Module 2 Summary

Module two talks about the five different types of practices to interpret and explains films in society. Semiology is the study of sign systems. Signs include gestures, fashion, table manners and business etiquette among others. Structuralism locates existence of basic patterns or structures in human life. Marxism looks at things in terms of the struggle between the ruling class and the working class. Feminism analyzes things in terms of the relationship of women to power and society. Last is the Neo-Freudian where actions are driven by sexual desires repressed by social norms.
Each of these types of analysis can be applied to the Philippines. For example, in semiological interpretation: Film-makers always try to make it clear to the audience that there is barrier between the upper class and the lower class. Class or regional differences in gesture, fashion, table manners and etiquette are used to signify particular classes or regions. An opening scene signifies a rich young woman in this way: she is in a very big room, she is groomed well and wearing a robe made of silk. From these few objects and context, the director is conveying a clear message: she is very rich and living in luxury. A subsequent scene takes the viewer somewhere else: a young, dark man waking up at the break of dawn; tight quarters, lack of lightning and no bed. The director is presenting an opposite sign: poor and harsh conditions. Popular Philippine movies use lower-class living quarters as always dark and very minimal furnishing. After this scene, you will already know the difference between the two actors because of the utilization of these signs.
Likewise, there is always some tension in Philippine movies about the struggle between the rich and the poor. Drama, action or comedy, you will almost always see the difference between two extremely different economic classes. I have seen movies where a poor homeless child is taken to a rich family’s home. The child awed about the grandeur of the place and its beauty. They then take the child into the dinning room for a meal. You will have the rich kid sitting quietly with napkins on their laps and using utensils in upper class “proper” etiquette. On the other side of the table, we see the poor kid eating with his hands and talking at the same time. Depending on the director’s point of view, the rich family might look at each other and feel disgusted on what they are seeing or be amused or otherwise express emotion to show this child’s difference.
Struggle between the upper class and working class using semiological practices and also involves gendered issues. When a rich woman invites a working class man to meet the parents, it always end up in a disaster. The rich family ridicules the poor man and shows him that a poor person should not mingle with the rich because there is a huge social difference between them. For the ice breaker, the rich family will first ask what type of jobs his parents are doing. On some occasions, that person will lie to impress the rich woman’s parents.
Fashion is where they show the huge difference between the social classes. The rich will always have their best clothes and jewelry on – sometimes foreign clothes – as if they are going to a ball, even if their just hanging inside the house. The poor are presented wearing dark, raggy garments, messy hair as if they just rolled out of bed. In Philippine movies, you will either be rich and beautiful or poor and ugly.
Rich people are shown to have more fun. That is one of the messages that movies always try to tell the audience. Rich people travel the world and they waste their day shopping and buying things. They hang around the house sitting by the pool while having servants do the smallest work like bring them drinks. People on the lower classes just work and work. Filmmakers make it look like that they just work and nothing else. They will always show their struggle in their work and how their hard work is not enough to make ends meet. Rarely, their hard work will be rewarded by promotions and end up owning the company – through highly unlikely situations.
One of my favorite Philippine movie of all time is “Tanging Ina”. This movie starred Ai Ai Delas Alas. She is a comedienne that had been in the Philippine movie industry for a while until she was given her big break to play the lead role in “Tanging Ina”. She played an unlucky woman widowed by several men having twelve children by them. The beginning of the movies shows Ina is poor and works for her mother in a carnival. A wealthy gambler pays her mother and marries her. She becomes a rich woman but because of her fate, her husband dies and is widowed. She then finds another love who ends up dead as well. In each of these marries and deaths, her husbands are lower in class than the previous. In the end, she losses all her business and had to work to support her large family without a husband. Throughout the movie, it showed Ina’s struggle to balance time between family and her many jobs. The movie’s message is all about accepting your fate and class. In life sometimes you’re on the top, and sometimes you’re on rock bottom. You can work really hard and get rewarded and sometimes you work hard and don’t.
Philippine movies always shows the difference between the rich and the poor. Sometimes the have movies that shows rich lifestyles as unwanted by the character playing the role. Sometimes it shows that richness cannot give you happiness. Sometimes it gives a message of hope. Hope that with hard work, richness and wealth can be held. A message sometimes I feel untrue. I feel that those who achieved richness are those one in millions. Sometimes hard work will not take you anywhere.

IP 368B

Panaghoy sa Suba (Cry of the River)

Panaghoy sa Suba is about two people who fall in love during World War 2.  The people who fall in love are Duroy and Iset.  Duroy is a boat operator and transports people using the river.  Iset is a beautiful woman who lives with her strict and materialistic aunty and her father.  Iset and Duroy like each other but things get in the way of their relationship.

First, Iset’s aunty doesn’t want her to marry someone like Duroy.  Her aunty wants her to marry a wealthy foreigner.  Second, Iset’s boss, the American John Smith, begins to like Iset also.  Iset’s aunty pushes her to have a relationship with John Smith only because he is rich and wealthy.  Third, Duroy’s brother, Ibo, starts to have feelings for Iset so Duroy, being the family man, steps aside and lets Ibo take Iset’s hand.  This relationship doesn’t last long because Mr. Smith fires Ibo for talking to Iset, which causes Ibo to try to kill him but instead Mr. Smith kills Ibo. Fourth, when Mr. Smith leaves Iset to fight the war, Japanese soldiers occupy their place.  The Japanese commander sees Iset’s beauty and tries to start a relationship with her.  Iset’s aunty again pushes her toward the rich and wealthy.

These experiences that Iset had to go through shows us the power over a woman’s beauty.  Men would do anything to get a beautiful woman like Iset.  In Mr. Smith’s case, he gave her presents, fed her the best foods, even gave her aunty and father goods.  However, his relationship with Iset didn’t last because she truly saw what kind of man Mr. Smith was.  He was truly an abusive, rude, prejudice man that only sought out things for himself.  The Japanese commander would also give gifts to Iset and her family but he wasn’t like Mr. Smith.  Duroy eventually killed him and Iset and Duroy started their relationship together again.

IP 368 B

Anak

We are all necessarily good people.  Even those who intend to be good but do bad and unethical acts are still good people.  It’s just the way you look at a person.  The movie Anak is a perfect example of this.   This film is about a mother, Josie, that leaves her family in order for them to have a better life.  Josie leaves behind a husband and three children, Carla, Michael, and Day Day.  Josie is considered an OFW or an Overseas Filipino Worker.  She works in Hong Kong where she babysits a couple’s child and house.  In Hong Kong, she isn’t appreciated.  Her employer doesn’t treat her well.  While she is away in Hong Kong, Josie’s children grow and become distant from their mother and a tragedy happens.  Josie’s husband dies.  This is heartbreaking news since Josie can’t go back to the Philippines.  This is also heartbreaking news for the children because they no longer have a parent in their life.  Carla feels that her mother abandoned them and she doesn’t care about them.  Anak is the perfect example.

Josie and Carla are characters in the movie that are good people, but in each other’s eyes, see the bad in each other.  Carla hates her mother for leaving her family, especially when their father dies.  So when Josie comes back to the Philippines for good, there is ignoring and bad behavior on Carla.  Carla does what ever she wants to make her mother mad and unhappy.  She has premarital sex, uses guys to make her mother angry and even brings them home.  At one point in the movie she even pushes Josie down.  However, when this happens, you can see the guilt in Carla’s eyes.  It’s like she’s saying, “what have I done?” with her eyes.  This guilt that Carla shows is the beginning of a “new” Carla.  When she and her mother finally let out what they feel, Carla realizes that Josie’s intentions of leaving her family was only inspired by love.  Love is what put the family back together.

Savage Act

The film savage act was an eye opener. It shed a lot of light about the occupation of the US in the Philippines. It is true that although the US have given the Philippines its independence, their presence is still strongly felt. On my visit to the Philippines recently, I witnessed the US strong influence on the citizens of the islands.
For instance on one occasion, on the pageant night of Binibining San Nicolas pageant, the candidates were asked questions in English. Not only the judges expected the candidates to answer the questions in English, the audience that barely understood English were expecting and waiting for answers delivered in English. Some contestants answered in Tagalog and was given a cold shoulder and boos by the audience. This is very disturbing because some Filipinos are now starting to measure a person’s intelligence by their ability to communicate properly in English.
I went to the Philippines during the holiday season because I organized a pageant called Miss Gay of the Universe 2009. The pageant celebrated the many talents of gay communities in the Ilocos region. We urged candidates to answer their interviews in whatever dialects they were comfortable speaking. It shocked me because come candidates said that they rather speak in English because they want to avoid the humiliation from the audience by speaking in Tagalog or Ilokano. On the pageant night one contestant choose to speak in Filipino and was loudly applauded. Is it because the people already know that gays are intelligence and doesn’t need to prove themselves by speaking in English?
Being an immigrant to the US, the ability to speak English is a good advantage because it allows me to be able to go to school and live here in the states. There are some people that are unfortunate and are unable to speak or read in English. These people not necessarily unintelligent, these people are just resisting to learn the foreign language. There are people that will argue that in order for a foreigner to continue living in the US, they should be able to communicate in English. I don’t agree with those people because people should not be dictated on what they should speak.
I agree that the US will be in an economic downturn if all the Filipinos resign and return to the Philippines. I am very proud of my countrymen that are living all over the world. These people have sacrificed and left their love ones in exchange for a better future for themselves and their family. When I went to Djibouti Africa, I encountered Filipinos working in popular US fast food chains. The Navy base there have burger kings and McDonald and their employees are all Filipinos. Their salaries may be lower than the regular employees but if they convert their pay into pesos, they are still making a whole lot more than if they work in the Philippines.
When I look at the current economic status of the Philippines, sometimes I think about what would it be like if the US annexed the islands and made them into states. Would it be better for the Filipinos or they would be slave and be force to serve the Americans?
Filipinos are very observing. They are very adaptive in their surrounding. When the Spanish were occupying the country, the natives were told that they are ugly because they have dark skin. Because of this, Filipinos started using whitening soap to give them whiter skin. They avoid going out in the sun and avoid outdoor activities. Some people uses long sleeve shirts and uses umbrella whenever they go outdoor. They still have the belief from the Spaniards. When they see a dark person they would think of them as coming from a lower economic background and would regard them as farmer or people that work outdoor.
In Ilocos, rich people would rather speak in Tagalog. Speaking in Tagalog would separate them from the rest of the class. This tells other people that they speak other language because they are different from the rest. When you go to restaurants, restaurant’s people would communicate with you in Tagalog. I don’t feel comfortable talking Tagalog with an Ilokano speaker because its like making fun of my own language. I would then talk to them in Ilokano and they would still talk in Tagalog. I don’t believe that Tagalog speaker have more advantage compare to Ilokanos. I believe that Ilokanos are smart, hard working, caring and they should be proud of that.
The influence of the US to the Philippines were good and bad. Its good because it allowed Filipinos to be marketable around the globe. This is the reason why they are now working all over because they are able to communicate with other people that speak English. The bad side is that they gave people a different view in life. They gave them the belief of superiority. They made people believe that things in life are competition and you either have to be someone better or lose the game. Well, that is not true. I believe that in order to be successful, you have to respect other’s belief, culture so you can able to apply your own culture without disrespecting others.

Transforming Horror Film Genre

Horror film is different compare to any of the film genres because guidelines do not have to be met as exactly by the director or, for that matter, the screenwriter. The horror film’s message of terror and death are easily communicated to the audience or conveyed in very intense visual and auditory cues. Other film genres might use control and analytic explanation as their main criteria, the horror film does not purse this standard formula; thus, many cinematic tricks and techniques are available to filmmakers to follow at their individual choice. The result is that the viewer can experience different level of negative effects, from minor irritation to extreme nausea, when viewing a film of the horror genre.
One might agree that the only reason given as to why people watch horror films is that they want to be scared. In fact, this scare drive is so powerfully addictive to some people that they keep coming back to watch these films over and over again, wanting more terror and desiring more thrills with each viewing. Although, a deeper, more psychological explanation can be explain as to why humans have been attracted with gore and bloodshed since the very beginning of recorded history.
To help one interpret this motivating force in the human psyche, one must consider Carl Jung’s psychoanalytic theory of archetypes. Jung believed that all humans are born with a set of primordial images that are contained in the collective unconscious and these archaic images (referred to as archetypes) remain hidden within the unconscious; at an important moments of one’s life, however, they can become conscious and fully expressed through religion, philosophy, art, literature, and, more recently, the cinema. Jung said that the most powerful and perhaps most dangerous archetype of the group is the shadow. By definition, the shadow contains all of humanity’s unpleasant behavior, brutal impulses, and restraint desires.
Early years of horror films focused almost mainly on the hideous, deathlike appearances of the monsters rather than the horrifying crimes they committed against society. The main reason was that the grisly makeup had to compensate for the lack of sound in these features. And so any number of weird and bizarre bogeymen that populated the screen greeted the viewer.
The Universal Studios period of horror films from the 1930s and 1940s continued to infuse most of their special effects budget in the title creatures’ features at the expense of sufficient plot development, noteworthy musical scores, and conspicuous death scenes. Thus, the great works of literature like Bram Stoker’s Dracula or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein were altered to one-dimensional productions with the ghoulish monster once again controlling the central position on the screen.
The American horror cinema was heavily influenced by the British faces of death, yet was able to convey originality to its less Gothic, more modernized tales of destruction. The insane slasher film became one of the most popular American horror film, starting with Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho. Playing both the role of a confused young man (Norman Bates) and his dead mother, Anthony Perkins gave a much needed pathos to the brutal slasher figure that killed unsuspecting women taking showers in their motel rooms.
Another type of horror film capitalized on earlier works both in the United States and abroad and focused on a new death-dealer, the possessed child. William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist goes well beyond the limits of acceptable good taste and true nature by showing scenes of the satanic child Regan spraying vomit into the faces of the prostrate priests or masturbating with devilish delight using her crucifix. One reason that The Exorcist remains the highest-grossing horror movie ever made, is that it preys on parents’ fears that they could lose their children to uncontrollable outside forces. The Exorcist is a film that has reorganized the horror film genre and remain to do so.
Many film critics believe that the faces of death within the horror genre will undergo a major change in the twenty-first century and beyond. Known as techno-mythic Destroyers, these new figures will either be created by the technological advances available or use that very technology to victimize people in even more unusual and imaginative ways than before. A few technomythic Destroyers have already surfaced on the screen. In the 1980s when television sets and VCRs were becoming commonplace items in every household, there came to existent a rash of related cinematic terrors. Beginning in 1990s, video games were becoming all the fad, resulting to horror movies mimicking the popular culture fad. Stephen King’s The Langoliers has evil Pac-Man creatures terrorizing a stranded group of airline passengers in an alternate time zone.
Despite these transforming faces of death in the horror film genre, one factor does appear to be unchanging—namely, the mythos of the human destructive potential. The inner side of human nature is filled with so many nasty images and malign figures that eventually will surface in full force. Humankind’s hidden supernatural will continue to give ideas for future screenplay writers and directors in the film industry, and audiences will most assuredly see more of their inner selves on the screen in the decades ahead.

Module 2 Summary

Module two talks about the five different types of practices to interpret and explains films in society. Semiology is the study of sign systems. Signs include gestures, fashion, table manners and business etiquette among others. Structuralism locates existence of basic patterns or structures in human life. Marxism looks at things in terms of the struggle between the ruling class and the working class. Feminism analyzes things in terms of the relationship of women to power and society. Last is the Neo-Freudian where actions are driven by sexual desires repressed by social norms.
Each of these types of analysis can be applied to the Philippines. For example, in semiological interpretation: Film-makers always try to make it clear to the audience that there is barrier between the upper class and the lower class. Class or regional differences in gesture, fashion, table manners and etiquette are used to signify particular classes or regions. An opening scene signifies a rich young woman in this way: she is in a very big room, she is groomed well and wearing a robe made of silk. From these few objects and context, the director is conveying a clear message: she is very rich and living in luxury. A subsequent scene takes the viewer somewhere else: a young, dark man waking up at the break of dawn; tight quarters, lack of lightning and no bed. The director is presenting an opposite sign: poor and harsh conditions. Popular Philippine movies use lower-class living quarters as always dark and very minimal furnishing. After this scene, you will already know the difference between the two actors because of the utilization of these signs.
Likewise, there is always some tension in Philippine movies about the struggle between the rich and the poor. Drama, action or comedy, you will almost always see the difference between two extremely different economic classes. I have seen movies where a poor homeless child is taken to a rich family’s home. The child awed about the grandeur of the place and its beauty. They then take the child into the dinning room for a meal. You will have the rich kid sitting quietly with napkins on their laps and using utensils in upper class “proper” etiquette. On the other side of the table, we see the poor kid eating with his hands and talking at the same time. Depending on the director’s point of view, the rich family might look at each other and feel disgusted on what they are seeing or be amused or otherwise express emotion to show this child’s difference.
Struggle between the upper class and working class using semiological practices and also involves gendered issues. When a rich woman invites a working class man to meet the parents, it always end up in a disaster. The rich family ridicules the poor man and shows him that a poor person should not mingle with the rich because there is a huge social difference between them. For the ice breaker, the rich family will first ask what type of jobs his parents are doing. On some occasions, that person will lie to impress the rich woman’s parents.
Fashion is where they show the huge difference between the social classes. The rich will always have their best clothes and jewelry on – sometimes foreign clothes – as if they are going to a ball, even if their just hanging inside the house. The poor are presented wearing dark, raggy garments, messy hair as if they just rolled out of bed. In Philippine movies, you will either be rich and beautiful or poor and ugly.
Rich people are shown to have more fun. That is one of the messages that movies always try to tell the audience. Rich people travel the world and they waste their day shopping and buying things. They hang around the house sitting by the pool while having servants do the smallest work like bring them drinks. People on the lower classes just work and work. Filmmakers make it look like that they just work and nothing else. They will always show their struggle in their work and how their hard work is not enough to make ends meet. Rarely, their hard work will be rewarded by promotions and end up owning the company – through highly unlikely situations.
One of my favorite Philippine movie of all time is “Tanging Ina”. This movie starred Ai Ai Delas Alas. She is a comedienne that had been in the Philippine movie industry for a while until she was given her big break to play the lead role in “Tanging Ina”. She played an unlucky woman widowed by several men having twelve children by them. The beginning of the movies shows Ina is poor and works for her mother in a carnival. A wealthy gambler pays her mother and marries her. She becomes a rich woman but because of her fate, her husband dies and is widowed. She then finds another love who ends up dead as well. In each of these marries and deaths, her husbands are lower in class than the previous. In the end, she losses all her business and had to work to support her large family without a husband. Throughout the movie, it showed Ina’s struggle to balance time between family and her many jobs. The movie’s message is all about accepting your fate and class. In life sometimes you’re on the top, and sometimes you’re on rock bottom. You can work really hard and get rewarded and sometimes you work hard and don’t.
Philippine movies always shows the difference between the rich and the poor. Sometimes the have movies that shows rich lifestyles as unwanted by the character playing the role. Sometimes it shows that richness cannot give you happiness. Sometimes it gives a message of hope. Hope that with hard work, richness and wealth can be held. A message sometimes I feel untrue. I feel that those who achieved richness are those one in millions. Sometimes hard work will not take you anywhere.

Spring 2009, IP 368B

Prof. Agcaoili

Module 1 – Reflection Paper

            Films in general have come a long way since the silent film days to now.  In some countries, filmmaking has taken off more than others with the help of the advancement of technology and special effects.  In the Philippines, although filmmaking has seen great improvements from its introduction in 1897, Filipino cinematography has not advanced as much as it should have had.  Also, Philippine cinematography has had a lot of influences (American, Japanese, European) which helped it become what it is today.

Interest in Films first sprouted in 1897 during the Spanish occupation of the Philippines.  Two Swiss businessmen first introduced Lumiere films to the Philippine public but the majority of the movie-goers back then were the Spaniards and their wealthy native friends that could afford the first class seats at two pesos each.  Even then, Filipino natives that could afford the tickets could only buy the second class tickets.  From an ethical view, the Spaniards dictated to what extent the Filipino natives could take part in, even something minimal as entertainment. 

Advancement in film throughout the world saw its first great improvement in the late 1920’s when sound was finally incorporated in movies.  During the Second World War, propaganda was introduced in filmmaking in the Philippines.  Propaganda to portray the Japanese as friends of the Philippines was the goal of some movie producers.  “Dawn of Freedom,” one of the propaganda films focused on the oppressiveness of the United States and depicted the Japanese as a friend to the Filipinos.  The objective of the propaganda was to have the Filipino natives in favor of the Japanese because this was a time when the Japanese and the United States were fighting over the occupation of the Philippines.  I believe that it was a good strategy to take on during the war for the Japanese but the Filipinos did not favor any one of them.  Filipino films that celebrated heroes like Jose Rizal and other local heroes were more popular and therefore filmmakers focused more on the patriotism of the people to capture the audiences. I like how the Filipino natives was loyal to their history and people and how no matter what type of propaganda the Japanese or American put out, they still appreciated patriotic films more than any others.

The Golden era in the 1950’s was a time of breakthroughs of artistic cinema techniques and award ceremonies honoring the best films in the Philippine film industry. The government also started to support the film industry by introducing the first Manila Film Festival which they sponsored.  It was a ten day celebration of local films made by local filmmakers which has since then been an annual tradition at the Philippines. The support from the government helped to increase the size of the audience of Filipino films and thus helped to promote local films to the public.  I think this awareness helped local films gain more popularity among the movie-goers capturing new audiences.  The new audience emerged from the younger generation which, I believe, changed the genres of films.  I think that the introduction of sex “bomba” was a cause and effect from the new audience along with the American and European influence of sex films. 

Throughout the first century of the Filipino cinematography growth, advancement were satisfactory but development has since slowed down rapidly.  Contemporary Philippine films are not as sophisticated and advanced as other films from other countries.  This is mostly in part of low cash investment and therefore low film budgets.  Presently, films are only made for profit.  When I watch a Filipino film, I notice the lack of quality in production and I immediately notice that they are not as sophisticated as American movies.  Filipino movies, these days, focus more on the script and acting instead of the production.  Even so, I still like watching Filipino movies because although the picture isn’t something to be impressed about, the quality of the acting and script surpasses it and outshine its low qualities. Lastly, at present, prospects for a bright future for the Filipino film industry proves to be slowing down and advancement and sophistication will most likely not be immediately forthcoming.