Revista Portuguesa de História –t. LV (2024) – p. 285-304 – ISSN: 0870.4147DOI: https://doi.org/10.14195/0870-4147_55_11La materia de la propaganda política en el diseño de vestuario de Helena Roque Gameiro: “As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor” (1935), drama de costumbres fílmico

Abstract

As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor (José Leitão de Barros, 1935) is part of a series of films that linked the rural world to political propaganda for the Portuguese nation idea Construction. Ruralism, as a tool for constructing people identity, has played an important role in the history of cinema, to the point of giving rise, for example, to western. The exaltation of rural life became a vein for expressing, in the form of propaganda, the pillars of blood and land in Nazism and Fascism. In Spain, even a genre, drama rural, arises, which is paralleled by the Portuguese drama de costumbres. In this sense, As Pupilas... is a paradigmatic example of the use of propaganda in the Portuguese Estado Novo, through cinema. This article analyses the propagandistic cinematographic use in this film, focusing on the triangular relationship of themes, style and tone. Emphasis is placed on the costume work carried out by Helena Roque Gameiro, an essential contribution to the mise-en-scène of cinematic ruralism. Therefore, this film would decant the strategic ideological repertoire of the Portuguese Estado Novo.