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

Film Noir

I really had no idea what to write about on this one because I was absent when they watched the documentary Film Noir but I will just post here the facts that I got about it, over the internet. T__T

Film noir comes from the french that means "black film". Most of the films are about crime and sex in general. It was inspired by German Expressionist films that uses dark background and the topics are also about crimes. 

This film movement started in the 1940's and ended at the late 40's. 

There are two important elements in a Film Noir, one is the chiascuro lighting, it is the use of lights and shadows dramatically and the femme fatale, the female in the film that will seduce the protagonist that will cause the protagonist to his fall.

Femme Fatale

Some of the well acclaimed Film Noir movies are, Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep, The Maltese falcon and Laura. 

I found a copy of A foreign affair, 1948, you can watch it here! :)

That's all folks for today. :D It is hard to be absent in a 3 hour class, for you will miss too many good lessons. 

- KC

The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking

Like what I said in my previous blog post here. Hollywood lost its reign in the 1960's though some movies were successful like The Sound of Music and Dr. Zhivago. Most of the studios in Hollywood begun to go down, we have seen it in the documentary that the studios were literally been taken down.

Some producers produced movies that are still taboo at that time and somehow it worked but did not last.  (Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, and Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H) At that time, film school graduates started to create a noise in the movie industry like George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma. They did not undergo the traditional studio system but they studied film in Film Schools at New York University, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Los Angeles. 

the "movie brats"

The so called "movie brats" made films that were influenced by the classical Hollywood style and some European filmmakers. They also incorporated their stories in their films like, American Graffiti was not only a teenage musical but also Lucas's reflection on growing up in California in the 1960s. Martin Scorsese drew on his youth in New York's Little Italy for his crime drama Mean Streets (1973;12.49). Coppola

imbued both Godfather films with a vivacious and melancholy sense of the intense bonds within the Italian American family. Paul Schrader poured his own obsessions with violence and sexuality into his scripts for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and the films he directed, such as Hard Core (1919).The seamless storytelling was still present at their movies. 

Some foreign directors were also known at that era, as well as some American-African and Asian-American directors. There were also women directors that penetrated the movie industry.  

Allison Anders, female director

There was no specific movement at the 1970's up to now, there are directors who stayed doing the medium-cost films and some directors went to studios for high-cost films.

- KC

French Impressionism And Surrealism

Hi again! So here are my notes about French Impressionism and surrealism. By the way, I found a hard time searching for the page of the article in the book because I was following the pages in Adobe reader, just sharing haha.

Impressionism

This film movement started when the World War I began to struck the movie industry in France. There were only two film firms at that time and exporting of movies was stopped. They can't produce their own movies so that they imported so many Hollywood films to the point that the are Hollywood films are more known than the French films. Then the young directors such as, Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Gernraine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier, and Jean Epstein started to make films that are not for commercial's sake but for art's sake and they penetrated to the French film industry.

Impressionism is more about the inner thoughts and the psychological processes that is happening to every person in the film. Flashback were common to suggest that a person in the film is thinking about the his/her past. Thinking of one's dreams, fantasies and mental states was also prevalent. Emotion is the center and the backbone of Impressionist films.

The impressionist also spearheaded the use of pronounced rhythm editing to their films. When the action comes to a violent or emotional turmoil the rhythm is faster and the shots will be shorter and shorter but when the reaching the climax it will be longer. They also used point-of-view shots heavily.

La Roue's train scene

The movement came to end on 1929 because the French masses seems to like sound films more and only elites were the ones who appreciate it due to its formality. But many filmmakers were influenced by the French Impressionism such as Alfred Hitchcock.

Surrealism

Out of this world. Anti-narrative.

This are just few descriptions that I can say about surrealism. According to the book, the surrealist relied mo on private showing rather that on commercial film industry. Surrealism was heavily influenced by the surrealist  literature and paintings, which are out of this world too, dreamlike.

If I were to compare it to Impressionism, they are exactly opposites because Impressionism is more about the logical thinking of a person in the film and surrealism provides no logic at all.

Surrealism distorts causality because a specific action can be done in the film without any logical reason behind it. One good example of this is, in the film Un Chien Andalou, flies come out of the hands of a man.

Anton Breton

When the spokesperson of Surrealism, Anton Breton joined a communist party in 1929, the surrealism movement also went down.

Hope that you learned new things about these two film movements today! :)

-KC

Film School Generation

The Classical Hollywood lost its reign in the early 1960's because of the advent of television and the Americans wanted a new treatment to films. And that's when the young directors of the generation found its way into the mainstream film industry. 

Our professor raised the question that we needed to answer at the end of the documentary. Who are the directors that pleases the audience? Who are the directors that pleases himself?

Coppola-Spielberg-Scorsese-Lucas

From what I have watched only Brian de Palma and Steven Spielberg really cared about their audiences and most of the directors of the generation really wanted to showcase what they want and apparently it is also the wants of the movie-goers at that time. Sex, drugs and all of the taboos of that generation, were evident to the movies that they did in the early 60's up to when they started to go back to the studios which is the early to late 70's.

The reign of these filmmakers came to an end when they started to produced movies that are high cost. And they don't have the money to produce such movies so they went back to the studios and somehow the studios have the capability to control the directors again. 

The film school generation directors also were the first to have blockbuster movies, Jaws, Star Wars are a sample of blockbuster movies. 

At the end of the documentary, they showed the directors who are still in the movie industry and sadly only few of them lasted. 

-KC

Un Chien Andalou : A Movie Review

We watched a surrealist movie called Un Chien Andalou that was directed by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. I must say, it was really a weird film. I tried my best to comprehend the film but in the end you will be lost because it is very complex and sometimes illogical. Example, how can flies come out from a person's hand? Also, how can a man pull two grand piano with two persons (I guess they are the pianist) in it? The person must have a very strong body to do that, but apparently in the movie, he's not. 

It was hard for me to understand the story because like in a dream, a certain think that was done in the movie doesn't have to have a specific reason for the act to be accomplished. The sequences of the film were not connected for me. There is only one time, ONE TIME in the film that i somehow understood it, it was when the lead actor was lying down on his bed wearing some baby clothes, and then a man came in to his room, the exact copy of that guy and he started to remove the baby clothes of that guy and he threw it outside of the window, maybe it means that he is reminding himself to grow up and mature. 

In the whole movie, you will see several items that were shown multiple times in different locations and different subplots, the box, the baby clothes and the bicycle.

For me, the most "illogical" or maybe the most genius scene of the movie is when the man cut the eyeballs of the woman and then the next scene is a moon that may signify the eyeballs and the clouds passing by on it.

Overall, I tried to comprehend every single sequence of the movie but I failed. This is a surrealist movie anyway, maybe there had really no meaning behind it or there were many meanings behind it but it is so deep that I can't reach it. 

-KC 

My First Movie Experience (hihihi)

Since I can't remember that much from my childhood, I consider this as my 1st movie experience. I think, I was 3 years old that time, then we were in the mall. We were strolling and we ate. After that, they decided to go and watch a movie. My father was carrying mt inside a very big room, that was full of chairs and it was pretty dark. Since I'm not scared of the dark, I just enjoyed looking at the chairs. 

After a few minutes, the show started, it was the Bug's life, it was colorful, really colorful. I was amazed by the ants walking on the grassland and it started to turn dark, darker and darker, little did I know, I'm already sleeping, I did not even watched a quarter of that movie, last thing that I remember, my father was carrying me after the film.

That's why I came up with a theory that maybe I'm not that interested to movies in general because of what happened back when I was still a child. But now, I'm starting to like movies because of CNM100. :D

- KC

German Expressionism

DARKNESS. LONELINESS. EVIL. TERROR. 

These were the emotions that were prevalent during and mostly after the World War I in Germany. They were in huge trouble then. Their economy hit rock bottom, their morale was at all time low. But the German Government sought a way to somehow fix their internal problems in the movie industry when they collaborated with Deutsche bank,and they made the Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft or UFA which propagate the pro-war movies at the start of 1917.

The movies in the German Expressionism era really reflects what it happening to their society then because the nature of most of the films is about crime and the mis-en-scene is commonly a dark environment. in the films also, they need to exaggerate some actions to bring more the suspense factor.

The movie that I liked the most in that era is Metropolis (1927) because I never really thought that kind of movie quality was actually possible at that time. There were special effects, awesome cinematography and a great storyline.

It was sad knowing that the reign of German Expressionism only lasted for a couple of 7-8 good years but it HIGHLY influenced not just the German cinema but also the world cinema up to now.

Yey! I found the full movie of the film, Metropolis, watch it here! 

Classical Hollywood Style

I am not that of a fan of Hollywood movies or any kinds of movies but when we watched "The Hollywood Style", I appreciated the way these films were, created, filmed and produced. The show showcased the classic Hollywood films like The Heiress, Casablanca, Scarface, Carrie, A place in the sun and a lot more. in the movies that were exhibited, I noticed that they wanted the audience to have an escape to their daily lives. The movies were grand and you can really see a tremendous amount of richness and royalty. 

Movies in the Classical Hollywood

I loved how the directors of this generation always, in some ways incorporated the old and classic hollywood style to their movies, the camera movement and the seamless storytelling to be exact. But directors also made it a point that the camera movement, the set and other technicalities won't affect the storytelling element that they want to convey to their audiences. The hollywood movies also got some influences from the European films and according to the documentary, some of European directors also went to U.S.A. to film some movies and inspired American directors.

Warner Brothers' Studios

The show tells the evolution of Hollywood movies, the way it was before and the way of new Hollywood movies were influenced by the past. It also tackles the other parts of movie production (writing/script, sound effects, music, set and the editing). The Hollywood style mention the big playmakers in the movie industry like, 20th Century Fox, MGM, United Artists Incorp., Universal Stuios, to name some.

I personally liked the part when the studio type movie houses were showed, because I think that, that type of movie production is cost-efficient and effective, because you can call anyone that you need in the fastest time possible. 

At the end of the docu, I also commend the last statement that, yes the tools in creating a movie may change but they will all go back and they will get their inspiration to the classic and ever-reliable, old Hollywood Style.

-KC

Trainspotting : A Movie Review

It was my first time watching a film that is about substance-abuse and I actually liked it (Not because I'm a drug user or whatever haha) The revolves around Renton and his friends' addiction to heroin, their  downs, downs and downs. It is also about the urban poverty that they experienced in Edinburgh. Finally Mark Renton decided to "choose life" over drugs, it may be difficult for him to get clean from heroin but he managed to be free in the addiction and he tried to get a pretty decent life in London as a real estate agent. When he thought that his life will be okay, that's when Begbie and Spud went into his home and tried to get Renton into heroin again. But Renton was sober enough to think that drugs will ruin his life and in the end he left his friends for a "decent life".

What I liked about the movie is (1) the whole movie was narrated by Mark himself: making the approach of the movie more personal to its audience, it also looked like the movie was a firsthand account from a drug addict. 

Mark and his friends

(2) the cast: the actors portrayed their roles well especially Mark (there are scenes in the movie that you will feel like he was really in the influence of drugs, as well as his friends) and Begbie, every time that Begbie was in the scene, he will make his presence felt and as an audience, you will hate the living daylight out of him. Also, before playing Begbie,he portrayed the role in "The Priest" where he played a very innocent person and in the Trainspotting, he transformed into a very violent and reckless person. I commend the performance of Spud who stayed sober in the end of his imprisonment.

Bedroom Scene

(3) The sound scoring: The music that they used, especially when Mark is locked up inside of his room and he's hallucination, the background music will sink into your system too and I also sensed the hallucination because the sound repeats from time to time and it does not stop. (4) Camera shots: I think that this movie would not be as successful as it is, if those camera shots were not that spot on. The cinematographer utilized shots that will make the watchers feel like they are also a part of the film. Finally (5) The storyline: They adopted the movie from the book.and I assume that it reflected the details in the book. Talking about drugs that detailed in a movie (from what I have read) somehow saved the movie industry in the United Kingdom. Drugs and Sex in a movie is not that taboo anymore but it is refreshing to see a film that is different from the mainstream movies that tackle love.

UPDATE: They are planning to make Trainspotting 2!!! OMG, I'm so excited! :)) For details about the sequel click HERE!! 

- KC

So, hello!

Hi guys! We were tasked by our Cinema Professor to make a blog about our subject cinema and our reactions/comments to our discussed topics, basically to do a blog that is all about Cinema.

So yeah, welcome to me in the blogging world, you can also visit my other blog @ click here!

- KC