MOWELFUND EXPERIENCE

Last , we went to Mowelfund Museum as a part of our requirements to the subject Cinema101. The first part of our tour there, was the talk of Boots Anson Roa, the president of Mowelfund which stands for movie Welfare Foundation Inc., on her talk, she discussed the history of Mowelfund and the reason why it was built. She said that Mowelfund provides financial assistance to the personnel who works behind the camera in film production.She also told us that the former President Joseph "Erap" Ejercito Estrada, spearheaded the founding of Mowelfund. After her talk, the tour guide also said that there are seminars and workshops that we can attend, but for me, it's a bit expensive (40 thousand pesos). 

After the talk, the tour guide said that we can now go inside to the museum. It was really nice to see that there are still artifacts that are about the Philippine and World cinema that this generation could see. In the first itinerary of our museum tour, I saw the early history of the cinema here in the Philippines, the Spanish era and the American era. There are so many things that I noticed when we went to the second floor of the museum, the pictures of the LVN, Premiere, Sampaguita and Lumiere productions. The stars of that time, they were really good looking. Also their films too. 

I also saw the editing machine that were used at that time, it was so coool. There were so big and then it was complicated to use too. We also went to the horror room, I thought that, that room was a simulation of the Gabi ng Lagim in Star City, but I'm wrong. It was just a room, especially made for the props that were used in horror films. 

My favorite part of the museum was the pictures of the 1970's actors and actresses, it was fun to see their faces before. My favorite picture there was the picture of Gina Pareno, she looked so adorable there. 

It was a fun experience to see the past, the present and maybe the future of Philippine cinema in one place. I do hope that this museum will be kept and restored so that the younger generation can still observe the development of cinema in the Philippines.

- KC :D

5th Pandayang Lino Brocka (FEU)

Last Friday, Kharen and I had the opportunity to attend the 5th Pandayang Lino Brocka that happened in Arts Building Room 208 at FEU.

The first part of the lecture or seminar, Direk Joel Lamangan, the director of Mano Po, Lihis and The Flor Contemplacion Story, discussed the way of making the story that you'll be using in your film. He said that a good movie contains a slice of life of a person. He cited an example, a story about the life of a man who is 35 years old with her life until his death at the age of 36. He told us that, you don't really have to put so many events in the movie if it's not really needed. He also shared to us that he's not really a film major graduate, but he's a drama graduate at University of the Philippines Diliman.

The second part of the lecture was an open forum. He told us to just ask/share to him anything that we want to ask because he believes that he can also learn from the students as well. It was a fun talk with his as he answers questions about mainstream and independent movies. He said that independent movies and mainstream movies must not be competing with each other because there are really no point of comparison between them. He also encouraged us to watch Filipino films because he's afraid that the film industry may die before we know it. Lamangan also said that government doesn't really gives importance to Philippine movies, in fact there is only minimal support to the Filipino film makers. The government doesn't considered the film industry as an industry.

Direk Joel taught us that the cinematic language of Filipino films (melodrama, a rich girl meets a poor boy) came from moro-moro, zarzuela and other Filipino theatrical shows before. He also told us that as a film maker, your films must reflect your society and you have to show what is unseen in your movies. You also must be analytical and do movies for the masses.

It was a very educational and fun learning experience for me and it made me love Filipino movies more.

"Before you become an artist, you are first a citizen and you have responsibility." - Lino Brocka

- KC :D

The Edge of Hollywood Cinema

We watched the documentary about the independent movie makers in Hollywood after the end of the Classical Hollywood Cinema. Like what have written on my previous blog post, clickhere! the reign of the Classical Hollywood style diminished at the start of the 1960's, though some of the films were surviving, Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago to name a few. One of the reasons why the classical Hollywood came to an end is because of television shows.

 

Back to the documentary, it showed directors that made noise in Hollywood and stick to their style. One of them is Spike Lee. He's one of the renowned African-American directors in his time. He showcased movies that were about the culture of the African-American living in the United States. He said that most of the movies in his time, they don't really give African-American actors/actresses the lead roles in movies. But he made an all African-American films. 

The documentary also featured women directors and some directors that really did not care about the producers. They really just want to create films. I also heard in the show that if you're not a professional film maker, your film budget is less than 5 million dollars. 

Personally, I like the independent movies more than the movies produced by behemoth film firms because I know that the directors have more creative control and you can see that creativity of the directors and this documentary enlightened me more about them and it made me appreciate them more. 

Le Mepris : Did Camille really loved Paul?

Last Wednesday we discussed about the French New Wave and we watched the film Le Mepris also known as Contempt. Sir left us the question before we ended our class.

"Did Camille really loved Paul?"

At the first part of the movie, she made me believed that she really loved Paul. She's asking him, if he loved everything about her and Paul said yes and he said that everything about her is beautiful. But when Paul tried to kiss her, she said no. (But that time, I thought she was just being a woman who was pa-hard to get)

And then, when Camille met the producer and Paul said that he'll just ride a taxi and she should go with the producer in the car. The scene when she saw the car and touched it, I think it was the time when maybe she thought that his husband can't really provide her things like that.

The next scene in the house of the producer, was really strange for me. She was wandering around the mansion and she saw her husband. I felt that something happened between the producer and Camille and then she became distant to Paul. She did not want to talk to her husband and she just went to sit in a chair alone and read some books about Romans gods.

Through the whole movie, Camille will just feel that she did not love Paul anymore and all of a sudden she will fell that he love Paul again. So for me, Camille did not really loved Paul because if she love/d Paul, she would be content to what Paul can bring to the table. Paul sacrificed to write a movie that he did not like so he can afford a more comfortable place for them to leave but Camille did not appreciate what he did.

For me, there is really no basis of your love to a person because you cannot explain love. So if Camille changed her mine just because she saw the money or power that the producer has, she did not really loved Paul even for once.

Here's the trailer of the Le Mepris

- KC

The French New Wave (1959-1964)

This is the latest of the lessons that sir discussed to us.

It was not only in France but in the 1950's and in the 1960's young generation of directors began to rise around the world. 

Cahier du cinema

A group of young men in the 1950's, wrote in Paris film journal, Cahiers du cinema (which means notebook of cinema in English) and they criticized the highly acclaimed French directors at that time but they also praised some old style directors and eccentric directors. The writers of Cahiers du cinema were the following: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette.

Jean Luc-Godard

The writers also expressed their admiration to some American directors and coined them "auteurs" which literally means authors. According to the book, auteur usually did not literally write scripts but managed nonetheless to stamp his or her personality, on studio products, transcending the constraints of Hollywood's standardized system. 

They were not contended in criticizing the directors so they decided to make their own films. They made 32 films in the span of only seven years and they were called la nouvelle vague - the New Wave. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FRENCH NEW WAVE

- casual look

- shooting on location

- panning and tracking became the trend (camera moves)

- casual humor

- causal connection became quite loose

- lack goal oriented protagonist

- introduce startling shifts in tone, jolting our expectations

- discontinuous editing

- New wave film typically ends ambiguously

Though in 1957, the film industry in France fell, the french industry still supported the French New Wave because it only requires small budget. The directors helped each other to make more films.

In 1964, the historians believed that the French New Wave ended due to the New Wave directors began to have their own production company and form and style slowly dissolved. 

This is a trailer of 400 blows, a film by Truffaut.

- KC

Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)

Sir thought that we already discussed this along with Surrealism but we told him that we know nothing about the Italian Neorealism yet, so discussed it to us. 

Neorealism - the term had no roots but it was first coined at the works of Italian critics in the early 1940's in the books, the term Neorealism may mean the young generations' desire in breaking the norms of that time when it comes to cinema. 

According to some historians, Neorealism was not really an escape of Mussolini in cinema. As we have also discussed in our Comm102 class that Mussolini used cinema for his propaganda, which is to show that Italy, under his administration is good and pleasant. Russolini's White Ship (1941), the movie shown reality but still it was a propagandistic film. 

A scene in the White Ship

Neorealism was about showing the real conditions in Italy and it was influenced by some foreign movement as well. The movement survived through economic, cultural and social factors. They also made a way to somehow remove censorship in Italy. 

Some of well known films during the Italian Neorealism are the following: Visconti's La Terra Trema (1947) Rosselini's Rome Open City (1945), Paisan (1946) and Germany Year Zero (1947): De Sica's Shoeshine (1946) and Bicycle Thieves (1948).

Rome Open City Poster

A scene in Bicycle Thieves

The Italian Neorealism was known for location shootings (they have to resort to that because the largest studio in Rome, Cinettia was wrecked), the use of non-actors just like in Soviet Montage and open ended endings unlike the narrative closure of the Classical Hollywood Cinema.

The Italian Neorealism came to an end when the Italy started to be economically stable again, the censorship was brought back again and the large film production companies began to rule in the Italian film industry hence making the small scale film production companies close. The neorealist directors also now have their individualistic concerns evident in their movies too. Though the era of Neorealism may have ended, there are few directors that were inspired by it including Federico Fellinin and Micheangelo Antonioni, Ermanno Olmi and Satyajit Ray and on groups like the French New Wave. 

I saw a film. The Flowers of St. Francis it was directed by Roberto Rosselini and one of screenwriters is Federico Fellini. Enjoy! 

Soviet Montage (1924-1930)

Hello again readers! So today, I'm going to write about my notes and observation about the film movement called the Soviet Montage. 

After the Russian Revolution that ended on October 1917, the Russian government find it hard to regain their power and to govern all aspects of life in Russia. Despite the war, some film production companies are still operating and they did good in the market since films from other countries were banned in Russia then. the typical films that time (1910's) was a slow paced melodrama, showcasing the talent of the actors (Sir also said that the kind of movies that Russia did before were similar with Filipino films)

But the film companies did not like move of the Soviet government to have all the private properties under the control of the administration. So the film companies hoarded all of their film stocks, took their equipments and went to other countries.

Lev Kuleshov

Some young directors tried to make movies that would be the start of a national cinema movement. They are Dziga Vertov and Les Kuleshov. Kuleshov founded the State School of Cinema art, the first school in the world. In that school, they tried experimenting "by editing footages from different sources into a whole that creates an impression of continuity" just like the Classical Hollywood Style. It was the basis of the Montage Style. 

One interesting fact about the montage style filmmakers is they were from the other fields before being a director. But there is one prominent director that came from the Czarist period, Yakov Protazanov and he remained to his style even there are new style in film making in Russia. 

In 1921, Russia faced economic drought that forced Lenin to build the New Economic Policy (NEP) that allowed private firms for business. That's when the producers before started to release their film stocks again and Soviet production began to grow again. The government tried to have the power over the film firms by creating Goskino in 1922.

"Of all the arts, for us the cinema is the most important." (Lenin, 1922)

The Soviet Montage style had their first glimpse in 1924 with the movies, The Extraordinary of Mr. West in the Land of Bolsheviks, The Death Ray (1925), Eisentein's Strike (1925), and Potemkim (1925).

So, what is Montage Style?

For Pudovkin, he believe that shots were like bricks, to be joined together to builda sequence.Eisenstein disagreed, saying that maximun effect would be gained if the shots did not fit together perfectly, if they created a jolt fir the spectator. 

In the montage movement, they usually did not have one protagonist, they have social groups. They also did not resort to professional actors in their films, they would usually get normal people to act, because non-actors have the genuine emotion, according to Sir. It was called typage.

The fall of Soviet Montage was due to the Soviet government itself, they did not allowed complicated films and some filmmakers went out of Russia. And the government introduced a film movement that is based on reality, Soviet Realism in 1934. The movement ended when Vertov released films Enthusiasm (1931) and Pardovkin's Desserter (1933).

Enthusiasm 1931

Here's a sample of the Kuleshov effect! hope you liked it! 

- KC