Philippine Cinematic Art, 2nd Edition

Philippine Cinematic Art 
2nd Edition

By:
ANDREA L. PETERSON
GASPAR A. VIBAL
CHRISTOPHER A. DATOL
NICANOR C. LAJOM

With a Foreword by MOIRA LANG

Susan Sontag once said that cinema is “the Art of the twentieth century,” not only because of its limitless ability to mimic reality but also due to its transformative powers of turning what was once private public, becoming in effect not just an artistic medium but also the creator and harbinger of cultural fantasy. Philippine Cinematic Art cultivates an appreciation of film and its artistic aspects, including its history, conventions, styles, genres, and narratives. 

While analyzing Philippine films as the work of directors with clearly personal styles, it also looks at its audiences and their reception to film as well as commonly held conceptions of what is national cinema in an increasingly globalized world.

The long-decried death of Philippine cinema as foretold at the start of the twenty-first century did not come to pass. Instead, the past two decades have sustained a creative boom in the dizzying welter of mainstream and indie movies that exhibit a diversity and conflation of genres and styles. This explosion of cinematic works that are outrageous and queer, radically political, quixotic, as well as quizzical have pushed the boundaries of Philippine cinema and heightened its visibility in the international scene. With a new edition that delves into the seismic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the transformation of the cinematic experience in the age of streaming, this book will help lovers of Philippine cinema “see” in new and wondrous ways.

Cinema is considered an artistic medium, but is it an art? During cinema’s bourgeoning decades, Marxist critics argued that cinema cannot be art because it is first and foremost a commercial product. In their influential book, Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer depicted cinema as an instrument of capitalist control that withered “imagination and spontaneity.”

Yet great art often seeks to be architectonic, to embrace other arts. It is capacious; it crosses artistic boundaries; it engages mind, imagination, and heart; and it rewards multiple encounters. All this can be said of great cinema.

 

Philippine Cinematic Art examines how movies have mediated wondrously between high and low culture by providing profound narratives that resonate with a wider and more diverse audience. In such encounters, its invisible spectators experience what the film critic David Thomson calls the “stealthy rapture” of cinema with its capacity to engage both heart and intellect and move audiences to a deeper appreciation of the human condition and toward a refinement of their sense of beauty.

 

This book is an incisive and thoughtful discussion on the inspiring, versatile, and often subversive nature of Philippine cinematic art. It tackles cinema as an artistic medium that dynamically purveys different representations of Philippine reality and fantasy while also focusing on the bold artistry that characterizes truly great cinema.

- Raya Martin
Filmmaker 

 

Philippine Cinematic Art is the latest addition to the body of critical writing that not only examines the complex evolution of the form, but locates the individuals and organizations that have helped define the industry through the years.... Well-researched and well-written, each chapter contributes to a much-needed holistic perspective that views Philippine cinema as the result of the confluence between aesthetics and politics.

- From the Preface of Soledad S. Reyes, PhD 
Ateneo de Manila University

CONTENTS

Foreword by Moira Lang 

PREFACE by Andrea L. Peterson 

Understanding and Appreciating Philippine Film 

Understanding cinema as a language 

The socioeconomic and material practices of Philippine cinema 

(De)constructing the Nation 

Weaving the Filipino into “ethnographic” films 

Film as sociopolitical history 

Film as both collective and historical memory 

Intertext and Subversion: Genre Bending in Philippine Cinema 

Going from international to national and transnational 

Literary and filmic texts that speak to each other 

Betwixt the cinema of kilig, horror, and violence 

Cinematic Bodies: Sex and Gender at the Sinehan 

(Un)dressing the Filipina(o) 

Queering the mainstream Filipino(a) 

Celebrification and Simulacra: Turning Perception into Reality 

The idols of Philippine cinema 

From the studio system to artist-driven production companies and celebrification 

Verisimilitude: Love in the time of love teams 

Celebrities and their rise to political power 

The primacy of individualism: Stardom in the social media age 

Manonood at Manunuri: Making the Filipino Audience 

The social stratification of film connoisseurship and audience appreciation 

From sarsuwela and sinehan to multiplexes and the making of audiences 

Making and breaking audiences with oligopolistic film distribution 

Indie film production, distribution, and the making of new audiences 

Reviewing the critics, the awards system, and social media 

Covid-19 and the Resurgence of the Film Industry 

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema 

Local cinema production 

Drive-in cinema and other alternatives 

The indulgence in streaming 

The reemergence of the film industry 

Philippine Cinema Chronology 

Bibliography 

Index 

About the Authors

Andrea L. Peterson has followed Philippinevpopular culture through her lifelong interest in comics. In 2019 she wrote Francisco V. Coching, a biographical study of the National Artist for Visual Arts. She took interdisciplinary studies at Ateneo de Manila University and earned her master’s degree in creative writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Gaspar A. Vibal has written and edited articles and books on Philippine genealogy, Hispano-Filipino literature, and the Spanish colonial era. He has pursued his lifelong interest in Philippine cinema by following Tagalog movies as TV reruns from the 1960s through the 1970s and Philippine art-house cinema at international film festivals from the 1980s.

Christopher A. Datol previously worked at the Manila Bulletin for nine years, where he wrote for the lifestyle beat. He was also a consultant of various public relations companies and a lifestyle magazine editor before assuming managerial roles in the publishing industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

Nicanor C. Lajom was a full-time high school and elementary school teacher before moving on to work in the publishing industry where he has amassed over ten years of experience in editing educational and technical books and magazines. He graduated from Trinity University of Asia with a bachelor’s degree in English.

 

Series: Fifty Shades of Philippine Art
Copyright © 2024
128 pages; 22.86 x 30.48 cm