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These songs WERE my
script - 'Lisbon Story' revisited What was the first impression that you had from Lisbon? WW: My first encounter with Lisbon was in 1979. Lisbon seemed very dreamy still, not really believing yet that it was actually part of Europe. Somehow it had its back to the continent and was looking over the ocean as if it had hopes to find its long lost splendour there again. When you imagined and later shoot the feature "Lisbon Story" did you want to show Lisbon as a character in the movie, showing its beauties and its darker sides, relating it with the film's characters? WW: Lisbon WAS the main character of the film, and all the actors and people played the supporting parts. You see, I didn't have much of a script when I started the film. I wanted to paint a portrait of the city, and that was my main goal. Except that I didn't want to shoot it as a documentary, but rather through a fictional story. Luckily, I met MADREDEUS, while I was preparing the film, and they gave me these 12 songs, all of them unpublished and unknown still, and these songs all dealt with aspects of Lisbon, with different quarters, the sea, the river. So the music of Madredeus really became my guideline through the city, my map, so to speak. These songs WERE my script. What image did you want people to have from the city while watching and hearing your film? WW: I was hoping that they would recognize Lisbon as a very lovable and totally unique city in Europe, and that they would discover it before it was too late. Lisbon was changing drastically at the time. Have you ever met someone who came to visit Lisbon after seeing your feature? WW: I don't want to brag, but I know of hundreds of people over the years who said they went to see the city because of the film. WW: Lisbon was going to be "Cultural capital of Europe"
the next year. And that happened to coincide with cinema's hundredth
anniversary. So I decided to show Lisbon both with modern technology
- that is film and video of the late 20th century - as well as with
very old tools. We found a camera from the silent cinema times that
was still working, so parts of the film were actually hand-cranked,
like Buster Keaton's "Cameraman". The "story",
if ever you want to call it that, is between a director who has
lost faith in the ability of cameras to show the truth, and a sound
engineer who still believes in the magic and power of filmed images
and their sound. In the beginning of the film we discover Lisbon
more through its "soundscape" then as a visual experience.
And Lisbon has its very own and distinctive sound!
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