FILMMAKING AS ARCHIVE MAKING
Richard Linklater said of his writing process, “I don’t want you to worry too much about the script. My whole life I’ve gone to the movies and there’s espionage and shootouts and helicopters, all this action. Everything that I see is all this drama, [so much so] that you would think my life, our lives, have no drama. That’s not the way I feel. My life feels very exciting to me and I’ve never been involved in a chase or a gun shootout. My life is exciting to me. And what’s the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me? Connecting with another human being…If we can put that on screen I think people will care.”
There’s no living filmmaker better at seeing the unseen, mundane, human moments than Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa.
The art of cinema is to make you see. First as an artist. His 2020 masterclass on filmmaking is required viewing for all engaged in archive practices.
He says, don’t write a script. Go somewhere. Try to understand a place. A person. The people. Everything.
“You’re not going to make films, I hope, there’s enough films in the world. Please don’t do more.”
His practice is most known for his work in Fontainhas neighborhood of Lisbon. Documenting the marginalized lives of migrants and working poor. A radical approach to cinema that is closer to archive making, than art making, yet one in the same.
No script. No actors. His medium is time. His tool of choice, his eyes. His ears.
He sees. He hears. So we as an audience can experience life outside our own.
Excerpt from the 2006 film, Juventude em Marcha, or Colossal Youth.
The story finds Vanda Duarte, 6 years after meeting her in In Vanda's Room . She once again plays herself, and shares her world.
( 2000 above - 2006 below / an evolving archive as cinema )
INT. APARTMENT - DAY
Ventura sits on the bed of Vanda.
She smokes a cigarette..
VANDA
When I had my daughter, I was in pain for over three days.
VENTURA
In pain?
VANDA
In my back.
I told my husband, "I can't stand it. I'm not even due yet."
"Careful, darling. Don't give birth here. If you're feeling bad, we'll go to the hospital."
Three days in horrible pain. I didn't want to go. I was scared. That was a Saturday. I had my little girl on a Saturday.
The nurse put her hand on me and said, "You're not going anywhere."
I said, "Excuse me? I've got to get home. Why can't I leave?"
"Because the baby's head has already appeared."
"But I'm all alone here. I have to go get my husband. I don't know his phone number."
And she said, "You're not leaving here. Give me your address. I'll send someone."
I was in such pain! Christ! Waves of pain every ten minutes. "Ow! It hurts so bad!"
Then it was every five minutes. "Hey, it's getting worse."
"You're having your baby. Come with me."
So I went.
They put me in the delivery room and put this thing on my belly. I had the same belly I have now. I didn't even have a belly. It was the same as it is now. They put this CTG on me, a kind of belt. And I went, "Hey, get this crap off me! It hurts!”
"We can't, ma'am. It's to listen to the baby's heart."
"Take it off me, or I will!"
"Ma'am, you can't do that."
When I realized I was stuck there, I said, "My husband's outside. Go get him."
"You were alone before, and now your husband's here?”
"He's outside. Go get him."
- "What's his name?"
- "Paulo Jorge."
He came in. "What is it, sweetheart?"
"I can't stand it here. I'm in pain. Help me, darling. I can't take it!"
Then an Indian man came in, plus my husband and five others. Seven in all. The Indian man climbed up here on me, because when I pushed, my daughter moved up here. It was hard. She was like a little mouse. If she'd been big, she'd have come out quicker. But the small ones all come up this way.
The doctor said, "We have to do something. She can't take any more."
And all those guys on top of me, with their knees and hands they kept pushing and pushing until the baby came out… whoosh! Once she was out, I didn't even see her face, or if it was a boy or girl. I never saw her again.
They said, "You're not going anywhere. You're sick."
"I'm not fucking sick! I want out of here, you fucking whores!"
And my husband says, "Shut up. You're upsetting these women. Shut up. You have to stay here."
I was all stitched up and couldn't even walk. Otherwise I'd have left. I wouldn't have hesitated.
They put me in a room. First they put me on a gurney next to another girl who'd just delivered too. She was young too. We couldn't have a pillow. We had to lie flat so the blood could circulate.
So I raised myself up like this and said, “Hey, I'm starving."
"You can't eat, ma'am."
"Miss, bring me something. I'm starving!"
The girl next to me said, "You can't eat anything. Lie back down. The blood could go to your head.”
"Then let it!"
I felt nauseous, and I couldn't walk because of the stitches.
When I looked up… an hour later, they started pushing my gurney God knows where. I covered that whole hospital on a gurney.
The doctor was pushing me. We took one elevator... Wrong one. Then we took another one, and I ended up on the seventh floor. Me, all alone in a room.
VENTURA
What?
VANDA
All by myself. I swear on my mother's soul, on my daughter's health. I was left alone in a room. And I cried every day. My God! All I had was a TV. I never saw the doctor's face, just his eyes. They all wore masks. I asked them, "Why are you wearing those? Am I that sick? What's the matter with me?"
"Nothing much. You just have a spot on your lung, and we have to be careful, for your safety and ours."
Then I start crying. Holy Christ.
One day I told my husband, "Get me out of here or I'll jump out the window. I'll kill myself. Just like that lady did yesterday."
My husband got scared. He told them, "Keep an eye on her. She says she's gonna use the oxygen to kill herself." I had one of those oxygen things on the wall. If you open it, it's like gas. Alone in a room, no windows, no doors, nothing. Locked in. I could have died. "I'll open the canister, and they'll find me lying here. Get me out of here, honey. I feel better now. I want to leave."
I cried every day. Then one day, "So you won't let me out? All right, then.
Where's my daughter?" I asked the doctor, a Spanish lady.
"She's in an incubator in the nursery. You can't see her right now."
"I can't see my daughter? You bet I can!"
"No, you can't."
After she left I put my mask on, and those paper slippers they have. You know, those paper slippers. I slipped them on. When they found me, I was at my daughter's side.
"Why can't I see her? I have to get to know her. You took her away. I didn't even see her face."
"You're out of your mind. You can't be here."
"What do you mean?"
From then on, they came every day and took me in a wheelchair. Me in a wheelchair! I went to see my baby girl. But it was so painful. She was in a bad way, just like me. God, how she jerked up and down in that incubator. You know, those glass incubators. She kept jerking up and down and hitting the glass. That'll stay with me forever. I'll never forget that, ever. Shit.
But thank God, the kid's absolutely fantastic. She's fine. She just has trouble breathing... - but it could've been worse.
VENTURA
May God help you both.
VANDA
Raising them is hard, but it's worth it.
VENTURA
- It's true.
- Then they're the ones... -
VANDA
Yours are grown. Now they all... -
VENTURA
They all help me.
VANDA
You see? It's true.
I feel so bad for my daughter. Without her I'd still be hooked, Papa. That's no life. Believe me, without my daughter and my husband, I'd still be on drugs.
VENTURA
You'd be dead too.
VANDA
I sure would. I swear it. My daughter. gave me such courage, and God knows how much my husband helped me. If I told you his life story, all he's done for me... - no man would have done that. He didn't even know about the drugs. I'd send him out to buy them. I'd say, "Go to such and such a place and ask to speak to such and such a person." Shit! That's why. I love him so much. He helped me so much. Maybe too much.
VENTURA
Are you off drugs, Zita? I mean... Vanda.
VANDA
Absolutely. It's been almost two years. If I hadn't stopped, you think I'd be like this? Come on.
VENTURA
That's life.
