The 15th Stone

The 15th Stone

Manoel de Oliveira and João Bénard da Costa in a conversation filmed by Rita Azevedo Gomes

2007 · 121 min · ★ 6.5 · Documentary

Joáo Bénard da Costa, director of the Portuguese National Film Archives [deceased in 2009], interviews the dean of contemporaneous film directors [96-years-old then]. Two humanists of different philosophical backgrounds, both with their long, entire lives dedicated to culture in general (music, painting, literature) and to film in particular, discuss freely, sometimes haltingly, the director's power as a creator or a magician, the philosophy beyond particular scenes in classic movies, film technique, the importance of color, sound and music to films, art versus entertainment, and much more. Their talk takes place in a museum room, seating in front of "The Annunciation" (a 1510 oil painting by João Vaz, a Portuguese artist), which eventually leads to a discussion of 'Leonardo da Vinci', and the relationship between a trend-setter master and his disciples.

Directed by Rita Azevedo Gomes

Your Rating

Where to Watch

Streaming

Rent or Buy

Cast

Manoel de Oliveira Himself
João Bénard da Costa Himself

Make it a double feature

3h 32m together

The 15th Stone

Fragile as the World

Both from Rita Azevedo Gomes.

More from Rita Azevedo GomesSee all →

O Construtor de Anjos

O Construtor de Anjos · 1978

O Construtor de Anjos

MovieDramaMystery

Gothic film in a monastery, where sensual monks murder the children they receive, with images of fantastic, painted from the author own painting and also from the Hammer films and the Saxon plastic tradition of romanticism.

Fragile as the World

Fragile as the World · 2001

Fragile as the World

MovieDramaRomance

An impossible love. Two young people who love each other. Vera and João can’t find in this life the space, time, or identity to resolve their love story.

The Kegelstatt Trio

The Kegelstatt Trio · 2022

The Kegelstatt Trio

MovieDramaRomance

Paul and Adèle were once lovers and separated but are still good friends, one year after everything seems to take them away from each other. The key of E-flat may be the key of true friendship, but it is Mozart that pushes them apart...

Altar

MovieRomanceDrama

A widowed theater actor relives his memory of a young love.

Francisca

Francisca · 1981

The life of a young man, son of an English officer who lets himself become a prisoner of love resulting in fatalism and disgrace.

The Conquest of Faro

The Conquest of Faro · 2005

The Conquest of Faro

Arriving in a hotel in the city of Faro, a couple learns there are no available tables left. When another couple agrees to share a table, they spark a conversation on the city’s history, unfolding the tales of King Afonso III, who betrays his wife, and of a Moorish woman, who betrays her father.

D. Jaime or the Portuguese Night

D. Jaime or the Portuguese Night · 1974

D. Jaime or the Portuguese Night

MovieDramaFantasy

This is one of Noronha da Costa's films in which the "fictional" component is most visible. D. Jaime or the Portuguese Night, like the rest of Noronha da Costa's films, is part of the gothic films (Terence Fisher's work was one of his great influences), and in it he shows the different variations around the "specular bodies", which evolve into luminous magic and into sensual and sensory incandescence. At the same time, we witness a series of ironic and erotic, or historical, views of wicked virgins and laughable sadists, all resurrected from German and British romanticism, while the scenery is no longer Portuguese.

The Sound of the Shaking Earth

The Sound of the Shaking Earth · 1990

The Sound of the Shaking Earth

Freely based on Gide ('Paludes') and Hawthorne ('Wakefield'), this is a film about a writer who never wrote anything and who blows at nightfall the breath of frost. The poem by Carlos Queiroz to which the above sentences belong is not cited in 'O som da Terra a Tremer', but the atmosphere is that, between written letters never received. Fiction within fiction, stories within stories, like those Chinese boxes in which there is always one inside another. Or the two margins of the same river, always being lateral.

Correspondences

Correspondences · 2016

Correspondences

MovieDocumentary

Jorge de Sena was forced to leave his country. First he moved to Brazil, and later to the USA. He never returned to Portugal. During his 20-year-long exile, he kept an epistolary correspondence with Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. These letters are a testimony of the profound friendship between the two poets, letters of longing and of desire to “fill years of distance with hours of conversation”. Through excerpts and verses, a dialog is established, revealing their divergent opinions but mostly their strong bond, and their efforts to preserve it until their last breaths.

The Rose King

The Rose King · 1986

A mentally unstable woman and her son move to a sprawling mansion in Portugal to grow roses.

The Portuguese Woman

The Portuguese Woman · 2019

The Portuguese Woman

MovieDramaHistory

North of Italy, the von Kettens dispute the forces of the Episcopate of Trent. Herr Ketten seeks marriage in a distant country, Portugal. After their honeymoon journey back home, Ketten leaves again for the war. Eleven years elapsed… Rumours are running about the presence of that 'foreigner' in the castle. Some say she's a heretic. Until one day, the Bishop of Trento ends up dying and, with the signature of peace, falls the background of von Ketten's life. Will the Portuguese win, where death seems to be moving in?

A Woman's Revenge

A Woman's Revenge · 2012

A Woman's Revenge

Roberto is one of those men to whom simulation has become the greatest art. He is an unmoved, inscrutable, mysterious man. But the truth is that Robert feels an intimate, deep tedium. The boredom of those who have already exhausted all the pleasures of life. The only thing still surprising him is the fact that nothing surprises him anymore. One evening he has an overwhelming encounter with a woman. For his own bewilderment, he discovers the sublime horrors in which the woman has sank.

The Invisible Collection

The Invisible Collection · 2009

The Invisible Collection

A story about art and educated men, and how their art and culture reveal themselves useless in the face of the harsh realities of the 20th century life.

Danses Macabres, Skeletons, and Other Fantasies

Danses Macabres, Skeletons, and Other Fantasies · 2019

Danses Macabres, Skeletons, and Other Fantasies

MovieDocumentary

Two film directors and a writer are in Portugal for an expedition through various images, moments from the history of Western allegorical representation. The writer is Jean-Louis Schefer, and this tale encapsulates his life’s mission.

Life Lasts Two Days

Life Lasts Two Days · 2022

Life Lasts Two Days

Rómulo's quiet routine in Rio de Janeiro changes overnight when an accident starts a wave of absurd events. Far from there, Orlando, his twin brother and rare works dealer tries to buy the book of a Brazilian student with financial problems. The twins' lives will be on a collision course with the arrival of a mysterious manuscript.

Mirage

Mirages have been reported along the Spanish coast. A young French woman travels to San Sebastián to observe these visual aberrations. There, she meets a mysterious Portuguese woman who tells her a story from her youth: of obsession, and a gaze that can turn the world inside out.

More Like This

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story · 2018

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

MovieDocumentary

The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

She's Beautiful When She's Angry · 2014

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

MovieDocumentary

A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter