Publications
Article | “Além do mar cruel...”: Canção do Mar e a neomercantilização do ethos da saudade portuguesa
Phd Student at INET-md, Caio Mourão, has recently published the article "'Além do mar cruel...': Canção do Mar e a neomercantilização do ethos da saudade portuguesa" (Beyond the Cruel Sea...”: Canção do Mar and the Neocommodification of the Ethos of Portuguese Saudade), in the proceedings of XXXIII Congresso da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Música, held in october 2023, in São João del Rei, Brazil.
Abstract of the article:
Canção do Mar, in a pop arrangement by singer Dulce Pontes, is probably the best known Portuguese song beyond its frontiers. Through the analysis of this music video, following the methodology of Carol Vernalis (2004), I realized that a great factor for this is the exploration of the connection between the sea and the Portuguese people, especially through the ethos of saudade (LOURENÇO, 1999). Despite this feeling of belonging between this people and the sea dating from the period of the Great Navigations (15th century), it was only in the 20th century, with the development of schooling, tourism and the action of cultural agents linked to heritage, that this feeling was consolidated, especially through propaganda, motivated by the Estado Novo and Expo 98, where the arts played a large role (JOÃO, 2015). In addition to architecture, literature, poetry and music, especially fado, it is essentially through the écran that this ethos is widely disseminated. I analyze Amália Rodrigues' version of this song in Os Amantes do Tejo (1955), filmed in the village of Nazaré́ in Portugal. In 1993, Dulce Pontes released it music video. In 2011, Garrett McNamara enters the Guinness Book of Records, after surfing the biggest wave in the world, in Nazaré, which promotes a huge growth in local tourism. In addition to being completely in black and white, suggesting nostalgia, both Dulce Pontes’ music video and Amália’s film highlight the suffering of the people of the sea, with music and images as the great vehicles of saudade.
