Os Lobos
About Os Lobos
In a village of the Serra da Cabreira, women keep house or gather wood and men watch the flocks or cut timber for charcoal. Ruivo, a sailor just out of prison for a crime of passion, walks in and the old order starts to crack. He has already taken a woman from the fisherman Sílvio. In the mountains he goes after Águeda, wife of Tónio. An intertitle asks the sea-wolf why he came to challenge the wolves of the hills.
Cast & crew
More about Os Lobos
Rino Lupo adapted the 1920 play Os Lobos, a three-act rustic tragedy by Francisco Lage and João Correia de Oliveira, and directed it for Carlos Cudell Goetz's Ibéria Film. Artur Costa de Macedo photographed it. Shooting ran from November 1922 into March 1923. The negative was processed at Invicta Film in Porto and the release prints at Gaumont in Paris. An eight-part version opened in Porto at the Salão Jardim Passos Manuel on May 7, 1923. A six-part reissue opened in Lisbon on May 12, 1924, at the Salão Foz and the Chiado Terrasse.
Themes
In film history
Portuguese critics later treated the film as one of the models for the poetic rural style associated with the Portuguese cinema of the following decades.
Making
Most of the cast were beginners. Almada and Cunha were the experienced exceptions.
Look
Artur Costa de Macedo shot the mountain village and a contrasting opening of the sea.
Music
António Tomás de Lima composed a score for the silent picture.
Preservation
A print survives. The Cinemateca Portuguesa has screened it, including a program on April 17, 2020.
Notes
- José Soveral plays Ruivo. Sarah Cunha plays Águeda. Joaquim Almada plays Tónio. Branca de Oliveira plays Luzia.
- Francisco Amores plays the fisherman Sílvio. Eduardo Ríos plays São Gens.
- Alice Rey Colaço designed the intertitle lettering. Lage and Correia de Oliveira wrote the titles.
- Henrique Alegria was art director. Arthur Emaúz distributed the film.
- After the Portuguese run, Gaumont handled a French release.
- António Tomás de Lima wrote a score. CinePT lists a shorter timing of 52 minutes beside the 83-minute reissue.
Scenes
- Ruivo beats Sílvio and takes his woman, set against shots of the sea.
- In the mountains he turns to Águeda, and Tónio becomes the husband who will answer him.
Influenced by
- Francisco Lage and João Correia de Oliveira's play Os Lobos (1920)
Also available
- Cinemateca Portuguesa
Quotes
As mulheres são como as ondas.
Lobo do mar, lobo do mar, porque vieste desafiar os lobos da serra?
