film literacy

FILM AS CODED MESSAGE: INVESTIGATIONS OF MEANING IN FILM

Film operates through codes – image, color, sound, narrative, effects. These codes contain meanings that when decoded makes us understand and appreciate what we are watching. How these meanings are encrypted into film is what this session is about. Cinematic elements like filmic space, shot, cut, movement, effect, etc. will be analyzed with regards to the production and reception of meaning in the films of master directors like Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Lino Brocka, etc.

HISTORY IN FILM/FILM AS HISTORY

Film and history share an affinity that makes it possible for history to be contained on film (as in historical films like “Jose Rizal”) and film also serving as an artifact of history (as in documentaries). Through the study of narratives, characters and themes one may be able to produce knowledge of history and historical processes. Relatedly, film becomes a piece of history as it records in motion pictures contemporary lifeways thus preserving historical memory. Films dealing with history will be studied like Eddie Romero’s “Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon? Early American Newsreels, Nick Deocampo’s “Edades,” etc.

SPACE AND POLITICS IN THE AESTHETICS OF LINO BROCKA'S FILMS

This session argues that space and politics are two elements that highly influenced Lino Brocka’s film aesthetics. Brocka’s acute sense of cinematic space materializes many abstract themes like “oppression,”“marginalization,” and “justice.” The filmmaker’s personal view and politics has found their locus in the articulate use of space in his films particularly in “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang,” “Hellow, Soldier!” and other major works.

WHO’S AFRAID OF FILM THEORY?

Film theory has yet to find its relevance and popular use in the Philippines.Yet it offers much promise for filmmakers and audiences alike if they were to find use of it in the production and reception of films. Illustrating how theory has energized Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” (realism), Dziga Vertov’s “The Man with a Movie Camera” (formalism), Lino Brocka’s “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang” (Third World cinema), “Thelma and Louise” (feminism), and other major theories, this session tackles an appreciation of theory and how it may shape local filmmaking praxis..

SEX IN PHILIPPINE CINEMA – WHAT’S THE FUSS?

Controversies have accompanied the reception of sex in Pinoy movies. This has proved disadvantageous to both as the stigma of shame and ignorance has stymied the growth of cinema and the attitude towards sex. By discussing the social context and prevailing ideologies surrounding the representation of sex in Philippine cinema, its history and signification, one may come to a better understanding of how the subject of sex figures in local movies and how sex is contextualized in Filipino culture.

MANILA! MANILA! REPRESENTATIONS OF THE CITY ON FILM

Both ancient and contemporary, Manila has been a subject of cinematic representation over the years. The city has been seen in all its contradictory nature – “paradise” as it is “hell” – and the people who live in it are devoured by the menacing metropolis as they are also redeemed by the human compassion that swaddles its concrete world. Life in old Manila (Intramuros) as recalled in Lamberto Avellana’s “Portrait of the Artist as Filipino” it is“heaven” to the sisters Candida and Paula but in Ishmael Bernal’s film the city becomes a “living hell.”