A Trip to Mowelfund

Last Friday we were able to visit the Mowelfund Film Institute for our cinema class.

The Movie Workers Welfare Foundation, also known also Mowelfund, is a non-profit educational and social industry development foundation in the Philippines that was established by Joseph Estrada in 1974. It was created to help and support the welfare of movie industry workers. It raises fundraising programs to be able to help those employees in need.

Our batch was lucky enough to be welcomed by Mowelfund current president, Mrs. Boots Anson-Roa.

Mrs. Boots Anson-Roa, the president of Mowelfund, welcomed us and gave an introduction about the organozation and the Philippine movie industry. She's also an actress who supports film. She also gave us advices as we enter the world of Mass Communication.

We were able to visit the Mowelfund Plaza, their musem, the Pambansang Museo ng Pelikula, and the Mowelfund Garden, where the 'Paradise of Stars' is located.

First, we wander around the museum. It contains different artifacts, pictures and things that reflects the history and developments of Philippine movie industry in the last hundred years of Philippines cinema.

Here are some of the photos I got from the museum :)

One of the Big 3 studios, LVN Pictures with some of their works.

Stars of the early Philippine cinema

Tiyanak!

Dila ng Aswang

The Mighty Machete

Captain Barbell's costume 

The FPJ Hall

With our cinema professor, Sir Ashley Jamal Abbas

Paradise of Stars

Sir Abbas with his girls :)

Beautiful creatures :)

A fight with Zorro

Sorry ka na lang Marian! He's mine. Haha!

We really had a great time at Mowelfund Museum. We saw how rich our film industry was in the early years. How I wish the Philippine film industry would also be like how it was before. Let us all support Filipino films!

Mullholland Drive

This movie was indeed one of the most mind-blowing film I've ever watched!

Our professor warned us at first that the movie that we'll be watching will somehow be difficult to understand. That's why we must really concentrate on the movie. At first we knew that we're on the right track; Even though there are a lot of things and scenes on the movie that symbolizes something, we can still understand what was happening. But later on, a number of characters were introduced, with different story lines. These characters were all connected to each other. As the story goes, the identities shift and merge and we became more confused of what really is happening. Its like a roller coaster ride of scattered puzzle pieces.

After we watched the movie, a lot of things and questions are bugging my mind. Like what's the role of the old couple in the movie? The creepy monster? The blue box? What is the connection of the club Silencio to them? Are Betty and Diane connected? Who is that cowboy? Why do they want Camilla Rhodes to be the lead girl? Is the end the beginning of the story? Why is the movie entitled Mullholland Drive? I didn't have a good sleep because of these questions. I can't move on from the movie without looking for answers. 

As I've researched about the movie, I've found out that Mullholland Drive is a surrealist neo-noir film; That explains why the movie is very confusing. David Lynch is also known for making surrealist films with his own unique style. According to the book review of Allen Ruch, Mullholland Drive is a puzzle-box of a movie, one that presents hallucination and reality as equal and indistinguishable partners. 

As I read some articles, I finally understood that the movie is about Diane's dream and reality of her life. There are a lot of interpretations about the movie, but as I understand the story, the first part is Diane's dream, where she plays the character of Betty. After the box was opened, we are now introduced to the reality. Diane and Betty are the same person. In her dream, she sees herself as an aspiring actress who's succeeding in Hollywood and succeeding the woman she loves, which is Camilla. Her dream represents the opposite of the reality of her dwindling career and love life.

"The movie is hypnotic; we're drawn along as if one thing leads to another but nothing leads anywhere, and that's even before the characters start to fracture and recombine like flesh caught in a kaleidoscope. Mulholland Drive isn't like Memento, where if you watch closely enough you can hope to explain the mystery. There is no explanation. There may not even be a mystery." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

David Lynch was successful in making us think about what really happened in the movie. After researching about explanations, I somehow understand more the real meaning of the movie. But there are still a lot of questions left unanswered. I somehow believe that Lynch just re-arranged the parts of the movie to make us think. Maybe there is really no explanation, maybe we are just lead to a direction that leads to nowhere. This is one of the strengths of Mullholland Drive. This is the power of Surrealist films.

The Edge of Hollywood

Yes, you're right. Another documentary has been shown to us by our professor. This time, its about how independent filmmakers who are on the edge of Hollywood dominate the big screen.

As the studio system were producing a number of blockbuster films, independent filmmakers started to make films that made Hollywood rise. But of course, going to Hollywood has its price. They need to exert big efforts and budget for their films to make their way on the big screen.

Independent films are important in the film industry in America. According to Sam Raimi, they are the lifeblood of the filmmaking industry; they set new standards and trends, they have the wildest ideas and interesting stories. I think this is why independent films became a hit in Hollywood; They have interesting stories that people wanted to see, because the audience can relate to these films.

It is said in the documentary that filmmakers in the edge of Hollywood all have one desire; to make their films on their own terms. That is why in order to produce these films, they asked for help financially. The limited budget they had on independent filmmaking made them expand their styles and made ways to produce their films.

Most independent films succeed on the big screen because their stories present the filmmaker's view of life and point of view. Mostly, their stories have big impact to the audience because they can relate to them. That is why a lot of independent film makers reach their success in Hollywood.

These films are often screened at various local and international film festivals. One of the largest independent film festival in America is the Sundance Film Festival. They showcase American and international independent films and comprises different genres of films.

As we've also learned on our past lessons, Independent Filmmakers somehow managed to enter the world of mainstream films. That’s why the New Hollywood managed to have directors from independent films. They contributed into getting back the success of film industry.

Le Mépris

Last Wednesday, we have discussed about the era of French New Wave. One of the known directors of this movement was Jean-Luc Godard. To fully understand this topic, we watched a film by Godard entitled "Le Mépris" or Contempt.

At first we were confused about the movie because of its multiple languages. Some characters talked in English, French. Italian, and German. But thanks to the subtitles, they made things easier for us to understand. At the start of the film, we noticed that instead of putting the credits into words, the credits were included through voice over. I think that is one of the styles of its director.

To be honest, I really didn't understand much about what was happening at first. But as I watched further I realized the flow of the story. Camille is married with his husband Paul Javal, a novelist and playwright, who was hired by Jeremy Prokosch to rewrite the script for a new movie about Ulysses. It was to be directed by the famous director Fritz Lang (played by himself). As the story progresses, Camille became aloof with her husband. The reason of their estrangement was not really specified, but it started after Camille was being left alone with Prokosch. She thought that her husband uses her as a present for Paul to have a better payment for the script.

The rest of the story goes with their dialogues and scenes about their conflict questioning their love for each other. Camille starts to drift away from her husband, making their relationship become strained. I really don't understand Camille, because she changes her mind at times. She loves Paul, but then she says she don't love him anymore. I think Paul was having a hard time on their relationship because I can feel that he really loves his wife. Their situation became worse when they came to Capri. As they work for the movie, Camille suddenly flirted with Prokosch, making it hard for Paul to win her back. I felt sorry for Paul, because he's trying so hard to make things work. Not knowing that its too late.

The movie ended tragically. Camille left Paul a note saying her last goodbye, it was sad really. As Camille and Prokosch were on their way to Rome, they died on an accident. 

The film was great, the director had a great job on the whole production of the film. The actors also portrayed their roles well, especially Brigitte Bardot who played Camille. Aside from the story, I was also impressed on how the film was made. It conveys a masterpice of French New Wave cinema. Even though there were times where I got confused on the story, at the end I realized what really happened and I learned that making a marriage work is hard especially when conflict comes on your way. 

French New Wave

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was said that in the postwar era of reconstruction and rising prosperity, many countries had their new young waves of young cinema groups mostly in revolt against their elders in the industry. A new artistic movement arose in France that had a profound effect on the film industry. They called it the French New Wave.

The New Wave films have its unique characteristics that made them different from other styles.

• Jump cuts are applied.
• Cameras in New Wave moves a lot of panning and tracking.
• Handheld cameras are used to shoot realistically and cheaply.
• Causal connections are loose
• Films in New Wave often lack goal-oriented protagonist
• Casual humor
• Films end ambiguously.

Cahiers du Cinema

In the mid 1950s, a group of French film critics founded an influential French film magazine entitled Cahiers du Cinema that made a habit of attacking respected French filmmakers in that time.

Claude Chabrol

Jean-Luc Godard

Francois Truffaut

“Your camera movements are ugly because your subjects are bad, your casts act badly because your dialogue is worthless: in a word, you don’t know how to create cinema because you no longer even know what it is.” – Jean-Luc Goddard

Auteur Theory

“There are no works, there are only auteurs.” – Jean Luc Godard

Directors are called auteurs when their own strong  personality are used as control over their works. There are many auteurs not only in France but also on other countries, Some of the "auteurs" in America are Nicholas Ray, Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Aldritch, Fritz Lang, etc.

The French New wave, just like the other movements contributed a lot in making the film industry of the world better. This allows creativity in filmmaking. They have their own techniques of fiiming, editing and sound. Making their movies have greater sense of flexibility. 

We learned that by 1964, New Wave directors were absorbed by mainstream studios. Nevertheless, their styles were imitated by a lot of filmmakers, making this style useful and memorable in a lot of films.

Reference:

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. (1979). Film Art: An Introduction (8^th ed.).  McGraw-Hill

The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking

This is a summary of  The New Hollywood and Independent Filmmaking from the book "Film Art: An Introduction" by Bordwell and Thompson.

The Hollywood industry was very healthy because of the blockbuster films that became famous during the 1960s such as The Sound of Music (1965) and Dr. Zhivago (1965). But despite of this success, problems arose the Hollywood film industry. Imagine losing over $200 annually. A shock, isn’t it?

But they didn’t give up. They produced a lot of films that were aimed for youth. The directors that produced new flavored films were what they called movie brats. Most of these movie brats went to film school to learn and master the techniques and history of films. That’s why they were able to apply their own techniques with a touch of narrative Hollywood cinema on their works. Some of the movie brats are Francis Coppola, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Brian de Palma and Steven Spielberg.

The Godfather (1972)

American Grafitti (1973)

Jaws (1975)

Taxi Driver (1976)

A lot of films of the New Hollywood were influenced by the Old Hollywood and traditional techniques such as European cinema. They continued the tradition of classical Hollywood cinema and continued to use the continuity and its traditional storytelling strategies with ofcourse their own style. Some movie brats remained successful and produced more films that moved the public.  

Independent Filmmakers somehow managed to enter the world of mainstream films. That’s why the New Hollywood managed to have directors from independent films. They contributed into getting back the success of film industry.

Independent directors in the 1980s and 1990s have experimented with narrative construction of films and adapted classical conventions with modern touch. They started pushing their guts. That’s why they were able to win large audiences.

The New Hollywood created most of the great and thrilling Hollywood films. The directors involved, the movie brats, tried to reshape the stylistic conventions while making innovations to win more audiences.

Reference:
Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. (1979). Film Art: An Introduction (8^th ed.).  McGraw-Hill

Anger Management (2003)

I would like to share my thoughts about the movie Anger Management which we have watched and tackled during our Communication subject last semester. We enjoyed watching this film because of its humor and the lessons that got from this movie.

Plot:

A business man named Dave Buznik experienced a lot of misunderstandings that led him to undergo Anger Management therapy under the specialist Dr. Buddy Rydell who was also his seatmate on the plane where he first got a misunderstanding with the flight attendant. After being misjudge for his aggressive behavior, he was sentenced to go on an anger management session that was filled with a bizarre mix of angry people. The class actually escalates Dave's anger, rather than managing it.Dave Buznik is a hardworking, mild-mannered person who holds his anger all the time. While his therapist, Buddy, has a psychopathic, unpredictable personality. Their relationship became tenser as Buddy completely takes control of his personal life. As they go on over every aspect of Dave’s life, he was forced to confront and deal with issues he didn’t know he had.

After they underwent so many circumstances of the whole anger management thing, and after Dave had proposed to Linda, she then explains how she first approached Buddy after reading his book and that everything that has happened was a setup for Dave's therapy; the judge, the female flight attendant and the man who stole his seat were all friends of Buddy's and were part of the setup.

Individualistic and Collectivistic Culture

For me, I think the one who practice the individualistic culture is Dr. Buddy Rydell.  As we all know, individualistic culture emphasize the individual, and members, who feel the need to make others lose face in order to save their own, often believe that avoiding conflict leads to losing face. In these cultures, the face of the group may be a secondary consideration, or may not be a consideration at all. Dr. Rydell, as a therapist, seems to be working on his patient’s individual self. He has indeed creativity and style in treating his patients. For me, his technique is more of the client centered approach because he focused on Dave in treating his anger. He promotes individual goals and achievement. And he applied this in his Anger Management treatments. And because of this, I consider him with the individualistic culture. In the movie, he appears to be an odd and crazy doctor but despite of this, he is still a professional and ethical therapist. In the end, Dr. Rydell is still an effective therapist because he was able to fix the behavioral problem of Dave.                 

                                          

On the other hand, the character who practices the collectivistic culture is Dr. Buddy Rydell. Collectivistic culture is one in which people tend to view themselves as members of groups, and usually consider the needs of the group to be more important than the needs of individuals. For me, I consider Dave as collectivistic because he let other people go on his way. And he doesn’t fight back when others are stepping on him, although he knows that he’s right. When he’s angry, he doesn’t show it and he rather keep it to himself. He has a behavioral problem that why his girlfriend, Linda contacted Dr. Buddy Rydell to treat him. I think his behavior was affected by the humiliation he experienced during his childhood, that’s why he grew up wanting to please other people. He thinks of what other people thinks of him that’s why he is afraid of fighting back. That’s why he thinks of others first before himself. And that makes him an collectivistic person.

                                                   

There are many conflicts that happened in the movie. The characters responded to these conflicts differently. And because they are in Anger Management Program, their behavior has something to do with anger. Anger is a most misunderstood emotion. People with aggressive personality are frequently operating in an aggressive mode long before they ever become angry. But Dave Buznik is the opposite. He represses his emotions especially his anger, which made him hard to deal with conflicting situations. When he’s under Dr. Buddy’s program, they experienced a lot of conflicts dealing with each other, especially with Buddy’s techniques in controlling anger. But Dave managed to follow Buddy’s instructions, and he was able to face those outrageous situations which made him learn to gain control over his anger. On the other hand, Dr. Buddy Rydell is also one aggressive person but he still managed to control it, making him easy to deal with conflicts. He must have applied his techniques to himself since he is an anger management therapist. When he feels angry, he let it out and after some time, his anger was already gone. This personality makes him a good therapist to his patients. These characters show how destructive anger can be and that we must have the right handling and control over it.

Un Chien Andalu

As we learned from our previous lessons, Surrealist films are characterized by expressionistic and surreal imagery. We also learned that it has no cause and effect sequence, making its causality evasive. Un Chien Andalu is a great example of a Surrealist film. We were able to watch it last meeting on our cinema class.

At first I don’t have any idea of what we are watching. We didn’t understand what is being labeled because it was subtitled in a foreign language. But it’s a silent movie, so we just watched and tried to understand the scenes. We weren’t prepared of what to be expected that’s why we were shocked at some scenes, especially when the man slits the woman's eye with the razor. I really can’t move on with that scene.

Aside from that scene, different emotions ran out from our class as we watched the movie. It was weird, because we didn’t understand what the message of the short film was. Various scenes were weird, sexual and surreal, and the chronology of the film was disorganized, making it confusing to watch.

Un Chien Andalu was the first film of Luis Buñuel, and was co-directed by Salvador Dali. According to Wikipedia, Buñuel said that “it uses dream logic in narrative flow that can be described in terms of then-popular Freudian free association, presenting a series of tenuously related scenes.” He also said that nothing in the film symbolizes anything.

But aside from its weirdness, I think that the film was also great. It was unique. At some point I was also amazed because I can picture some ideas from the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali. This film would really make you think and would drive you into different emotions. Try watching it and maybe it would change your perspective about Surrealist films!

French Impressionism and Surrealism

During the early years, a number of film movements were introduced. World War I struck a serious blow to the French film industry.  That’s why France and its film industry were in tatters. French filmmakers began to explore and experiment, and there is where they see artistic concepts as the solution to raise the French cinema. That’s why they constituted film movements that became a part of the growing international avant-garde. Impressionism and Surrealism were introduced during 1918-1930. Through these movements the French cinema found its way to distinguish itself from the rest of the world.

When France was in tatters, the film industry tried in several ways to recapture the market, mostly through imitation of Hollywood production rnethods and genres. Younger French directors like Abel Gance, Louis Delluc, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L’Herbier and Jean Epstein were different from their predecessors. They said that cinema should be purely itself and should not borrow from other forms of art. Through their films they introduced Impressionist style that made its unique characteristics.

Impressionism was known as the first avant-garde style that operated largely within the film industry. These films manipulate plot time and subjectivity. Flashbacks are common to depict memories. Techniques include the use of blurred images and overlapping images to invoke the character’s inner thoughts.

Some Impressionist films that were cited are Dulac’s The Smiling Mme. Beuclet (1923), Gance's La Roue (1922), L'Herbier's El Doraclo (1920), Napoleon (1927), L'Argent (1928). Impressionism may be said to be dead by 1929, but its influence were still applied to a lot of films until now.

On the other hand, another movement was introduced that time. It was said that Surrealist cinema, developed in the period 1924-1929, was a more radical movement that produced films that shocked the audience. It was directly linked to Surrealism in painting and literature. But Surrealist films were unique in terms of its characteristics. It is overtly anti-narrative and its causality is as evasive as in a dream. Meaning, it follows no plot. The search for bizarre imagery and its deliberate avoidance rational form became the features of Surrealism. The style is also eclectic. Many Surrealist films make us think and find narrative logic that is simply absent.

Some Surrealist films that were cited are the famous Dali and Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (1928), Dulac’s The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928), Bu٢uel's L'Age d'or (1930), Jean Vigo's Zero de Conduite (1933), Belle de Jour (1967) and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) both by Buñuel.

These film movements were indeed the avant-garde of the industry of film. They contributed to the better form and style of the films in the present as they influenced a lot of directors and filmmakers that made great films.

Reference:

Bordwell, D., Thompson, K. (1979). Film Art: An Introduction (8^th ed.).  McGraw-Hill

The Star

Just before our Prelim period ends, we watched another documentary entitled "The Star". It talks about the movie stars in the early years and how their control and power changed over the years. For me it was more interesting than the other documentaries that we have watched because finally we got to know better about the actors who portrayed different roles on films.

As we have discussed about the systems in the Hollywood cinema, we have known about the Star system and the Studio system they had. According to Wikipedia, the Star system is “method of creating, promoting and exploiting movie stars in Classical Hollywood cinema. Studios would select promising young actors and glamorize and create personas for them, often inventing new names and even new backgrounds.” In this method, they focus more on the image of the stars rather than their way of acting. But they are also given workshops to hone their talents.

On the other hand, the studio system is a different story. In this system, the major studios are credited in producing big celebrities. According to Wikipedia, it is “a method of film production and distribution dominated by a small number of "major" studios in Hollywood.” As go further about this topic, we learned that the studios really spent a lot of money to establish and groom those potential actors that they think has the ability to be a star. They do this because they believe that with the right training and with this whole process, these studios would regain what they have invested. 

The stars in the Classical Hollywood films were controlled by the studios they were in. They were in a strict handling. The studios were careful enough to make their stars look good in the public. I believe that stars in the early were really under pressure because they must protect their image, some were also living a hard life being a celebrity. But when these stars were in trouble, studios would protect them by covering them up, paying people off if trouble happens. This was how powerful studios were that time.

Some of the movie stars in the classical Hollywood cinema were Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Rock Hudson, Marilyn Monroe Grace Kelly, and a lot more.

Changes happened as time goes by. In our present generation, stars were still idolized and treated well by the public, but it was not like before, where they were really protected by the studios. Most of the movie stars in the early years were really proud of what they were, celebrities. They want all the attention they need.  But most of the stars these days want to live a normal life, they were sick and tired of the attention the media gives.

Julia Roberts is one of the stars that I'm referring to. She's just down to earth, and just want to be treated normal, just like everyone else. She's not bragging that she is a star. I hope every actors in the film industry would be like her.

"I just wanna be an actor. I don’t wanna be a movie star; certainly don’t wanna be a celebrity." - Julia Roberts