#11: Narcissus didn’t drown, he was pushed in

Cinema as a vessel for the reproduction of reality calls into attention the bodies it chooses to represent. In the case of queer representation, the lesbian stereotypes present in media can act as a marker for their real-life counterparts to use as a basis for their own formed identity. Considering the proclivity of cinema to engage in a transaction with its viewer, the bodies present on the screen tell a story with implicit imagery that the filmmaker knows the audience will understand. With this in mind, the lesbian image in cinema also serves as a greater statement for the surface level understanding of society on the identity of the lesbian woman.

Creed (1995) describes the depiction of women in photography and film in a way that I consider to be the coolest band name ever; “narcissist, sex-fiend, creature, tomboy, vampire, man-eater, child, nun, virgin”. Woman are abject bodies of horror. Their bodies are a reminder of man’s debt to nature and is almost unnatural in the way that they are “penetrable, change shape, swell, give birth, contract, lactuate and bleed” (Creed, 1995). Once again, Creed not only offers a looking glass into the monstrous portrayal of women but also a list of potential band names. However, with the already malleable image of woman present, in what ways does the lesbian body differ from that of the default woman?

Creed proposes at least three stereotypes:

1. The Masculinized Lesbian Body
2. The Animalistic Lesbian Body
3. The Narcissistic Lesbian Body

Of course, there is the fourth unspoken depiction of Jennifer’s body

The first two stereotypes are ones that an average viewer is familiar with when it comes to lesbian bodies on screen. They are constructed in terms of the heterosexual model of sex which involves penetration, domination and still removed from the realm of lesbian pleasure involving the feminine perspective (because of course, the one thing that should be present in lesbian pleasure is a man). The third image offers an interesting foray into the perception of lesbianism as a form of narcissism.

The threat offered by the image of the lesbian-as-double is not specifically related to the notion of sexual penetration. Instead, the threat is associated more with auto-eroticism and exclusion.

Creed (1995)

The presence of a lesbian couple as echoes of femininity challenge and at the same time reveal the position that lesbian bodies have in queer cinema. They are a threat to the male gaze but also a participant in the spectator sport. The man may look but he can’t touch and while there is something exclusory in this thwarting there is also something voyeuristic about it. There is still a pleasure derived on his end in the framing of the narcissistic lesbian body.

When the lesbian body veers away from being pleasurable to a male gaze, there is often a negative reception to the media. In Jennifer’s Body (2009), there was a lot of backlash on the shared kiss between the two beautiful feminine female leads. I remember spotting a headline that said the salacious kiss couldn’t save the movie from its lacking plot. I am one of the many emerging Jennifer’s Body apologists in that I believe it fell prey to the wrong marketing. I can’t find that headline nor can I confirm whether or not it was a false memory. I can, however, pull up one of the trailers that was in circulation at the time.

Jennifer Check is portrayed as a terror for her comfort in her sensuality. Her transformation into a soul-eating demon only furthers this because now she goes through all the high school boys like it’s an all you can eat buffet. Though there is no explicit confirmation of Jennifer’s sexuality, she still presents a lesbian body that is rare in male-dominated cinema: the untouchable one (literally, she could eat your soul). I think the film shows an unspoken and true facet of the queer female experience. The girls grew up as best friends and explored young adolescence together. Needy and Jennifer have a relationship dynamic that teeters the same line a lot of lesbian youth hover over: Is she a friend or am I into her?

Unfortunately, due to the time and marketing of the movie we never got the fully queer horror movie that Jennifer’s Body could have been. However, we did get a depiction of the lesbian body as hesitant in kissing their childhood friend, the lesbian body disinterested in men and the lesbian body defending herself. All of which are rare and hopefully will find themselves on our screen sometime soon.

References

Creed, B. (1995) “Lesbian Bodies”

#10: The Male Gaze

There are days when I want to watch a moving film with sharp commentary on man’s mere being. There are days when I want to clutch my pillow close to my chest and hold my breath as the protagonists escape a masked killer. There are days when I want to lose myself in oversaturated worlds and happy endings. There are also days when I just want to see pretty girls and cars go BOOM.

Growing up, I was a sucker for action movies. They would play a dime a dozen on the FX channel and I had the attention span (as well as the budget) of a 9 year old child. The bargain bin at Best Buy often sold the formulaic action films for $2 a piece. There was something comforting to me about the predictability of explosions, fight sequences and the attractive protagonists’ banter. It was like a Disney movie happy ending for me whenever the two leads kissed and one of them dropped a one-liner. I’d always thought that the women depicted in these films pulled the same weight as their male counterpart. I also found it amazing how they could wield the same weapons in half the amount of clothing. However, it didn’t take me long to shed my naivete and realize that the female characters I’d seen as tough action stars were just arm candy for the male lead.

Mulvey (1975) describes the unfortunate role of women as objects in a film. They are either plot devices or side characters. According to Mulvey, it would be rare to see a female lead stand on equal footing with her male co-stars. The consequences of the male gaze turn women into less human being and more a combination boobs, butts and a pretty face.

At 13, the realization of women of objects as desire didn’t change how I viewed men but instead how I viewed myself. The unfortunate reality was that the image of the acceptable woman present in mainstream media was not one that looked like me. First off, Asian actresses were rare. Their lack of visibility only furthered my hyphenated American desire to conform to Euro-centric beauty standards. I often say that I grew up on movies. While that did have a very positive effect on my capacity for creativity and my love for storytelling, it also impacted my self-image. I always saw myself as the main character of my own story. However, the media often seemed to disagree with me. I was not only the side character but the undesirable one.

Not only was there a lack of representation of actresses that looked like me, there was also an overwhelming saturation of actresses that only looked and acted a certain way. Not only was I the wrong race to be the main character but I was also the wrong body type and personality. A lot has changed over the years but for the longest time, mainstream movies only afforded women two personalities: the caring wife or the vexatious vixen. Both of which exist as a direct relation to the male character. They either doted over him or seduced him. If there is one female character, she would act as catalyst for the plot to begin. If there were two female characters they would each take up one of the two totems and serve as rival love interests. It is reductive to place women in boxes and refrigerators and call it a day.

Film exists in many systems with a common one being the reproduction of reality. For this reason they can sometimes act as a mirror that the viewer holds themselves to. There are an endless combination of personalities, motivations and appearances that exist in women. Yet, only one combination ever appears. What then does that say to the average female viewer that holds an image beside herself—a supposed reflection of “woman” and finds nothing in common? One would think not existing in the reproduction of reality would lead to some internal error or action done to correct oneself. When women look at themselves through the male gaze, they seem to only be given the criterion of desire as the basis for their value.

The permeating misogyny in the depiction of women amplifies when the course of action to supposedly correct it comes in the form of girls “not like other girls” or leads that must defend themselves/fight back against men. While I loved Gone Girl (2014) and Promising Young Woman (2020), the dynamic of the revenge film still places women as needing to exist in relation to men. While Amy Dunne is more a sociopath than a feminist icon, I still found myself rooting for her because I wanted her to have her own agency. I wanted to see a woman come out on top due to her own merit and intelligence. However, it was still in a battle to prove herself opposite her husband. Not even to prove that she was smarter (he already knew that) but to prove that she could not be replaced with the next pretty young thing. Once again, thought I loved the films, they still existed within the realm of the male gaze. The violence against women as a form of character development is also another modern trope that I hope we will retire soon. The departure from the male gaze is not a stern female glare.

Not even this glare.

There are a plethora of stories that women can be a part of independently because women go through the same lived realities as any human being. Grit, strength, charisma, intelligence among other things are not exclusively male qualities. There is no exclusively male emotion, motivation or storyline. A woman can watch her husband die at the hands of a terrorist organization and vow to get revenge until she burns every last building to the ground. A woman can get so drunk she blacks out and wakes up with a tooth kicked out and a monkey and travel with her friends to decipher what happened the night before. A woman can train every day with a janitor and follow their unconventional practices to become a karate master. The second we destigmatize the presence of women in film is the second that we begin to acknowledge that women aren’t objects of anything rather the subject of endless interesting and untold stories.

References
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.

#9: Cinematic Ideology

Film existing as a product of thought also places it within the parameters of just being a product. This means that it follows the conditions of the economic system that it is in. Consumers buy tickets to see films, filmmakers have a budget to produce and market films. As is the case, the economic relations in every commodity is present in film as a product. All art is a commodity. Literature becomes the commodity of books which influences schools of thought and discussion. Music becomes albums and concerts which influence idol status and fandom formation. The list goes on and on (with several overlapping factors). Due to the capitalist nature of society, the distribution of a product is one of the best ways for art to reach an audience. It is also one of the most accessible ways for audiences to expand their capacity of thought or even their own beliefs. Films are no different. Aside from selling physical copies, the purchase into the experience of watching a film is a transaction that affords the viewer the ability to enter a new reproduction of reality.

For this reason, every film is political.

Cinema is one of the languages through which the world communicates itself to itself. They constitute its ideology for they reproduce the world as it is experienced when filtered through the ideology.

Comolli, Narboni (1969)

Deciphering the language of film involves revealing a new layer on how the world views itself. The collapsing in of a snake as it consumes its own tail in this sense births ideology. What the filmmaker produces a film they are not creating an impartial reality. They are not lending a lens on an object but maneuvering the image under the refracted confines of an ideology. The most neutral of all films is still within itself a political statement.

I am a big fan of horror movies. Not just because the fictional scares provide a reprieve from my overall anxiety of living in the real world but because it is fascinating to me to decipher what the director describes as something horrifying. In the Babadook (2014), the film not only tackles the explicit supernatural villain but also the implicit impacts of postpartum depression. Hereditary (2018) has its characters engage with the unrelenting torment of Paimon but also the even more inescapable grips of grief. Midsommar (2019) forces us to deal with the worst villain of all: a toxic boyfriend (oh and the cult).

That post-breakup glow doe…

In all seriousness, horror movies rarely appear as a respected genre in the film industry. Yet, even the baseless b-movies or cash grab gore fests have a message for its viewers. In original slasher movies, the “final girl” and the “sex equals death” tropes inject moralism into the villain literally wielding a chainsaw and killing minors. Movies are influential simply because the mere act of deciphering them leads to the inevitable outcome of pulling meaning from its content. Politics is not only involved in the production, consumption and ideology of the movie but also in its censorship. In the same way that horror movies present an ideology of what is feared in society, censorship indicates what institutions fear of the public. The video nasties monitored in the 1980’s were a direct government response to the obscenity and moral panic surrounding increasingly violent horror movies. The ratings system not only acts as a way to categorize movies but to regulate which movies reach broader or narrower audiences.

Movies are my favorite form of politics. As an outspoken person, I am quite fond of movies that want to push the envelope—not in gore or in obscenity but in the boundaries of the conversations we can have as a society. I have never once left a theater silent with nothing to discuss with my friends. Movies are gasoline ridden vessels dousing its viewers with each minute of screen time. Lucky for them, I always keep a matchstick in my pocket and flint on the sole of my shoe.

 🧨

References:
Comolli, J., Narboni, J. (1969). Cinema/Ideology/Criticism. Film: Psychology, Society, and Ideology.

#8: We’d have to talk about the French eventually right?

Andrew Sarris (1962) had gone to great pains to emphasize that “Truffaut had gone to great pains to emphasize that the auteur theory was merely a polemical weapon for a given time and a given place”, and I am willing to take both of them at their word. I am also willing to include a picture for reference.

et voila!

When the average moviegoer thinks of a film’s components, the director will most likely be one of the first that come to mind. When they think of films by Chaplin, Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan or Ari Aster, distinct styles also come to the forefront. So much so that the mainstream media has a multitude of parodies imitating the styles of the first few directors stated. A Wes Anderson film for example is symmetrical, colorful, whimsical and Luke Wilson. Sarris (1962) takes this focus on the director to a greater extent and goes on to discuss that the criterion of value in a film can be held against the light of the three premises of auteur theory. The first being the technical competence of a director. While he argues that you can have a good film with a bad director or a good film with no director, a badly directed film holds no important place in the critical scale of values.

Second, the distinguishable personality of the director serves as a criterion of value. As Sarris (1962) puts it, “The way a a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels”.

Lastly, the interior meaning (the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art) is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material.

The corresponding roles of the director may be designated as those of a technician, a stylist and then ultimately an auteur. Better summed up, the auteur theory argues that a film is a reflection of the director’s artistic vision and that they are the author of the film. While I do see where Sarris is coming from, I don’t think this theory can fully encapsulate the capacity of a film. I do think that the other components of film that Sarris brushed to the side as exempt from the criterion of value warrant recognition as well. They are for more than fodder for good conversation. I think Tarantino with his recognizable patterns is not fully realized without a matching script, editing, coloring, subject and so forth. The same can be said for any director.

To place the quality of the film on the director almost ignores the complexity of the filmmaking process. When discussing the language of film, we do not just look at one component and find fluency. Technical competence exists not just in the director but in the cameramen, the editors, the sound crew and etc. Personal style is also a combination pulling from factors outside of the director’s control. If you were to replace the editor in a Christopher Nolan film, you’re not going to get the same film.

Lastly, I would have to especially disagree with Sarris on his point of how good and bad directors are separated by patterns:

“Nowadays, it is possible to become a director without knowing too much about the technical side, even the crucial functions of photography and editing. An expert production crew could probably cover up for a chimpanzee in the director’s chair. How do you tell the genuine director from the quasi chimpanzee? After a given number of films, a pattern is established.”

Sarris (1962)

I see that he is coming from the point that a signature style requires an attention to detail, a sense of aesthetics and a deeper understanding of filmmaking to achieve. An established pattern is not easy to achieve. At the risk of going through my entire blog lifespan without mentioning Richard Ayoade (British comedian, host, actor, director and just an all around good guy), I must draw a comparison to one of my favorite lines from Ayoade’s interview on his latest book. His book Ayoade on Top parodies the title of a lesser known Gwyneth Paltrow movie View from the Top and when the panel asks if they need to watch to film to enjoy his book he responded, “If you have seen any film, you have seen this film” (Graham Norton Show, 2019). To create a non-distinguishable film in Sarris’ perspective is to simply create conversation fodder as opposed to art. There is truth to that…

“If you have seen any film, you have seen this film” (1:09)

There is also truth in the opposite. Not all patterns are created equal nor duplicated every single time. As Sarris (1967) goes on to say, “A director spends his life on variations of the same film”. I think that dampens the possibilities of how far the boundaries of filmmaking can go. If I were to only watch the same type of film from the same type of director every single time, I think I’d end up getting fed up with it. The joy in watching a “good” director lies less in savoring his solo authorship of the film but in watching the product of a collaboration of many minds, experiences, technical components, personal styles and interior meanings.

References:
Sarris, A. (1962). Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962. The Film Artist.

#7: Realism and Bazin

Contrary to previous anecdotes, I’d say I’m a pretty mundane person. As of late, that is. When the pandemic hit, I noticed that I had retreated into a simple routine. I wake up. I pray. I do a light workout on the balcony to stretch my muscles and feel the warmth of the sun. I make the same breakfast every day (oatmeal and coffee) and then I watch an episode of the latest K-Drama before I go to work. Suffice to say, I think I’ve become a senior citizen at the age of 22.

I see nothing wrong in this character development. Despite my brief relapses into adolescence, I have had arguments with my peers about how life would just be easier if we were less ambitious and lived more in the present moment. I find myself enjoying the scene of the condensation forming along my coffee pot; relishing in the scent of freshly watered dirt in the morning; and excited for the eager tail wagging of my dog before our walk. I also noticed that I love watching a particular niche of Japanese YouTube videos dedicated to documenting the mundane. The creators do not do anything different from me and yet I find myself watching a 10 minute long video of them watching the condensation form along their coffee pot and etc.

In my opinion, extreme realism in film is not something to dismiss in favor of a more exciting and explosive plot. This harkens back to a realization I’d made when I was reading Rudolf Arnheim’s critique on the “complete” film; to insult something perfectly mirroring reality is to insult humans and their capacity to make reality exciting. The mere factor of realist films being viewed by a human audience already adds a sense of unpredictability into the mix. As Bazin (1967) said in The Ontology of the Photographic Image:

No matter how skillful the painter, his work was always in fee to an inescapable subjectivity. The fact that a human hand intervened cast a shadow of doubt over the image. Again the essential factor in the transition from the baroque to photography is not the perfecting of a physical process; rather does it lie in a psychological fact, to wit, in completely satisfying our appetite for illusion by a mechanical reproduction in the making of which man plays no part.

Bazin (1967)

If you took two twins with the same genes, raised in the same circumstances you will always end up with two completely different people. The inescapable subjectivity of the viewer is why the mundane film will never be left a blank slate. There is nothing baseless about a film focusing on a conversation between two people or following a man through his day. In fact, some of my most favorite films are are just that. The Before Trilogy is an 18 year sprawl through a couple’s relationship that is anything but a tedious conversation. The Quince Tree Sun (1992) is a documentary following a painter through his grueling process of producing a quince tree painting and it is a poignant celebration of life itself. When beauty manifests myself in the simplest of things is when it is the most beautiful. It is the unexpected presence of excitement in one droplet moving faster than the other on the window that makes it hard to move one’s head away. Realist films capture moments that viewers would often ignore for something more exciting. By honing in on a still experience, the filmmakers wielding their power of intention and creation, imbue the mundane with magic.

Hence the charm of family albums. Those grey or sepia shadows, phantomlike and almost undecipherable, are no longer traditional family portraits but rather the disturbing presence of lives halted at a set moment in their duration.

Bazin (1967)

Realism is not about being boring. It’s about challenging the boundaries of life by showing that the human existence in its flawed, exuberant and arbitrary creation can never truly be dull.

References
Bazin, A. (1967). The Ontology of the Photographic Image. What is Cinema?

#6: Hollywood, happy endings and my other favorite illusions

I love me a cliché.

I would actually argue that most of my problems branch out from my incessant need to be a main character in a movie. The sudden waves of melodrama? Simply character development. The fireworks in rocky relationships? Simply part of the plot! Inevitably, we’re bound to hit a happy ending but I have a feeling I could’ve gone an easier route if I had just been an extra on set. However, we aren’t in my therapy sessions today and I certainly need not share more about my messy life than either of us need to hear. Regardless, there is truly something magical about blockbuster films that seem to stay within that realm.

I’ve pondered a lot about the relationship between audience and film. Is the audience a removed factor only meant to absorb the material as it is? Is the audience the extension of the filmmakers’ heart, feeling the high’s and low’s as one? Is the audience self serving, molding the film into their own identity? Rowe and Wells (2003) shed a light on one avenue of the audience-filmmaker relationship in Film Form and Narrative. They define film conventions as “agreements between the producer and the user” (Rowe and Wells, 2003). Film conventions promote the idea of cinema as an “act of reassurance” that the viewer and the filmmaker are on the same page. The viewer doesn’t have to worry about getting lost in translation because everything about conventions is taken for face-value. Some would argue that this eliminates the need and importance of interpretation in films. Some would argue that film conventions are just fast cheap ways to produce something that resembles a movie but lacks the intention.

To argue that predictability is the death of enjoyment is absolutely something you should not bring up in therapy (or should…now that I think about it). Film conventions may be predictable but that isn’t to say that its presence doesn’t create something valuable. In my opinion, they add to the dialogue between viewer and filmmaker. They are the gentle shoulder nudge between long-time friends as they tell an inside joke. It’s also a fun way to show the viewers that they are understood and present in the filmmaking process.

While I am a fan of horror films that subvert clichés like You’re Next (2011), Scream (1996), Eden Lake (2008), Housebound (2014) and Funny Games (2007), that isn’t to say that I would snub a “predictable” horror movie. In fact, one of my most favorite horror franchises Final Destination is riddled with horror movie conventions. From the dumb high school students (that are just increasingly less smart after the third movie) to the unnecessary romance and the final girl trope, the only thing unpredictable about the latter half of the franchise is whether or not they’ll make another film. Yet, it is still an enjoyable experience and one that I hold dearly to my heart.

As a viewer, there is a sense of gratification for being able to guess what will happen next. The closeup on an unassuming object as the music grows eerie gives enough of a warning for a jump-scare. A character walking out into the middle of the street during an argument gives a heads up that they’re about to get hit by a bus. Predictability can be fun. It is also a nod to the power of narrative storytelling and how conventions transcend time. There are certain beats that films must hit such as exposition for the protagonists and an ultimate showdown with the antagonist. There are objects that have become symbolic to plot points like birds as freedom, photographs as memories or red as danger. The more stories the audience consumes, the more unspoken their understanding of conventions.

In the way that films can completely subvert expectations and play with convention to toy with the viewer’s understanding like the ever-challenging older brother, maybe “predictable” films are like doting mothers —holding our hands and telling us everything’s going to turn out fine.

References

Rowe, A., Wells, P. (2003). Film Form and Narrative. Approaches to Studying Film Texts.

#5: What’s black and white and red all over?

When I was younger, an episode of Full House saw the youngest daughter Michelle Tanner partaking in a go-cart race. If my memory serves well, she had a rival and as the race is about to start the rival makes time for one last insult. Michelle retorts by saying that her dad told her if she can’t say anything nice, she shouldn’t say anything at all.

My dad told me a similar thing. As a very outspoken girl, I used to have a hard time maneuvering arguments without losing my temper. My dad told me that if I didn’t agree with someone, I should just say that they rose some interesting points and then call it a day. That being said…

Rudolf Arnheim raises some interesting points on the evolution of film.

In The Complete Film, Arnheim (1933) argues that the perfection of the “complete film” as a medium that fully imitates reality completely veers away from the original intentions of the black and white silent film. Arnheim (1933) posits that the introduction of colored sound film obliterates the explicit and pure style of silent film in favor of “the inartistic demand for the greatest possible ‘naturalness’ [in the most superficial sense of the word]”. Where Plato critiqued art on the basis that it will never be the truest form of the object, Arnheim is now critiquing film for being too close to reality. To Arnheim, human beings’ need to create faithful images harkens back to a primitive desire of obtaining material objects by making it ourselves. In a sense, he relates the audience’s consumption of the reality in films as a cheap imitation of the experience without the stakes. The development of film veers it away from an art form and more into escapism.

To this, I wonder how quickly Arnheim would have a heart attack upon finding himself in our era of virtual reality, high definition videos, IMAX surround sound systems and the works. I wonder if the time in between his spasms and gasping for air will allow him the ability to talk to an audience exiting their favorite film. I’d hope I’m in the crowd so that I could just ask him a simple question:

“So what of escapism? Are there not worse fates for man?” (I love any excuse to talk dramatically and I will surely take advantage of it for Rudolf Arnheim)

The man looks like this. How would we not engage in fisticuffs?

Though in all seriousness, what of escapism? As someone that grew up on films, there is something magical about watching a film and being with a newfound extension of self. This also didn’t dampen my abilities to just absorb the story as it is. To simply hear the artist in the piece. To partake in the transaction of viewer and art by providing them with the emotions they elicited out of me. For that matter, I completely disagree with Arnheim’s proposition that the perfection of the “complete” film is a catastrophe. I think the assumption that a medium closer to reality as nothing but wish fulfillment is quite insulting to not only people but reality itself. There is so much chaos in reality. There are so many stories to tell and so many people can hear it because of the “complete” film. To whittle people down into nothing but apes following their primitive desires completely ignores just how powerful and creative humans become the more resources you give to them. Yes, silent films and black and white films are still mediums of film. However, they aren’t the only ones. And this isn’t to say that that medium should no longer exist nor that its value is decreased because of the colored sound film. This is to say that art is limitless and that the “complete” film will never exist. Filmmakers will find newer and newer forms closer to reality or farther removed. The beauty of the film lies in experiencing what could come next.

References

Arnheim, R. (1933). From Film as Art: The Complete Film. Film and Reality.

#4: Talk Cinema To Me

I am a simple woman. Jesse McCartney speaks and I listen. In his 2009 masterpiece Body Language, McCartney taught me one of the many forms of communication.

The day I learned that I don’t need to speak Spanish, Japanese or French to maybe marry Jesse McCartney.

All pop culture icons aside, there is a hidden language in everything. In the case of cinema, the audience is her bewildered lover and she is the multi-lingual gem fluent in saying millions of different things at once.

Her most perplexing language is when she speaks in her native tongue, with the camera and production in place as her vocal cords. She doesn’t waste a minute in her words, each frame is intentional. It is composed in a way that betrays the meaning of the story she’s promised us for the night. As Cohen and Braudy (1974) write in Film Language, “The shot is motivated”. She mulls over everything from the angles, the blocking, the composition and the staging. She is a master craftsman.

There is a specific shot in films that often fills me with dread. The extreme long shots or wide shots that focus on the setting for far longer than it should as the score swells uncomfortably. My immediate reaction is to sit up slightly straighter. My fight or flight reflexes gear up and when the inevitable scene change arrives, I am either greeted with immense fear or a false sense of security. The wide shot gives viewers the feeling of isolation and unease. It tells the viewers what the protagonist wishes they had known: something bad is going to happen here.

The Witch (2015)

Despite my fear in the moment, I am always in awe of the power that camerawork and editing has to be able to throw me headfirst into a situation very far removed from my own. There is an intimacy in the language of film. None more so present than in the closeup. It is a facet of both photography and film. The camera has the ability to zoom in on the subject and capture every freckle, every pore, every speck of dust on eyelash. However, the beauty of the closeup does not come in the form of its detail nor of how close the camera can get to the subject. The beauty lies in how close the camera can bring us to the subject’s heart. Film as a medium adds the extra layer of immersing the audience in a space with the character in a moment. The face can speak with the subtlest shades of meaning without appearing unnatural. There is something about human empathy that elicits us to feel the emotion of the person across from us. It is one thing to see the character in the film laugh or cry. It is another to be fully consumed by their tears and the wrinkles that form in the corner of their eyes and the skin peeling off of their lips.

It is indeed a silent soliloquy as Bela Balasz (1945) writes:

In the film the mute soliloquy of the face speaks even when the hero is not alone and herein lies a new great opportunity for depicting man. The poetic significance of the soliloquy is that it is a manifestation of mental, not physical, loneliness.

Bela Balasz (1945)

References

Balasz, B. (1945) The Close-Up. In Braudy, L. & Cohen. M (eds) (2004). Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford University Press. 6th edition.

Balasz, B. (1945) The Face of Man. In Braudy, L. & Cohen. M (eds) (2004). Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford University Press. 6th edition.

#3: On Filipino Film Criticism Over Generations

A little bit about me. I spent most of my life moving around. In my 22 years of living I have stayed in countless apartments, houses and family homes. I used to be so jealous of the kids that grew up in the same house with the same neighbors their whole life. While I don’t have a childhood home that hasn’t already found new residents and I certainly lost a lot of photos in every move, I still have a (rather large) piece of my childhood that always managed to make a house a home.

My television set.

This is exactly what it looked like. *Tears* I’m getting emotional

Actually, “set” is a very bold word since it was missing a remote for the first half of its existence but we’ll still go with it. It was a pink Disney television. The speakers were in the shape of a tiara. Ariel from the Little Mermaid would appear and bubbles would go up or down with each press of the volume button. Cinderella was there alongside each channel number and Aurora from Sleeping Beauty rested in the menu screen. Suffice to say, it was something I should’ve outgrown sooner than I did. But that specific appliance had my pencil markings from each year I’d had it (12 years!) and little doodles done in permanent marker on the ears. Gathering around the television set with my family is a well-loved activity in my home. Most of our inside jokes come from the teleseryes and sitcoms that we’d watch together. Our understanding of Chicago culture came in the form of morning news and watching the Cubs play every game live. My own understanding of growing up, adolescence and romance came from episodes of George Lopez, The Nanny, Full House and my range of Saturday morning cartoons (which…says a lot about how dramatic my dating life tends to get…besides the point). Simply put, film and television plays a very strong part in my identity.

An important point I think most of the speakers brought up “On Poetics and Practice of Film Criticism in the Philippines” on Plaridel (2013) is the concept of identity. Decampo (2013) said it best when he said; “I am concerned with how cinema came to be Filipino, investigating its process of becoming in order to deduce its state of being.” It is a valid concern. The first step in scholarship of any medium is to deduce its origins. To learn from the greats, if you will. What is Philippine cinema’s separation from the broader umbrella of cinema and why do these distinctions matter? Moreover, where does it overlap with cinema as a whole?

Philippine cinema is not lacking in material. However, the mainstream media makes it appear as if all the Philippines has to offer are formulaic, derivative money makers. Every once in a while a film will pop up in theaters that sets itself apart in quality and content. Despite that, it’s still easier to run into a cynic spitting on the latest Vice Ganda cash grab than it is to run into a Filipino Film fan.

There is definitely something lacking in the films the industry chooses to produce and promote. The existence, distribution and critique of art is an acknowledgement of the stories worth telling. Its historical significances, the issues specific to the medium and its real-world significance shine a light on how Filipino Films can be a reflection of Filipino reality.

And here arises the always vexing question of identity. So what is identity? Is it native? Can it be global or planetary? Is it local? How does it become national and should it always be nationalist? Cannot it be intercultural instead? When is it post-colonial?

Patrick Flores

So…am I saying that we should get rid of the latest kilig-to-the-max movies and replace them with accurate and poignant period pieces? Am I saying that we should nix the cheesy comedy in favor of sharp portrayals of everyday Filipino life? Not even close. To claim that only a certain form of media must exist in order for Filipino Film to have validity places such a high and impossible standard on film itself. It’s as if Western media didn’t produce M. Night Shyamalan’s study on how weird Mark Wahlberg’s facial expressions could get —The Happening— and No Country for Old Men as well as the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the same year. Critically panned movies have existed for years without the death of cinema.

I’m not saying we need to stop making “bad” movies. I am saying that the industry owes it to its audience and its critics to produce films that are products of thought as opposed to simply being products. Filipino critics should also be given far more recognition than they currently hold. In my last post, I discussed how mainstream media paints the critic as a villain to the artist. However, I feel like mainstream media in the Philippines doesn’t even paint the critic to begin with. The immediate response of celebrities to criticism comes in the form of “clapbacks” that are highly publicized in favor of the celebrity themselves. Critics get little to no validation in the Philippines. I feel like the big companies just expect the public to like their films because they have a recognizable name, a charming cast that can do interviews well and a lot of promotional material. For this reason, there is very little attention placed on Filipino Film criticism. Which is definitely something we need to change because critics have never been the enemies of cinema. If anything, (and in our situation) they are the guiding hand of viewers. They are protectors, to put it in a grander light, of what cinema can be. And cinema can be a lot of sad, beautiful and tragic things (yes I did quote a Taylor Swift song title there).

For now, I suggest we focus on the possibility that cinema can have well respected critics that can hold filmmakers responsible for treating their audiences as mindless ATM’s.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

References

Campos, P. F. (Ed.). (2016). On Poetics and Practice of Film Criticism in the Philippines – A Roundtable Discussion. Plaridel – a Philippine Journal of Communication, Media, and Society, 13(1). Retrieved from http://www.plarideljournal.org/article/round-table-discussion-poetics-practice-film-criticism-philippines/.

Response Paper #2: On the Functions of Criticism

The image of a critic seems to only be unfortunately afforded two possibilities. The first is clad in black turtleneck, bespectacled and almost always shrouded within a dark cloud. They are confined in their office with renaissance pieces, old hardbound books, curtains drawn dramatically and ironically bad lighting. I like to call these the antagonist to the artist. These critics are coldhearted and believe themselves to be the last true protectors of the fine arts whilst the public views them as the death of creativity. Think: Anton Ego from Ratatouille (the most notorious of them all).

I have chills going down my spine as we speak. Ratatouille (2007)

The other possibility proves just as bleak. These critics go to movie theaters with popcorn in one hand and the other with thumb poised to strike the first blow. I like to call these the commander killjoy critics. Their armada comes in the form of twitter notoriety, followers that take their word as God, and the infinite knowledge of the source material. These critics are frustrated artists that take out their anger on “actual art”.

Whether it be the antagonist or the killjoy, none of the mainstream depictions of critics seem to acknowledge the functions of criticism. A.O Scott (2016), highlights Samuel L. Jackson’s remarks against critics:

“Our movies are not an intellectual exposition that you have to intellectualize in any way, like just view it for what it is.”

Samuel L. Jackson

With no intent of digging at Samuel L. Jackson (for many reasons but mainly because he could easily take down my 120 pound anemic self with just his pinky probably), but why should it be so necessary to deny any form of media as both a product and a potential object of thought? If that’s the case, a critic will be no different from anyone else who stops to think about the experience of watching the film. The sentiment of viewing the art for “simply what it is” rings a similar bell as Sontag’s (1966) proposal to focus on form in Against Interpretation. While there is value in consuming art as it is, we can’t deny that there is also value in the opposing approach. Criticism as a function is not about imbuing meaning into a piece nor about invalidating its existence in favor of a more honed or well-crafted alternative. I think it’s more fitting to describe criticism within its roots of thought.

Thinking is where criticism begins. A.O. Scott (2016) said it best in The Critic as the Artist when he said “thought is not the enemy of experience”. The relationship between the artist and the critic always seems to place one at odds with the other. There is a very false belief that the takedown of the critic uplifts the arts but I think it does the exact opposite. By placing critics in such a negative light, what does that say about the art and the artist? It removes the audience from the pleasure of taking in the piece for more than what it is. It takes away the beauty of watching a film and itching to just talk to your friends about it after. There is an important experience to be had in “translating awe into understanding” (Scott, 2016). To me, that is when the artist and the critic reach their hands out to one another and create another masterpiece in and of itself.

To think that criticism is something sinister completely negates the journalism that lies in the process. If a tree falls and no one is there to hear it, did it really fall? In that same light if the sensory experience that is the audiovisual menagerie of film goes unsaid, did it ever touch a soul? How cruel is it to demand that the critics stay quiet? Anthony Lane (2002) writes in Nobody’s Perfect that movies deserve journalism. I remember during a lecture in my government class, my professor likened journalists as the bridge connecting politics to the people. In that same light, film critics are the bridge connecting movies to the people.

Criticism is a lot of things. None of which involve antagonists or killjoys. Criticism is:

• acknowledging the differences and similarities in culture and understanding the human experience of creating and consuming art
• a form of thought uncovering media as a product and object of thought
• a manifestation of insightful and purposeful thinking
• figuring out what to do with the freedom that art imbues on our mind

To be a critic is to be a part of a noble art form in and of itself. I think if we gave critics the same weight that we gave artists, we would see that they are in a symbiotic relationship. So instead of asking “what would the world be without artists?”, I hope we can also ask ourselves “what would the world be without critics?”

References

Lane, A. (2002). Nobody’s Perfect: Writings from The New Yorker. Vintage Books.

Scott. A.O. (2016). Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. Penguin Books.

Sontag, S. (1966). Against Interpretation and Other Essays. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.