real, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Anon. (1950), ‘Cinema: The stolen bicycle’, Time Magazine, 16 January, https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,811784,00.html. Accessed 3 April 2024.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Barefoot, G. (2006), ‘Autobiography and the autobiographical in the Bill Douglas trilogy’, Biography, 29:1, pp. 14–29, https://doi.org/10.1353/bio.2006.0016.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Barnard, Clio (2010), The Arbor.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Barrett, K. (2023), ‘Good work or exploitation? Beau travail and 35 rhums and the fear of individualism’, in P. Sloane (ed.), ReFocus: The Films of Claire Denis, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 32–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Bazin, A. (1967), What Is Cinema?, vol. 1 (ed. and trans. H. Gray), Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Bordwell, D. (2008), The Poetics of Cinema, Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Borge, M. (2020), Documentary Photography Reconsidered: History, Theory and Practice, Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Brylla, C. and Kramer, M. (2018), ‘Introduction: Intersecting cognitive theory and documentary film’, in C. Brylla and M. Kramer (eds), Cognitive Theory and Documentary Film, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Çağlayan, E. (2018), Poetics of Slow Cinema: Nostalgia, Absurdism, Boredom, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Colusso, E. (2017), ‘The space between the filmmaker and the subject – the ethical encounter’, Studies in Documentary Film, 11:2, pp. 141–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2017.1342072.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Costa, P. (2006), Colossal Youth.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Costa, P. (2014), Horse Money.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Costa, P. (2019), Vitalina Varela.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Demme, Jonathan (1991), The Silence of the Lambs.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. De Sica, Vittorio (1948), Bicycle Thieves.
  17. Douglas, Bill (1972), My Childhood.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Douglas, Bill (1973), My Ain Folk.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Douglas, Bill (1978), My Way Home.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Douglas, Bill (1986), Comrades.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Forrest, D. (2013), Social Realism: Art, Nationhood and Politics, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Forrest, D. (2020), New Realism: Contemporary British Cinema, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Gaggiotti, M. (2023), Nonprofessional Film Performance, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Grierson, J. (1933), ‘The documentary producer’, Cinema Quarterly, 2:1, pp. 7–9.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Haaland, T. (2012), Italian Neorealist Cinema, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Hallam, J. and Marshment, M. (2000), Realism and Popular Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Harvey, D. (2014), Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, London: Profile Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Hernández-Lemus, A. (2010), ‘Gilles Deleuze and Italian neorealism: The irruption of the virtual’, in C. Baron and M. Engel (eds), Realism/Anti-Realism in 20th-Century Literature, Leiden: Brill, pp. 127–36.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Jachimiak, P. H. (2014), Remembering the Cultural Geographies of a Childhood Home, Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Jaffe, I. (2014), Slow Movies: Countering the Cinema of Action, New York: Columbia University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Jorge, N. B. (2018), ‘Contexutalizing Pedro Costa’s digital filmmaking’, in M. Liz (ed.), Portugal’s Global Cinema: Industry, History and Culture, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 135–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Jorge, N. B. (2020), ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Kerrigan, S. and McIntyre, P. (2010), ‘The “creative treatment of actuality”: Rationalizing and reconceptualizing the notion of creativity for documentary practice’, Journal of Media Practice, 11:2, pp. 111–30, https://doi.org/10.1386/jmpr.11.2.111_1.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Lash, D. (2020), The Cinema of Disorientation: Inviting Confusions, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Lay, S. (2002), British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit-Grit, London: Wallflower.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Lay, S. (2007), ‘Good intentions, high hopes and low budgets: Contemporary social realist film-making in Britain’, New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, 5:3, pp. 231–44, https://doi.org/10.1386/ncin.5.3.231_4.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Layton, B. (2012), The Imposter.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Leavitt, C. L. (2020), Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Liz, M. (2018), ‘Introduction’, in M. Liz (ed.), Portugal’s Global Cinema: Industry, History and Culture, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 1–14.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Loach, Ken (2016), I, Daniel Blake.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Loach, Ken (2019), Sorry We Missed You.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Loach, Ken (2023), The Old Oak.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Luca, T. de and Jorge, N. B. (2016), ‘Introduction: From slow cinema to slow cinemas’, in T. de Luca and N. B. Jorge (eds), Slow Cinema, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1–21.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Lykidis, A. (2020), Art Cinema and Neoliberalism, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Maimon, V. (2012), ‘Beyond representation: Abbas Kiarostami’s and Pedro Costa’s minor cinema’ Beyond Representation, 26:3, pp. 331–44, https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2012.679041.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Marcus, M. (1986), Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. McLeod, Jono (2022), My Old School.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Middleton, P. and Spinney, J. (2016), Notes on Blindness, Birmingham: Archer’s Mark.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Nichols, B. (2017), Introduction to Documentary, 3rd ed., Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Nowell-Smith, G. (2012), ‘From realism to neorealism’, in L. Nagib, C.Perriam and R. Dudrah (eds), Theorising World Cinema, London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 147–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. O’Kelly, R. B. (2020), ‘The eroticism of landscape in contemporary contemplative cinema’, Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 7:2, pp. 159–71, https://doi.org/10.1080/20539320.2020.1885174.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. O’Rawe, C. (2024), The Non-Professional Actor: Italian Neorealist Cinema and Beyond, London: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Orr, J. (2010), Romantics and Modernist in British Cinema, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Osborne, J. (1956), Look Back in Anger, London: Bantam Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Reisz, K. (1960), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Richardson, T. (1962), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Richardson, T. (1963), This Sporting Life.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Rosselini, R. (1945), Rome, Open City.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Schrader, P. (2018), Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Valente, S. (2021), ‘Pedro Costa’s realism of the poor’, Orbis litterarum, 76:4, pp. 204–13, https://doi.org/10.1111/oli.12310.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Venugopal, R. (2015), ‘Neoliberalism as a concept’, Economy and Society, 44:2, pp. 165–87, https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2015.1013356.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Waldron, D. (2018), New Nonfiction Film: Art, Poetics, and Documentary Theory, London: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Wayne, M. (2020), Marxism Goes to the Movies, Abingdon: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Williams, C. (1980), ‘Introduction’, in C. Williams (ed.), Realism and the Cinema: A Reader, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1–16.
     [Google Scholar]
  65. Wright, T. (2002), ‘The creative treatment of actuality: Visions and revisions in representing truth’, in M. Thomas and F. Penz (eds), Architectures of Illusion: From Motion Pictures to Navigable Interactive Environments, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 165–94.
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Zaniello, T. (2005), ‘Filming class’, in J. Russo and S. L. Linkon (eds), New Working-Class Studies, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 152–66.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/ncin_00050_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): cinematography; digital filmmaking; documentary; poetic realism; working-class representation; world cinema

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test