Chinese cinema is often divided into six generations. The term “generations” is used to make it easier to group the different phases of Chinese film history, but they are not completely different from one another. A particular generation may share something in common with the previous generation, while also passing something onto the next generation. In a sense, the history of Chinese film can be said to have gone through a sort of evolution from its beginnings to the present.

The first and second generations of film began during the 1890’s and continued through the beginning part of the early 1900’s. These two generations of Chinese film are often seen as the pioneers for Chinese cinema. Many of these films consisted of operatic shorts and short comic skits. Eventually the Chinese would go on to make full length film features. The first film length Chinese film ever made was created in 1921 and was entitled Yan Ruishe. Some years later a new trend in film began. Many dancers ad stage performers began to move from the stage to the screen. This may have seemed like a good fit at the time, but many of the dancers-turned-actors were not successful. One actress who was successful was Ruan Lingyu. Unfortunately she committed suicide in 1935. Stephanie Donald tells us that in her suicide note, “she was in despair at gossip about her private life” (4). It’s interesting to see that even in the early stages of film in China, there were the same types of problems that celebrities often face in modern day Hollywood. It seems that any culture tends to have a fascination with the lives of the celebrities of their time.

The third generation of Chinese film shows an evolution with regards to the way the camera is used and how the films are edited. These changes mirror the camera tyle of Hollywood of the time. According to Donald some of these techniques are, “two- to three-head dialogue sequences to introduce and develop story lines, jump cuts, and cuts on action to keep several narrative strands in place without losing momentum or suspense, and dream sequences or flashbacks” (5). Two figures who best represent the third generation of Chinese film are Sang Hu and Shui Hua. Some of Sang’s films include Joys and Sorrows of Middle Age and A Make-Believe Couple. The latter movie focuses on a woman’s hairdresser looking for a wealthy wife and a young single mother looking for a wealthy husband. The film is a comedy, which has many tones of Hollywood running through it. Shui Hai’s best-known work is The White-haired Girl, made by 1950 and Land, made in 1954. Shui’s film’s often had very political themes. For example the movie, Land, deals with the story of land reform in the 1930’s. Both Sang and Shui manage to deliver strong films, while staying with the policitcal constraints of their period.

The fourth generation of Chinese filmmakers is made up of men who were trained before the Cultural Revolution. Although they were trained long ago, many of these filmmakers have not made their first feature films until the last 20 years. Xie Jin is one of the more prominent names of the fourth generation of film. Some of his achievements include twenty-one films, several filmmaking awards, and a career that has spanned three decades. Donald describes his film as, “melodramatic epics of personal suffering, and particularly successful examples of the wound (shang hen) genre, stories of individual tragedy and eventual triumph that deal with the experiences of the Cultural Revolution in cathartic and personalized narratives” (7). Although Xie Jin has enjoyed a certain level of success, Xie and his fellow filmmakers of the fourth generation are often overlooked because of the fifth generation. The irony is that the fourth generation is often seen as having paved the way for the fifth generation. The benefactor of this student-teacher relationship is clearly the fifth generation because of the exposure they have received.

The fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers refers to the first group of students to graduate from the Beijing Film Academy since the Academy reopened after the Cultural Revolution. The most prominent of the fifth generation of filmmakers is Chen Kaige who has made such films as Yellow Earth, Farewell My Concubine, and The Blue Kite. The fifth generation of filmmakers also has its share of women involved. One of these female filmmakers is Peng Xiaolian who has made such films as Me and My Classmates and A Family Portrait. Peng is considered to be one of the better filmmakers of her generation, but is often overlooked in favor of her male counterparts.

Politics have shaped nearly every generation of Chinese film. In fact most of the major studios that have been active since the 1950’s have had to submit every treatment and screenplay to the China Film, Broadcaast and Television Bureau (CFTB) before beginning the project. Films that went through problems during the next stage would often be shelved or printed in small amounts. Times of political uncertainty often saw a higher degree of censorship. The Cultural Revolution was one of these times. At this time many filmmakers were kicked out of their studios and sent to what were basically labor camps. This result was a relatively few number of films made during this time period. Films that were made had to be made to conform to the views of Maoist rule. This doesn’t mean that the films of the period went unrecognized. In fact many of the films of the 1960’s and 1970’s had sizeable audiences. These films forced to conform because of politics also had traces of politics running through them. In fact many of these traces can be seen in the films of this era by the color red. The color red signifies the communist rule of Mao during the time. Although, Mao and his weaf have plong since passed there are still traces of communism and the color red in Chinese film today. Many of the films that do not conform to the “red” theme are described as “yellow”. An increase in the number of yellow-themed films has led to a increase in retrospective censorship. This means censorship of films that have already been released. This censorship can often mean major cuts in the film or not even being distributed at all.

In today’s times, censorship has not stopped China from being a major force in the international film industry. This is largely due to the popularity of the Chinese genre of film labeled Hong Kong Cinema. In fact Hong Kong Cinema has become quite a cult phenomenon in the West. This popularity has resulted in a large release of films that has often outnumbered Western releases and helped China become second in the world when it comes to the export of films. Hong Kong’s films are often seen as a source of pride for the Chinese. They enjoy Honk Kong cinema so much in fact, that Hong Kong is one of the few places in the world where American films are not dominant in box office receipts on a regular basis. Even popular American films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Who Framed Roger Rabbit were outgrossed by other films in Hong Kong.

Many people may wonder how such a small city-state of China could make such an impact on the film industry. Much of the answer can be found in the demands of the films. The people want to see these films and Bordwell even goes as far as to say it’s, “arguably the world’s most energetic, imaginitive popular cinema” (1).

The most popular acclaimed director of Hong Kong Cinema is John Woo. Although Woo grew up around poverty and gangs, he was still able to go to high school and college because of donations from a local church. He started his film career as a production assistant for Zhang Che, an action director at the time. It is said that Woo learned a lot from Zhang and soon Woo was making his own films. One of Woo’s first big film’s was A Better Tomorrow. This gangster film enjoyed much success and helped launch the career of Chow Yun Fat. Woo soon followed up this film with other films such as The Killer and Hard Boiled. Woo’s success has even spread to Western culture with his hits Face/Off, Broken Arrow, and Mission: Impossible 2. Woo’s brand of action film directing is one that is unmatched In Hong Kong cinema or in the world for that matter.

As far as actors are concerned, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan are the most famous men in Hong Kong cinema. As a child, Bruce Lee appeared in a number of films. As a youth he also began to study the martial arts and as a young man left Hong Kong to go to college in America. While in America he was able to win a part in the television series, The Green Hornet. Soon afterwards he filmed two pictures that were known in America as Fists of Fury and The Chinese Connection. The success of these two films led to a deal which allowed Lee to produce, wrie, and direct his own film. This led Lee’s creation of The Return of the Dragon and an effort he coproduced entitled Enter the Dragon. Unfortunately, while working on his next project, entitled Game of Death, Lee passed away although the circumstances are unknown. Bordwell calls Lee, “the first Hong Kong Star to achieve worldwide reknown” and says that he, ” helped popularize Chinese martial arts.

Another person to help escalate the popularity of Chinese martial arts is Jackie Chan. At the age of six Chan began to attend an institute which taught him to singing, dancing, martial arts, and acrobatics. Soon after he was able to find work in the film industry and even worked on a few Bruce Lee projects. Chan began as a stunt player, but eventually was able to work his way up as one of Bruce Lee’s clones. Chan’s career began to take off after filming Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow. As his career began to take off Chan seemed destined to be the successor to be Bruce Lee’s throne. Chan’s problem was how to assume this position without becoming the direct clone of Lee. Chan accomplished this by playing the opposite of Lee’s image. While Lee was often viewed as the hero, Chan likes to be viewed as the underdog. This theme runs in a lot of his films. Chan often plays a raw talent who learns whatever it takes to win the situation he is in. Another thing that separated Lee and Chan were their acrobatics. Lee never made it a point to learn acrobatics so he often used a double if any leaps or tumbles were required. On the other hand Chan is a master at acrobatics an always performs his own stunts. This is something that he is very popular for in Western culture. Chan truly enjoys performing his own stunts and has even said “I live for pain. Even when I was young I loved pain.” This can often be seen in the outtakes that are commonly shown during the final credits of his films.

Although these two stars are very different, Lee and Chan both embody the spirit of Hong Kong. These two symbolize the cinema of their nation’s time and it is from them that their people draw a source of pride. Lee and Chan have given Chinese film a face that the rest of the world won’t easily forget.

The recent success of Chinese cinema in Western culture seems to indicate that they will only get better. Films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee, have helped get Chinese cinema the recognition it deserves. The actors and directors of China have done a superb job of making quality films, but we must not forget that the people and culture of China are what influence the films. Without that influence Chinese cinema would quite possibly be just another story.

Louise Brooks was a big part of the Jazz Age and had a lot of influence on the women of the 1920s. Being a film star with a great, original personality she is known for being one of the most extraordinary women to set forth the Flapper era. Her sleek and smooth looks with her signature bob helped define the flapper look (pandorasbox/flapper).

On November 14, 1906, in Cherryvale, Kansas, Mary Louise Brooks was born. She had two brothers, one sister, and parents, Leonard and Myra Brooks, who was a costume maker and pianist. In 1910, Brooks performed in her first stage role as Tom Thumbs bride in a Cherryvale church benefit. Over the next few years she danced at mens and womens clubs, fairs, and various other gatherings in southeastern Kansas.

At ten years old she was already a serious dancer and very much interested in it. In 1920, Brooks family moved to Wichita, Kansas, and at 13 years old she began studying dance (pandorasbox/chron).

Louise Brooks had a typical education and family life. She was very interested in reading and the arts, so in 1922 she traveled to New York City and joined the Denishawn Dance Company. This was the leading modern dance company in America at the time. In 1923, Brooks toured the United States and Canada with Denishawn by train and played a different town nearly every night, but one year later she leaves Denishawn and moves back to New York City. Not too long after her return, she gets a job as a chorus girl in the George White Scandals. Following this she and a good friend of hers sailed to Europe. At 17 years old she gained employment at a leading London nightclub. She became famous in Europe as the first person to dance the Charleston in London, and her performances were great successes (pandorasbox/chron).

In 1925, Louise Brooks returned to New York and joins Ziegfeld Follier, and performed in the Ziegfeld production, Louie the 14th. That summer she had an affair with Charlie Chaplin. At the same time, Brooks also appeared in her first film, The Streets of Forgotten Men, and signed a five year contract with Paramount. This same year, she had her first appearance on a magazine cover. In 1926, she featured as a flapper in A Social Celebrity which launched her film career and introduced the flapper era (pandorasbox/chron).

In 1933 Brooks married wealthy Chicago playboy Deering Davis, but within six months they were separated. In 1956, she met James Card, the legendary film creator at George Eastman House, and moved to Rochester, NY. Here she studied film and continued to write at the House. Throughout her life she finds employment on the radio, as a model, and stared in many more films in which many of them she portrayed the rapidly spreading style of a flapper. She is a miraculous woman who helped to unfold and expand the flapper era throughout the world (pandorasbox/chron).

Not only did Louise Brooks have a great impact on the culture revitalization of the 1920s, but she also left contributions that are still evident today. The year is 2000, and everywhere we look this so-called “new fashion” is becoming popular, but look again. Dresses just above knee length with fringes and frills being worn by teenage girls and women, are the same style as those worn in the 1920s. The flappers of the 1920s also started a new phase of rebellion that would be passed on for decades. Before the 1920s, girls and women were always refined, reserved, “daddies girls”. This new era brought more unrefined, unpolished, and more rebellious girls. It brought women with attitude and youth, which can be seen in todays society. Teenage girls today are constantly disobeying their parents and staying out past curfew. They are said to have a mind of their own. And of course, they are wearing things of which their parents disapprove, just as flappers like Louise Brooks wore clothing that would have been deemed whorish and vulgar if it was not for her stardom and acting success. She gave life to a new style would influence women for years to come.

WORKS CITED
 

“Flapper Culture and Style: Louise Brooks and the Jazz Age.” The Louise Brooks Society. http://pandorabox.com/flapper.html. 3/22/00.

“Louise Brooks Chronology.” The Louise Brooks Society. http:// pandorasbox.com/chron.html. 3/23/00.

Szabo, Julia. “Oh, Those Flabbergasting Flappers!” Long Island Our Story. Http://www.lihistory.com/7/hs715c.htm. 3/22/00.

Warhol And Pop Art
Pop Art emerged in the US in the early 1960s, at first completely unacknowledged. During its beginning, Pop Art was often seen as an insult to the roles of such artists as Pollock and de Kooning, who were leading a revival of Abstract Expressionist, an abrupt and conspicuous dialectical reaction to a great wave of abstraction, at mid-century. Emerging with considerable fanfare, mainly condemnation, but by 1963-64, it suddenly began being extensively exhibited, published, and consumed as a cultural phenomenon By the early 60s, Warhol became determined to establish himself as a serious painter, as well as to gain the respect of such famous artists of the time such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, whose work he had recently come to know and admire. He began by painting a series of pictures based on crude advertisements and on images from comic strips. These first such works, such as Saturdays Popeye(1960) and Water Heater(1960), were loosely painted in a mock-expressive style that mocked the gestural brushwork of Abstract Expressionism, and are among the first examples of what came to be known as Pop Art. Warhols works during the early 60s are among those for which he is best known for. He reproduced advertisements and cartoons, as well as such familiar household items as telephones and soup cans, often painting one image repeatedly in a grid design. Many of these works, such as his pictures of dollar bills and soup cans, as in Cambells Soup Cans 200(1962), show many ideas underlying advertising, as well as showing his interest in techniques that enabled multiplication of an image, such as silk-screen printing, techniques that dominated much of his work. Through these works Warhol gained his much desired recognition, becoming an instant celebrity, having gone from respected commercial illustrator to controversial and influential artist. Such Pop Art images as Warhols soup cans and Lichtensteins comic book panels jumped from the vast American consumer culture into the realm of high artistic and aesthetic recognition. It is not known whether Lichtenstein or Warhol was the first to displace commercial images from the media to modernist painting, but Warhol, of all the founding Pop artists, first and foremost, consistently hewed to the canons of Pop technique and iconography. These first Pop works, in their intentional exclusion of all conventional signs of personality, in their obvious rejection of innovation and their blatant vulgarity, were somewhat brutal and shocking, designed with the intention of offending an audience accustomed to thinking of art as an intimate medium for conveying emotion. Warhol further extended these concerns by using techniques that gave his images a printed appearance, using stencils, rubber stamps, and hand-cut silkscreens, along with in his choice of subject-matter. He used the shocking images of tabloids, as in 129 Die in Jet to money, in a series of screenprinted paintings representing rows of dollar bills, and to the products of consumer society, including Coca-Cola bottles and tins of Cambells Soup. Thus, the once struggling commercial illustrator transformed into one of the most recognized and influential artists of the century, considered the progenitor of American Pop Art.

Death And Disaster
In the summer of 1962, Warhols friend Henry Geldzahler laid out a copy the Daily News while the two were having lunch. On the cover, the headline was 129 Die in Jet. According to Warhol, that is what began a series of paintings depicting rather gruesome images of human death and disaster, with subjects ranging from the personal focus of individual suicide, the banality of everyday disaster, death by legal execution, to the historical death of political assassination, culminating with the most destructive instrument the world has ever known-the atom bomb. Together, these works are among the most shocking and disturbing works of art the world has ever known. In most of these works, Warhol displays death as an ever-present subject. His first silkscreened death and disaster paintings were of suicides and especially gruesome car crashes, such as in Ambulance Disaster and Saturday Disaster. the power and suffering shown in the images stunning viewers. Like the contaminated canned food shown in Tunafish Disaster, these images appear to represent a breach of faith in the products of the Industrial Revolution by showing consumes products embraced by the population that backfire and cause death. Warhol retained the images from clippings of newspapers, magazines, and photographs, altering them only slightly, as was his norm, to show the images as they were, everyday occurrences the public accepts yet forgets, forcing the viewer to take them at face value. They portray A stark, disabused, pessimistic vision of American life, produced from the knowing rearrangement of pulp materials by an artist who did not opt for the easier paths of irony or condescension. Among the most iconic Death and Disaster images in the Electric Chair.(1963) According to Warhol, his replication of this image, both within the single composition and from painting to painting, was intended to empty the image of its meaning. The electric chair is shown from the front, fully visible, showing a sign reading SILENCE, the sign exclamating the emptiness of the execution chamber. The image, the chamber empty , showing only the sign, represents death as an absence and complete silence, a complete void. This notion was characteristic of Warhol, who once said I never understood why when you died, you didnt just vanish and everything could just keep going the way it was, only you just wouldnt be there, and who often stated that he wanted a blank tombstone when he died. Many wonder why Warhol chose such imagery to focus on, and he himself gives little reason. For some of these works, in which he shows images repeated relatively unchanged, he was attempting to lessen the shock of the viewer, recognizing such events for their face value, as everyday occurrences. When you see a gruesome picture over and over again, it doesnt really have and effect. As in the Jackies, images of the recently assassinated President Kennedys grieving widow, were repeated to reinforce the obsessive ways that our thoughts keep returning to a tragedy, and stress the flash of fame these little known(suicides) victims achieve in death. This can be said to be consistent with Warhols claim that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. In this, does he mean by tragedy? Others claim the initial context for these subjects was journalistic- as an artist trained in drawing and pictorial design, he was obviously predisposed to consider the front page of the news and other media items in visual , artistic terms-as a media junkie who continually pursued and collected printed matter, he was drawn into a network of sensationalized intimacies with the protagonists of the news. Regardless, there is a tie between these images and his celebrity portraits. Warhol took up the theme of suicide shortly after his first meditations on Marilyn Monroes death. While doing those works, he said to have realized that everything I was doing must have been death. Thus, the idea of death was not a new one for him, and thereby his choice of subject matter may not have been completely random. Throughout the Death and Disaster paintings, Warhol makes use of background color to serve various functions. Mostly, throughout the series, he avoids the use of primary colors, using mainly secondaries, such as oranges, lavenders, and pinks, the types of colors you would expect to find in a wallpaper store. His use of background color in the Death and Disaster paintings is mostly extrinsic to the content of the images. In some, such as Lavender Disaster, the background color seems to intensify the effect of alienation created by the realism of the visual content. In others, such as Atomic Bomb, the red-orange color serves a supporting role. The images Warhol selected for these paintings were gruesome, though he showed again his brilliant eye for such images so effective in shocking the viewer. With an eye for the eccentricity of an individual event, Warhols paintings capture the unpredictable choreography of death. Using a broad range of images, from car crashes, suicides, burn victims, funerals, riots, to the culmination with the atomic bomb, Warhol succeeded in giving the viewer what one expected of Warhol; to expect the unexpected.

 Imagine you’re being considered to direct a Hollywood film. You’re handed a screenplay has been “greenlighted” (given approval for production) by a major studio (Wordplay, 1999). As you read through it, you begin to imagine how it might play out on screen. You see the characters coming to life. You envision the lighting and hear the sound. You are absorbed in the world of the story until you see the script’s final words: Fade Out. When you’re done reading the script, you ask yourself some key questions. What is the main idea or theme of the screenplay? What does the story say about the human condition in general? You also think about the script cinematically. How will the script translate to the visual language of the screen? Who is the audience? As the director, you must feel passionate about this soon-to-be film. Feeling connected and committed to the story will help you do your best work, and there’s an enormous amount of work ahead (Movie Maker Magazine [MMM], 1999) .
 If you are hired as the director of this film, you may need to help shape the script for the screen. A good script is the foundation for a good film, but even the best one may need to be developed or molded to work well on the big screen. Sometimes the producer will develop a script and then hand it over to the director. In other cases, the director may work with the writer early on to help develop a script from its beginning stages.
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 Nowadays, the planning for a film is often underway before there is a script. A director or producer purchases the rights to a story and then hires a screenwriter. Whatever the route from script to screen, the director plays an important role in shaping the way the story is told.
 
 Assembling the Cast and Crew
 
 The people you work with, both the actors and the crew who will make things work behind the scenes, are crucial to the film’s success. The right people will understand and respect your vision, work well with one another, and bring their own unique gifts to the filmmaking process.
 The film’s producer normally hires the crew, but the director will have input into crucial hires such as lead actors. A production designer is responsible for the believability of a film’s scenery and sets. In essence, the production designer is the architect of the film, working to make your vision, as director, a reality. The production designer also works closely with the art director and set decorator, making certain all the visual details are accurate and the style and period of the film reflect your wishes. (Bone, 1996, 62)
 The cinematographer, or director of photography, helps to translate your vision to film, scene by scene, planning shots and supervising camera operators. Often, cinematographers are artists with experience in painting and photography. Their job is to create and capture the images that best tell the story. (Malkiewicz, 1992, 56)
 The actors you choose will bring your story to life. Your casting decisions will be based on such factors as availability and whether or not an actor is suitable for lead or ensemble acting, as well as on a healthy dose of intuition. Often a casting director or producer will help you select the cast.
 
 Filming: Pre-production
 
 After months or even years of development, delays, and rewrites, the final script is set and the film goes into pre-production. During this phase, budgets are detailed, scenes are planned and designed, and a shooting schedule is prepared. Storyboards-visual representations of every shot-are prepared by a storyboard artist in consultation with the director, director of photography, and designer. Before a single frame is shot, the
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 film is planned from beginning to end on paper. The final stages of pre-production include weeks of rehearsal, set construction, and location scouting.
 Once shooting begins, you’ll need to continue to communicate your vision of the film to the actors and crew. You’ll also need to be able to improvise on the set and troubleshoot if necessary. This flexibility can make the difference between an acceptable
 production and an excellent one. On average, you will be able to complete filming for about three script pages per day, or the equivalent of about three minutes of screen time.
 Once the shoot is over, hundreds of thousands of feet of film need to be assembled into a suitable story (Murch, 1995, 27). Days or weeks of shooting result in only a few minutes of screen time. In the editing room, your vision will either come to life or perish. With your guidance, the film and sound editor will complete the detailed technical work required at this stage. Your “director’s cut” of the film (the one you work with the editor to create) may not be the final one the audience sees. The film’s producers may decide to cut certain scenes or use a different film clip for a certain effect. Editing is a mutual process, the final step in the difficult work of bringing your vision to life.
 Your stature as a director (as well as the terms of your contract with the studio) determines how much say you have in determining what version of the film is released to the public. Occasionally, a director dislikes the final cut and decides not to be listed in the credits. If this happens, the credits list Alan Smithee as the director. Alan Smithee is not a real person, but an alias used as a substitute when a director refuses to be linked to a film. (Murch, 1995, 63)
 
 Filming:  Camera Angles
 
   As a director, you have many tools and techniques that can shape the look and feel of a film. You can vary a shot’s perspective, lighting, location, or other qualities to achieve certain effects. One powerful way to communicate your vision is through camera angles.
 During the planning stages of a film, the director and possibly the director of photography may meet with a storyboard artist to illustrate the flow of shots that will best tell the story. There are a number of camera angles that a director has at his or her disposal. The most common of these are the establishing shot, long shot, medium-shot, over-the-shoulder shot, and close-up. (Wordplay, 1999)
 
 The establishing shot is normally taken from a great distance or from a “bird’s eye view,” that establishes where the action is about to occur. The long shot shows a scene from a distance (but not as great a distance as the establishing shot). A long shot is used to stress the environment or setting of a scene. The medium shot frames actors, normally from the waist up. The medium shot can be used to focus attention on an interaction between two actors, such as a struggle, debate, or embrace. The Over-the-shoulder shot is
 of one actor taken from over the shoulder of another actor. An over-the-shoulder shot is used when two characters are interacting face-to-face. Filming over an actor’s shoulder focuses the audience’s attention on one actor at a time in a conversation, rather than on both. The Close-up shot is taken at close range, sometimes only inches away from an actor’s face, a prop, or some other object. The close-up is designed to focus attention on an actor’s expression, to give significance to a certain object, or to direct the audience to some other important element of the film.
 
 The Heads of State
 
 The film’s producer acts as an administrator, communicator, and guide, helping hundreds of people reach a final goal: completing the film on schedule, on budget, and as the director envisioned. The producer administers all the various aspects of film production, from initial concept to script and budget preparation to shooting, post-production, and release. He or she does not have to be able to write, direct, edit, or act to help screenwriters, directors, editors, and actors do their best work. A producer’s guiding agenda is the budget. The producer must work within the limitations of the budget, creatively selecting the best possible people and solutions to bring the script from page to screen. If the project runs out of money, the production can’t be completed. The film can’t be printed or distributed, and therefore won’t ever make it to theaters. Most film investors take out insurance, called a completion bond, to avoid the often disastrous financial results of an uncompleted film. Questions? Complaints? The producer hears it all and must be smooth in handling problems. The producer must know everything (or know how to find out about it), be “hands-on” or “hands-off” depending on what the situation calls for, and understand the daily decisions and difficult logistics behind the art
 of filmmaking. The producer always has his or her eye on the prize: the completed film (Houghton, 1992, 50).
 
 The Actor
 
 No cinematographer or film editor, no matter how gifted, can turn a terrible performance into a great one. The right actor can give a screenwriter’s words exciting new depth and. Actors are essential for conveying emotions to an audience, for bringing the words and ideas in a script to life.

Imagine that you are an actor. You’ve worked primarily in New York theater, but have decided to try your hand at working in film. Once you’re lucky enough to secure an agent, you are sent on interviews where you meet casting directors and read for parts. Over the course of two months, you try out for 23 roles and are chosen for none of them. Finally, you are cast in a film. It’s a minor part, but substantial enough that if you do well, you will enjoy more work and exposure. After the shock wears off, you begin to prepare.

 As an actor, you must be able to become many different people, you must bring to the role those parts of yourself that are similar to the character. You look deep inside yourself to find feelings that will help you come across as sad and bitter. You study the role in depth. In order to learn your lines, you know you must learn the part. Memorizing lines without understanding the role will be of little help to you. (Barr, 1997, 12)
 
 Filming: Shooting the Scene
 
 The day of the shoot, you walk onto the sound stage (or location) prepared to begin filming. The set has been constructed prior to your arrival by. You’ll be working with a diverse crew of people to get your scene done, each of whom has an important role in the making of the movie. The cinematographer (or director of photography) is responsible for the lighting, choice of film, correct exposure, correct use of lenses, and supervision of the camera crew. The mixer is responsible recording the sound. Other sounds are added during post-production by Foley artists. The gaffer is responsible for making sure all the lighting equipment is where it should be and operating correctly. The
 
 
 gaffer sets the lights so that the finished picture will have the desired effect. The key grip is responsible for the rigging (carpentry) and for moving and readying the sets and camera dollies. The set dresser decorates the set. The property master ensures the sets and actors have all the necessary dressing and props. The wardrobe master is responsible for all wardrobe needs. The make up person is responsible for all makeup. The assistant director keeps order on the set and makes sure the production moves according to schedule. Normally hired by the producer, the assistant director aids the director but also watches over the production company’s investment. Sometimes this involves prodding the director to finish the shots planned for a particular day, or hunting down actors if they are not where they should be on the set. The assistant director also functions as a record keeper and handles time cards and minor union disputes. (Wordplay, 1999)

 During filming, you are told exactly where to stand and where to move. Every time you stop, someone places a piece of tape on the floor. The camera follows you slowly. You rehearse the scene on the director’s command. Once. Twice. Then the director says, “Let’s go for a take.” The assistant director yells, “Quiet on the set!” The actor who appears in this scene with you moves to his position. The cinematographer instructs the cameraman to take a medium shot. “Roll it,” says the assistant director. Someone says, “Rolling.” “Speed,” says someone else. “Thirty-five, take one.” An assistant holds a slate in front of the actor’s face and snaps it shut. This “clacker” will later aid the film editor in synchronizing the picture to the sound. “Action!” commands the director. Seconds later, the director calls out, “Cut. Do it again.” The process is repeated until the director yells, “Cut. Print it.” The makeup person moves into the scene and adjusts the actor’s makeup. The director now wants a close-up shot and the cameraman films several takes until the director is satisfied with each one. Finally, it’s your turn for a close-up. You know that the camera and microphone will be within a few feet of you, so you’ll need to communicate ideas and emotions at a very close range. “Action!” You enter the room. You’re careful to “hit your mark” and stop exactly where the tape was placed on the floor earlier in the day. “Cut,” the director says, and tells you to do it again. (Wordplay, 1999)Finally, he calls out, “That’s a wrap.” You take a deep breath of relief. The assistant director gives you your callsheet, or your schedule, for the next day’s shooting. The crew begins to pack away the  equipment for the night. The film shot that day is sent to a lab where it is processed and made into “dailies.” Dailies are film clips that are viewed after each day’s work in order to evaluate performances and spot any technical problems. They are shown to only a few people-normally, only the director, producer, and director of photography.
 
 Cuts and Transitions: Assembling the Scene
 
 The film editor must know how to tell a story, be politically savvy when working with directors and studio executives, and have a calm and confident demeanor. Millions of dollars of film and the responsibility of guiding the picture through post-production and into theaters rest in the editor’s hands. Scenes may have been photographed poorly and performances might have been less than inspired, but a skilled and creative editor can assemble the film so that the audience will never see these imperfections. (Murch, 1995, 28-29)

 To better understand the editing process, imagine you are seated in a movie theater. The lights are dim and credits appear over an establishing shot of a seacoast town in Maine. The title appears on the screen: Arson Hill. After the last credits evaporate, you see a long shot of a vacant summer cottage, then a medium shot of a mysterious-looking man pouring lighter fluid on the grass near the house and striking a match. The grass catches fire; the man flees. The vivid crackling of the fire dissolves into the sound of a young girl’s laughter as she packs clothing into a cardboard box and sings along with her CD player.

 Who created this scene? The screenwriter, director, cinematographer, actors, lighting designer, sound designer, and, finally, the film editor. Working with the director, the film editor shaped the scene into its final form. After hours and hours of reviewing the unedited film, he created this one-minute scene. The scene appears to take place in a seacoast town in Maine during an autumn afternoon. In truth, little of what the audience sees on screen occurred in Maine, and it certainly was not all filmed in one afternoon.

 The actor who played the mysterious man was most likely filmed on a Hollywood set in late summer. The young girl was filmed on a different set in early fall. The establishing shot of the seaside town was filmed months earlier in California, not Maine. The song on the girl’s CD and the sounds of the crackling fire were recorded in a studio. But when you see the finished scene, all of the sounds and images work together. They appear to have taken place at one time and in one place. That is the magic of film editing.
 
 The Big Cut
 
 Editors select sounds and images from all the film that has been shot and
 arrange them to make the movie (Murch, 1995, 46). They also plan how one shot will best transition to the next. Assembling the opening scene of Arson Hill, the editor might choose to begin with a wide shot of the bay, focusing on the white caps and buoys that dot the water. From the shot of the grass catching fire, the editor might decide to dissolve to the girl packing clothes into a box. There are dozens of possible transitions the editor can choose, each of which will create a different feeling. Editing often begins as soon as film has been shot. Early scenes are assembled for the producer and director to view. Occasionally, the actors will also view these early scenes. Many directors choose not to show actors these edited scenes for fear that they will affect the actors’ performance. The first cut of a film, called a “rough cut,” takes up to three months to complete. The final cut may take another month to finish (indieWire, 1999). Sometimes the editor works alone, sometimes with the director. The sound designer and music composer join them for the final cut, adding sound effects and the musical score. In the past, editors worked with copies of negatives called “work prints” to plan a film’s scenes and transitions. When an editor was satisfied with the final film, he or she would create an edit decision list, a list of each shot in the film and its length. The list would correspond to numbers, “edge numbers,” printed on the edge of the work prints. These numbers helped a negative matcher accurately copy the work print and cut the negatives. Today most editors use computers or nonlinear digital editing systems to compile a film. This is more efficient, but for the most part, the process is the same. The work prints, complete with edge numbers, are stored in the computer. The editor arranges the work print, and then creates an edit decision list. (Murch, 1995, 49-51)

 When the editing is complete and the director and producer have approved the final version of the film, this final cut is sent to a negative matcher. The negative matcher makes a negative of the film that exactly matches the final cut, and the negative is then sent to a film lab where prints are created. These prints eventually end up in theaters. Like many productions in life, numerous counts of setup and preparation are involved. The film industry is the largest grossing enterprise ever, employing millions of specialists to take on the great feat of creating never before told stories to share with the world.

 This paper has three purposes or objectives. It intends, first of all, to provide a comprehensible background of the art of film in the Philippines. It provides insights on how the Philippine film has influenced Philippine culture and vice-versa. This is done by documenting the important events and important films in the area of film for the past ninety years. Second, it intends to explain the different trends and styles common in the Philippine film. And finally, it concludes with an analysis on how two important events in history, namely World War II and Martial Law altered the course of contemporary Philippine film.

 However, this paper is limited to films only from the particular time period of the 1930s to the 1990s. It fails to give a picture of how films were like ever since it started in 1897. This paper is also severely limited due to the unavailability and the lack of materials that discuss thoroughly the history of Philippine film. Film materials for those made during the pre-WWII years are simply non-existent. Data for this paper was gathered from the essays and reviews written by the artists and the critics themselves. It goes without saying that the resources were tested to the limits.

  CHAPTER 1
 
 
 I. The 1930s to 1940s
 A. Early Philippine Films
 Filipinos started making movies in 1919. However, it would be important to know that the film industry in the Philippines began through the initiative of foreign entrepreneurs. Two Swiss entrepreneurs introduced film shows in Manila as early as 1897, regaling audiences with documentary films lips showing recent events and natural calamities in Europe.  Not only that but the arrival of the silent films, along with American colonialism, in 1903 created a movie market.   But these film clips were still novelties. They failed to hold the audiences attention because of their novelty and the fact that they were about foreigners. When two American entrepreneurs made a film in 1912 about Jose Rizals execution, the sensation they made it clear that the Filipinos need for material close to their hearts. This heralded the making of the first Filipino film.

 The credit of being the first Filipino to make a film goes to Jose Nepumuceno, whom historians dub as the Father of Philippine Movies. Nepumucenos first film was based on a highly-acclaimed musical play of that day, Dalagang Bukid (Country Maiden) by Hemogenes Ilagan and Leon Ignacio.
 
 In those early years of filmmaking, enormous capital was needed to keep up with the Hollywood industry. Despite its weak points, Hollywood provided the Philippine film industry with examples that the early filmmakers followed. It is not surprising that many of those same genres set so many years ago still appear in contemporary Philippine films. But it was difficult to match Hollywood style in those days with the meager capital set aside for the developing film industry. Ironically, the same people who helped the film industry develop as a form of expression were the same ones who suppressed this expression.

 Early  film producers included wealthy Spaniards, American businessmen and Filipino landlords and politicians. It is not surprising thatpre-war Philippine movieswere inhibited from expressing their views that might question the establishment and were encouraged instead to portray the love and reconciliation between members of different classes
 
 Starting with Dalagang Bukid, early films dug into traditional theater forms for character types , twists and turns in the plot, familiar themes and conventions in acting. This set the trend of Philippine films based entirely on immensely  popular dramas or sarswelas . Besides providing ready materials, this device of using theater pieces ensured an already existing market. From the komedya of the sarswela, the typical Filipino aksyon movie was to develop. The line dividing the good and the bad in the komedya was religion with the Christians being the good and the Moors representing the bad. In present movies, the line that divides the two is now law or class division. The sinakulo or the passion play was the root of the conventional Filipino melodrama. The Virgin Mary became the all-suffering, all-forgiving Filipino Mother and Jesus was the savior of societies under threat and the redeemer of all those who have gone wrong. Another source of movie themes was Philippine literature. Francisco Baltazar and Jose Rizal, through the classics for which they were famous, have given the industry situations and character types that continue to this day to give meat to films both great and mediocre.

 Finally, by the 1930s, a few film artists and producers dared to stray from the guidelines and commented on sociopolitical issues, using contemporary or historical matter. Director, actor, writer and producer Julian Manansalas film Patria Amore (Beloved Country) was almost suppressed because of its anti-Spanish sentiments. This earned him the honor of being dubbed the Father of the Nationalistic Film.

 Its own share of movie audience and acclaim for local movie stars were signs that the movie industry from 1919 to the 1930s had succeeded. Despite the competition coming from Hollywood, the film industry thrived and flourished. When the 1930s came to a close, it was clear that moviegoing had established itself in the Filipino.

 B. Wartime Films and the Effect on Philippine Films
 The Japanese Occupation introduced a new player to the film industry  the Japanese; and a new role for film  propaganda :
 The Pacific War brought havoc to the industry in 1941. The Japanese invasion put a halt to film activity when the invaders commandeered precious film equipment for their own propaganda needs. The Japanese brought their own films to show to Filipino audiences.  The films the Japanese brought failed to appeal to audiences the same way the Hollywood-made movies or the locally-made films did. Later on, Japanese propaganda offices hired several local filmmakers to make propaganda pictures for them. One of these filmmakers was Gerardo de Leon.

 The war years during the first half of the Forties virtually halted filmmaking activities save for propaganda work that extolled Filipino-Japanese friendship, such as The Dawn of Freedom made by director Abe Yutaka and associate director Gerardo de LeonLess propagandistic was Tatlong Maria (Three Marias), directed in 1944, by Gerardo de Leon and written for the screen by Tsutomu Sawamura from Jose Esperanza Cruzs novelDespite the destruction and hardships of the war, the peoplefound time for entertainment; and when movies were not being made or importedthey turned to live theaterwhich provided alternative jobs for displaced movie folk. The war years may have been the darkest in film history
 
 This period turned out to be quite beneficial to the theater industry. Live theater began to flourish again as movie stars, directors and technicians returned to the stage. Many found it as a way to keep them from being forgotten and at the same time a way to earn a living.

 In 1945the film industry was already staggering to its feet. The entire nation had gone through hell and there were many stories to tell about heroic deeds and dastardly crimes during the 3 years of Japanese occupation. A Philippine version of the war movie had emerged as a genre in which were recreated narratives of horror and heroism with soldiers and guerillas as protagonistsaudiences still hungry for new movies and still fired up by the patriotism and hatred for foreign enemies did not seem to tire of recalling their experiences of war.
 
 Movies such as Garrison 13 (1946),  Dugo ng Bayan (The Countrys Blood, 1946), Walang Kamatayan (Deathless, 1946), and Guerilyera (1946) , told the people the stories they wanted to hear: the heroes and the villains of the war. The war, however, had left other traces that were less obvious than war movies that were distinctly Filipino. As Patronilo BN. Daroy said in his essay Main Currents in Filipino Cinema: World War II left its scars on the Filipinos imagination and heightened his sense of reality

  CHAPTER II
 
 
 II. The 1950s to 1970s
 A. The Golden Age of Philippine Films
 The 1950s were considered a time of  rebuilding and growth. But remnants from the preceding decade of the 40s remained in the form of war-induced reality. This is seen is Lamberto Avellanas Anak Dalita (The Ruins, 1956), the stark tragedy of post-WWII survival set in Intramuros. The decade saw frenetic activity in the film industry which yielded what might be regarded as the first harvest of distinguished films by Filipinos.  Two studios before the war, namely Sampaguita Pictures and LVN, reestablished themselves. Bouncing back quickly, they churned out movie after movie to make up for the drought of films caused by the war. Another studio, Premiere Productions, was earning a reputation for the vigor and the freshness of some of its films. This was the period of the Big Four when the industry operated under the studio system.  Each studio (Sampaguita, LVN, Premiere and Lebran) had its own set of stars, technicians and directors, all lined up for a sequence of movie after movie every year therefore maintaining a monopoly of the industry. The system assured moviegoers a variety of fare for a whole year and allowed stars and directors to improve their skills.

 Critics now clarify that the 50s may be considered one Golden Age for the Filipino film not because film content had improved but because cinematic techniques achieved an artistic breakthrough in that decade. This new consciousness was further developed by local and international awards that were established in that decade.
 
 Awards were first instituted that decade. First, the Manila Times Publishing Co. set up the Maria Clara Awards.  In 1952, the FAMAS (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) Awards were handed out. More so, Filipino films started garnering awards in international film festivals. One such honor was bestowed on Manuel Condes immortal movie Genghis Khan (1952) when it was accepted for screening at the Venice Film Festival. Other honors include awards for movies like Gerardo de Leons Ifugao (1954) and Lamberto Avellanas Anak Dalita. This established the Philippines as a major filmmaking center in Asia. These awards also had the effect of finally garnering for Filipino films their share of attention from fellow Filipinos.

 B. The Decline of Philippine Film
 If the 1950s were an ubiquitous period for film, the decade that followed was a time of decline. There was rampant commercialism and artistic decline as portrayed on the following:
 In the 1960s, the foreign films that were raking in a lot of income were action pictures sensationalizing violence and soft core sex films hitherto banned from Philippine theater screens, Italian spaghetti Westerns, American James Bond-type thrillers, Chinese/Japanese martial arts films and European sex melodramas. Toget an audience to watch their films, (the independent) producers had to taketheir cue from these imports. The result is a plethora of filmsgiving rise to such curiosities as Filipino samurai and kung fu masters, Filipino James Bonds andthe bomba  queen.
 
 
  The studio systems came under siege from the growing labor movement which resulted in labor-management conflicts. The first studio to close was Lebran followed by Premiere Productions. Next came Sampaguita and LVN. The Big Four studios were replaced by new and independent producers who soon made up the rest of the film industry.

 The decade also saw the emergence of the youth revolt best represented by the Beatles and the rock and roll revolution. They embodied the wanting to rebel against adult institutions and establishments. Certain new film genres were conceived just to cater to this revolt. Fan movies  such as those of the Tita and Pancho and Nida and Nestor romantic pairings of the 50s were the forerunners of a new kind of revolution  the teen love team revolution. Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos, along with Tirso Cruz III and Eddie Mortiz as their respective screen sweethearts, were callow performers during the heyday of fan movies. Young audiences made up of vociferous partisans for Guy and Pip or Vi and Bot were in search of role models who could take the place of elders the youth revolt had taught them to distrust

 Another kind of youth revolt came in the form of the child star. Roberta (1951) of Sampaguita Pictures was the phenomenal example of the drawing power of movies featuring [these] child stars.  In the 60s this seemed to imply rejection of adult corruption as exposed by childhood innocence.

 The film genres of the time were direct reflections of the disaffection with the status quo at the time.  Action movies with Pinoy cowboys and secret agents as  the movers of the plots depicted a society ravaged by criminality and corruption . Movies being make-believe worlds at times connect that make-believe with the social realities. These movies suggest a search for heroes capable of delivering us from hated bureaucrats, warlords and villains of our society. The action films of the 1960s brought into the industry  a new savage rhythm that made earlier action films seem polite and stage managed.  The pacing of the new action films were fast as the narrative had been pared down to the very minimum of dialogues. And in keeping up with the Hollywood tradition, the action sequences were even more realistic.

 Another film genre that is perhaps also a embodiment of the revolt of the time is the bomba genre. Probably the most notorious of all, this genre appeared at the close of the decade. Interestingly, it came at a time when social movement became acknowledged beyond the walls of campuses and of Manila.

 In rallies, demonstrations and other forms of mass action, the national democratic movement presented its analysis of the problems of Philippine society  and posited that only a social revolution could bring genuine change. The bomba  film was a direct challenge to the conventions and the norms of conduct of status quo, a rejection of authority of institutions in regulating the life urge seen as natural and its free expression honest and therapeutic
 
 Looking beyond the obvious reasons as to the emergence of the bomba film, both as being an exploitative product of a profit-driven industry and as being a stimulant, it can be analyzed as actually being a subversive genre, playing up to the establishment while rebelling and undermining support for the institutions.

 Even in the period of decline, genius has a way of showing itself. Several Philippine films that stood out in this particular era were Gerardo de Leons Noli Me Tangere (Touch me Not, 1961) and El Filibusterismo (Subversion, 1962). Two other films by Gerardo de Leon made during this period is worth mentioning  Huwag mo Akong Limutin (Never Forget Me , 1960) and Kadenang Putik (Chain of Mud, 1960), both tales of marital infidelity but told with insight and cinematic import.

 C. Films during Martial Law
 In the 60s, the youth clamored for change in the status quo. Being in power, Ferdinand Marcos  answered the youth by placing the nation under martial rule.

 In 1972, he sought to contain growing unrest which the youth revolt of the 1960s fueled. Claiming that all he wanted was to save the Republic, Marcos retooled the liberal-democratic political system into an authoritarian government which concentrated power in a dictators hand. To win the population over, mass media was enlisted in the service of the New Society.  Film was a key component of a society wracked with contradictions within the ruling class and between the sociopolitical elite and the masses.
 
 In terms of comparisons, the Old Society (or the years before Martial Law) became the leading symbol for all things bad and repugnant. The New Society was supposed to represent everything good  a new sense of discipline, uprightness and love of country  Accordingly, the ideology of the New Society was incorporated into local films.

 Marcos and his technocrats sought to regulate filmmaking. The first step was to control the content of movies by insisting on some form of censorship. One of the first rules promulgated by the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures (BCMP) stipulated submission of a finished script prior to the start of filming. When the annual film festival was revived, the censors blatantly insisted that the ideology of the New Society be incorporated into the content of the entries.
 
 The government tried to control the film industry while keeping it in good humor  necessary so that the government could continue using film as propagandistic vehicles. So despite the censors, the exploitation of sex and violence onscreen continued to assert itself. Under martial law, action films depicting shoot outs and sadistic fistfights ( which were as violent as ever) usually append to the ending an epilogue claiming that the social realities depicted had been wiped out with the establishment of the New Society.  The notorious genre of sex or bomba films that appeared in the preceding decade were now tagged as bold films, simply meaning that a lot more care was given to the costumes.

 Martial Law declared in 1972 clamped down on bomba films as well as political movies critical of the Marcos administration. But the audiences taste for sex and nudity had already been whetted. Producers cashed in on the new type of bomba, which showed female stars swimming in their underwear, taking a bath in their camison (chemise), or being chased and raped in a river, sea, or under a waterfall. Such movies were called the wet look
 
 One such movie was the talked-about Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa (The Most Beautiful Animal on the Face of the Earth, 1974) starring former Miss Universe Gloria Diaz.

 However, the less-than-encouraging environment of the 70s gave way to the ascendancy of young directors who entered the industry in the late years of the previous decade  Directors such as Lino Brocka, best remembered for his Maynila, Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila, In the Claws of Neon Lights, 1975), Ishmael Bernal, director of the Nora Aunor film Himala (Miracle, 1982) and Celso Ad. Castillo, whose daring works portrayed revolt, labor unionism, social ostracism and class division, produced works that left no doubt about their talent in weaving a tale behind the camera.

 Another welcomed result that came from martial rule was the requirement of a script prior to filming. This was an innovation to a film industry that made a tradition out of improvising a screenplay. Although compliance with the requirement necessarily meant curtailment of the right of free expression, the BCMP, in effect caused the film industry to pay attention to the content of a projected film production in so far as such is printed in a finished screenplay.  In doing so, talents in literature found their way into filmmaking and continue to do so now.

  CHAPTER III
 
 
 II. The 1980s to the present
 A. Philippine Films after Marcos
 It can be justified that immediately after Marcos escaped to Hawaii, films portraying the Philippine setting have had a serious bias against the former dictator. And even while he was in power, the militancy of  filmmakers opposing the Martial Law government especially after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, accounts for the defiant stance of a number of films made in the closing years of the Marcos rule.

 Films such as Lino Brockas Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim (My Country: Gripping the Knifes Edge, 1985) were defiant, not in the sense of it being openly stated by in the images of torture, incarceration, struggle and oppression. Marilou Diaz-Abayas Karnal (1984) depicts this in a different way in the films plot wherein patricide ends a tyrannical fathers domination. Mike de Leons Sister Stella L. (1984), was a typical de Leon treatment of the theme of oppression and tyranny.

 In 1977, an unknown Filipino filmmaker going by the name of Kidlat Tahimik made a film called Mababangong Bangungot (Perfumed Nightmare). The film won the International Critics Prize in the Berlin Film Festival that same year.  Kidlat Tahimiks rise to fame defined the distance between mainstream cinema and what is now known as independent cinema. Beginning with Tahimik, independent cinema and films became an accomplished part of Philippine film.

 Out of short film festivals sponsored by the University of the Philippines Film Center and by the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines, young filmmakers have joined Kidlat Tahimik in the production of movies that, by their refusal to kowtow to the traditions and conventions of mainstream filmmaking, signify faith in works that try to probe deeper into the human being and into society. Nick Deocampos Oliver (1983) and Raymond Reds Ang Magpakailanman (The Eternal, 1983) have received attention in festivals abroad.
 
 Filmmakers like Tahimik, Deocampo and Red are examples of what we call alternative filmmakers. Alternative or independent filmmakers are products of film schools where students are exposed to art films without the compromises of commercial filmmaking.

 B. Contemporary Philippine Film
 Despite our completion of 100 years of cinema in the Philippines, the same problems plague us now just as it had when film was still a relatively new art form. The phrase poorly made is fitting to describe the quality of films being churned out by the film industry year by year. There have been few exceptions to the rule.

 Presently, films are primarily made for profit, lacking any qualities to redeem itself. Studies show that Hollywood films, with its high technology and subject matter, are being preferred over local films. It is no wonder  for films now are too profit-oriented[with] corrupting morals anddubious valuessticking with formulaic films

 Genres that have been present for the past few decades are being recycled over and over again with the same stories. The teen love teams of the fan movie are still present with incarnations of love teams of yesteryears. Now instead of Guy and Pip are Judy and Wowie. The bomba film is still present, now having grown more pornographic and taboo. The film Tatlo (1998) comes to mind with its subject matter of threesomes. In Filipino slapstick or komedya, Dolphy has been replaced by younger stars.
 But even if the films of today have not been quite up to par, Filipino movieswields an influence over the national imagination far more intense that all the others combined.

 C. Conclusion
 The early years of Philippine film, starting from the 1930s, were a time of discovering film as it was at that time still a new art form. Stories for films came from the theater and popular literature being, as they were, safe, with the filmmaker being assured of its appeal. Nationalistic films were also in vogue despite early restrictions on films being too subversive.

 The 1940s and the war brought to Philippine film the consciousness of reality which was not present in the preceding films. Filmmakers dared to venture into the genre of the war movie. This was also a ready market especially after the war.

 The 1950s were the Golden Years, a time when films matured and became more artistic. The studio system, though producing film after film and venturing into every known genre, made the film industry into a monopoly that prevented the development of independent cinema.

 The 1960s, though a time of positive changes, brought about an artistic decline in films. The notorious genre of bomba was introduced and from that day forward has been present in the Philippine film scene ever since.

 The 1970s and 1980s were turbulent years, bringing positive and negative changes. From the decline in the 60s, films in this period now dealt with more serious topics following the chaos of the Marcos regime. Also, action and sex films developed further introducing more explicit pictures. These years also brought the arrival of alternative cinema in the Philippines.
 Presently, in the 1990s, we are seemingly engaged in a vicious cycle  of genres, plots, characterization and cinematic styles. We are unconsciously, or rather consciously, imitating, copying from the much more popular American films. And when we are not copying, we are reverting back to the same old styles. From the massacre movies of late, the teen-oriented romantic-comedies and the anatomy-baring sex flicks which are currently so popular, it seems Philippine cinema is on a down spiral. Still, some films been successes and not only financially. Diaz-Abayas Rizal (1998), as an example, was a success both commercially and critically. Hopefully, Philippine cinema in the new millenium would produce films as good and better than the ones before it.

  As a conclusion, here is what Patronilo BN. Daroy had to say about the Philippine film industry:
 Philippine cinema, in short, appears to have reached full circle: it is at the stage of refining and formulating its own conventions and, in the process, getting in close contact with the ferment in the other arts and at the same time, the serious critical attention and concern of people with a broader interest in culture. This is inevitable; as an art form the cinema in the Philippines can no longer remain isolated from the main current of sensibilities and ideas that shape other artistic forms, such as literature, painting, the theater, etc. Neither can it fly from the actuality of social life which, after all, is the source of all artistic expression. I foresee, therefore, a hand towards more serious cinema; the muckrakers will continue, but they will be exposed for what they are and will no longer be definitive of the quality of Filipino films.

During the time of the Great Depression, film was a source of cheerful escapism for most.  People were out of work, but they did manage to find money to go the movies.  Even during the darkest days of the Depression, movie attendance was between 60-75 million per week.  The balancing act for film making was to both reflect the realism and cynicism of the Depression period.  They also provided escape entertainment to boost the morale of the public by optimistically reaffirming values such as thrift and perseverance.

During The Golden Age of Hollywood, movies were under strict enforcement and censorship.  Film studios submitted their films for review and if they met the strict standards of decency they could be released.  Regulations of the code included censorship of language, references to sex, violence, and morality.  Without a seal, films were threatened with negative publicity and potential box-office failure.  Movies were not allowed to portray gangsters as heroes.  Movies of this time, basically influenced people to have better moral standards.

The American film industry was extremely prolific, affluent, powerful and productive during the war years.  The world was headed toward rearmament and warfare in the early to mid-1940s, and the movie industry, like every other aspect of life, responded by making movies, producing many war-time favorites.  These movies offered escapist entertainment, reassurance, and patriotic themes and morale boosters for the audience.

In the period following the war, post-war affluence increased choice of leisure time activities, conformity, middle-class values, a baby boom, the invention of television, drive-in theaters, and a youth reaction to middle-aged cinema.  When most of the films were idealized with conventional portrayals of men and women, young people wanted new and exciting symbols of rebellion.  The film industry responded by producing a number movies with portrayals of young men and women rebelling against the establishment. “Rebel Without A Cause” was a movie about a rebellious, misunderstood, middle-class youth who had difficulty relating to his parents.  This movie influenced the audience that it was okay to act in a rebellious way to get attention.

When looking back on the film history of the 20th century you begin to realize the great impact these films had on people’s lifestyles and human behavior.  Movies influenced they way people dressed and the way people acted.  We as, movie goers, must choose what is morally right or wrong and not be influenced by the film industry.  We must also choose what is a fashion statement and what is not.  The film industry may be protected under the freedom of speech amendment, but we do not have to be influenced by what they project in their movies.

 Starling is the protagonist in the book, and the majority of the story line takes place from her point of view.  She is driven by memories of her childhood, which is a recurring theme throughout the book.  Most of these are in the form of flashbulb memories, a recollection of an event so powerful that the recollection is highly vivid and richly detailed, as if it were preserved on film (Brown & Kulik, 1977).  She draws upon these memories for courage, and they give her the strength of will to accomplish whatever task it is she is about to perform.

 Hannibal Lecter is neither an antagonist nor protagonist, but more like a middleman throughout the novel.  He doles out parcels of knowledge to Clarice Starling in order to test her strength of mind, and to benefit himself by getting rewards for helping the FBI, such as a room with a window and unlimited access to books and any other sort of research material he might want, especially the criminal file on Buffalo Bill.  He also wants to learn more about Starling, and the only way she usually got any information from him was through exchanging his knowledge for tidbits from her childhood.

 Jane Gumb is an enigma during most of the book, and is an unseen antagonist except for brief periods when the author switches to his point of view to enlighten the reader to exactly what Gumb is thinking about before he commits his murders, and shed some light upon what sort of personality Gumb has.  He is a heavy-set cross-dresser who kidnaps girls of his size and then flays them in order to make body suits out of their skin.  He is based upon the real life sexual psychopath, Edward Gein, who was also classified as schizophrenic.  During the 1950s he gained notoriety as one of the most famous combinations of necrophilia, transvestitism, and fetishism (Martingale, 1995).  With the exception of necrophilia, Jame Gumb had an almost identical psychological make-up.

 The only true weak link in the authors psychological profile of the characters is exactly how Lecter knew of Gumb and how he relayed the information to Starling.  Lecter prided himself on being able to figure things out on his own, yet the revelation of his knowing Jame Gumb came about through recalling a memory of one of his past patients, who was also a lover to Gumb and one of Lecters final victims.  The fact that Lecter did not use any of his ample critical thinking skills into coming up with a suspect for the Buffalo Bill murders seems very out of line with his nature.  This is the only inconsistency the author makes; yet it plays an intregal part in the book and its outcome.

 There are no other discrepancies in the psychological backgrounds of the other characters, from Starlings pragmatic way of thinking, to Jame Gumbs inclination towards wearing the skin of another human being.

 Another aspect of the story is Gumbs fascination with the metamorphosis of moths, particularly the deaths head moth.  After the killing of each victim, Gumb places a moth just coming out of its chrysalis into the back of the throat of the victim.  The significance of this is that with each skin Gumb is becoming more and more of a woman, with larger breasts, and a more effeminate body shape.  The skull on the back of the moth is to signal the death of the old Jame Gumb, whereas the chrysalis is communicating the birth of the new Gumb.  A tenuous theory put forth by Starling, and since it is fiction, the author could write the story in order to prove this theory.

 In conclusion, the research that went into the book Silence of the Lambs is remarkable.  The psychological profiles of each of the characters remains strong even against the most rigorous of skepticism, and although the plot is very frail and almost over reaching in some parts, the depth of each of the personas as well as the writers fast paced style more than make up for the weakness of some parts of the plot.
 
 References
 Brown, R. & Kulik, J. (1977). Cognition.
 Harris, T. (1988). Silence of the Lambs. New York: St. Marten’s.
 Martingale, M. (1995). Cannibal Killers. : St. Martins’s Paperbacks.

 The absence of parental guidance in Totos life has been a reoccurring theme throughout the film.  While he goes to school all day, he spends his nights with Alfredo in the projection booth.  Although Totos mother is still alive she is unable to provide him with the male role model that every small boy needs. It is as if her soul died with the disappearance of her husband, Totos father.  Without someone to look up to, Toto, continually gets himself into trouble.  This remains true in many families across the world, that without the ample support of both parents, many children find themselves lost.

 Toto’s father leaves Italy to fight in World War II when Toto is very young and has no recollection of his father. Alfredo knows that an adult male role model is missing in Toto’s life. In one scene, in which Toto, who works also as an altar boy, walks with the village priest in the intolerably hot summer sun, Alfredo passes them on a bicycle. Because Toto is too lazy to walk back to the village, he feigns a leg injury and hitches a ride behind Alfredo. As both of them ride back to Giancaldo, Toto asks Alfredo about his father. “He was tall, thin, jolly,” Alfredo tells him, “with a nice moustache, like mine.” I like how Alfredo compares his moustache to Totos fathers.  Its as if Alfredo knows he can be of help and guidance to the young boys life.  This could spark the concerns that Alfredo never had any children of his own to love.  He goes on to say, “I always tell my children, be careful how you choose your friends. “You haven’t got any children,” Toto retorts.  Alfredo replies, “When I do, I’ll tell them.” This scene illustrates Alfredo’s desire to become the male role model in Toto’s life.  Instead of meaning his own children, Alfredo is referring to Toto.  It also portrays Alfredo as a father by having Toto ride on the handle bars of the bicycle.

  Throughout the film, there are many scenes containing adult males that resemble Totos lost father.  Cinema Paradiso is telling us, the viewers, that the missing link is the fact that Totos father is gone.  A scene which caught my eye, is where Toto and his mother are returning from the building where the military was able to determine Totos lost father dead.  As they are walking back through the massive rubble created by war, Toto holds the had of his weeping mother.  He looks over at a film poster advertising Gone with the Wind.  This scene is important because the man in the poster resembles Totos father. When Toto sees this man holding a woman in the poster he now realizes what an important piece of his life is now gone forever.  He smiles knowing how much his mother and father both loved each other.  With his mother crying up a storm, Toto finds it hard to feel remorse for a man he didnt know.  Although he does realize what he meant to his mother, Totos father now lives through Alfredo.  This scene is also important because it shows a transition of moving on for both Toto and his mother.

  There is an unfortunate accident at the Cinema Paradiso, a fire starts when the projector ignites the film.  As Alfredo acts to douse the fire, the reel of the projector explodes and blinds him in the process.  Although this event tragic, from it evolves a wiser and resourceful Alfredo.  The accident provided Alfredo with an enlightenment on life and a once hidden prospective.  At the new opening of the Paradiso Alfredo shows up to celebrate Totos new job as the projectionist.  Instead of talking about films or the stars that act in them, Alfredo asks Toto about school, which demonstrates his father-like role.  He says to Toto, I know now that Ive lost my sightI see better.  As Alfredo says this, he touches the face of Toto, as if he were looking at his face.  When Alfredo takes his hand away, the face of an older Toto appears.  Alfredo goes on to say, Things I never saw before.  Its as is Alfredo watched Toto grow old into adulthood without even watching just as a father would.

  Toto begins to find interest in the opposite sex when he sees a new girl in his school.  Toto and Alfredos talks take a turn towards women and love.  Something that most fathers talk about with their sons.  Alfredo tells Toto the story of a solider who falls in love with a princess.  While telling the story, Alfredo doesnt tell Toto what it is supposed to mean or how he can relate it to his own situation.  Alfredo leaves him with, And dont ask what it means.  I dont know.  If you figure it out, you tell me.  This is for Toto to think on his own, about himself, and about the entire issue of love itself.  Without this positive male role model, Toto could have ended up in jail or other serious trouble, but with the guidance of Alfredo he was able to succeed into adulthood.

  Toto, the main character in the film Cinema Paradiso is a lost child who requires the support and guidance of a father, the one thing missing in his life.  Growing up in Giancaldo offered him a broad prospective on life and the world around it.  With the direction given to him by Alfredo, Toto was able to come out of his young adulthood with knowledge and wits he would have never learned without him.  In the end, Alfredo wants Toto to leave Giancaldo in search of a better life.  I think what Alfredo wants is what he never got, to explore life outside of his hometown.

Within a year of the Lumiere brothers first experiment in Paris in 1896, the cinematograph machine appeared in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years later, the capital boasted 22 cinema houses and the first Brazilian feature film, The Stranglers by Antonio Leal, had been screened. From then on Brazils film industry made continuous progress and, although it has never been large, its output over the years has attracted international attention. In 1930, still the era of the silent movie in Brazil, Mario Peixotos film, Limite was made. Limite is a surrealistic work dealing with the conflicts raised by the human condition and how life conspires to prevent total fulfillment. It was considered a landmark film in the Brazilian cinema history. In 1933 Cinedia produced The Voice of Carnival, the first film with Carmen Miranda. This film ushered in the chanchada which dominated Brazilian cinema for many years. Chanchadas were the slapstick comedies, generally filled with musical numbers and thoroughly cherished by the public.

  By the end of the 1940s Brazilian film making was becoming an industry. The Vera Cruz Film Company was created in Sao Paulo with the goal of producing films of international quality. It hired technicians from abroad and brought back from Europe, Alberto Cavalcanti, a Brazilian filmmaker with an international reputation to head the company. Vera Cruz produced some important films before it closed in 1954, among them the epic O Cangaceiro which won the Best Adventure Film award at Cannes Film Festival in 1953. In the 1950s, Brazilian cinema radically changed the way it made films. In his 1995 film, Rio 40 Graus, director  Nelson Pereira dos Santos employed the filmmaking techniques of Italian non realism by using ordinary people as his actors and by going to the streets to shoot his low budget film. He would become one of the most important Brazilian filmmakers of all time, and it is he who set the stage for the Brazilian cinema novo (an idea in mind and a camera in the hands) movement. By 1962 cinema novo had established a new concept in Brazilian filmmaking. The cinema novo films dealt with themes related to acute national problems, from conflicts in rural areas to human problems in the large cities, as well as film versions of important Brazilian novels. At the end of the 1960s, the Tropicalist movement had taken hold of the art scenes in Brazil which meant that cinema came under its spell. It emphasized the need to transform all foreign influences into a national product. The most representative film of this movement was Macunaima, by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade. It was a metaphorical analysis of the Brazilian character as shown in the story of a native Indian who leaves the Amazon jungle and goes to the big city. Working at the same time as the Tropicalists were the cinema marginal movement. This was another group of directors that emerged in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro who also made low cost films. This group produced films with themes that referred to a marginal society. Their films were considered difficult. In 1969 the government film agency, Embrafilme, was created. They were responsible for the co production, financing, and distribution of a large percentage of films in the 1970s and 1980s.Embrafilme added a commercial dimension to the film industry and made it possible for it to move on to more ambitious projects. In the 1980s movies were not well attended. This was due in part to the popularity of the television. Many theatres closed their doors, especially in the interior if the country. Never the less some important films were made. Many were concerned with political questions. Today many contemporary Brazilian films are being shown on television and in movie theatres all over the world.

The Brazilian culture at the moment is a result of a historical process where there was a convergence of three distinct populations. The Indian population that was situated in the land before the Portuguese arrived in 1500, the Africans who were brought by the slave owners, and lastly the immigrants that came to Brazil in the beginning of the 19th century.

Today, Brazil being more conscious of the richness of  these three different cultures tries to incentive the film industry by bringing these influences out. A perfect example of this is the film O Quatrilho. O Quatrilho, made in 1996, was one of the five nominees for the 1996 Academy Award for the Best Movie in a Foreign Language. This film takes us into the world of a small colony of Italian Immigrants in the south of Brazil in 1910. The young and serious Angelo is wed to the beautiful and vibrant Teresa but he pays no attention to her at all. He is firstly preoccupied with making ends meet and then his fortune rather than lavishing on his wife. Another couple arrives at the village where Angelo and Teresa are located. Pierina, Teresas cousin, is homely  but hard working while Massimo is more worldly and doesnt disguise the fact that he finds Teresa attractive. Before long both couples have children and they find themselves sharing the same property. The daily routine of working together on the land is arduous but while Angelo busies himself with his business and proves successful at it, Massimo and Teresa are drawn to each other. After their first amorous encounter they decide to abandon their respective marriages and elope together. The remaining couple, betrayed by their spouses, continue to live under the same roof, despite church pressure that they separate. But little by little they discover that they are in love. As a result of the process of the countrys formation, Brazil has a rich influence for different time periods and ethnicitys which can clearly be seen in the aforementioned film, O Quatrilho.

With a sudden change of Brazilian cultural laws in the last 2 years, the Brazilian audio-visual areas such as film, television, and radio flourished. The national production of films were stagnant from the 1990s to 1992 due to the radical cuts in government fiscal and artistic incentives made at the time by the Collor administration.  But because of the new demand for more audio-visual products in 1993 that all changed. In 1993 when the law to incentive the audio-visual was created and then passed by the senate, 2 films were produced. A year later, 1994, 5 films were made. In 1995 17 films were produced, moving along in 1996 22 films were made. And lastly in 1997 30 films were produced. This increase gives us the conclusion that with the establishment of the new law there was a growth of national films. With this growth the emergence of beautiful filming began. A great example of the growth of national films is Central do Brazil, which won the gold bear at the International Film Festival in Berlin and the prize for Best Script at the Sundance Festival. In this film Dora works in the Central do Brazil writing letters for illiterates who desire to correspond with their distant relatives. Ana, one of her customers, dies by getting hit by a car, and against her wishes, Dora receives Anas only child Josue. Josue dreams to know his father who has disappeared in the northeast and so he begs Dora to help. Dora, in the end helps Josue to write letters to help find his father. This film is currently being shown in Brazilian theatres and also European and American theatres.

The actual flourishing of the film industry is so intense that one can even measure by the fact that in the beginning of the decade the number of spectators for the Brazilian films were insignificant, summoning up to about 20,000 per year. But gradually, as the films increased so did the spectators. In 1997 one can see how the numbers have jumped to 2 million. Another auspicious fact is the regional diversification of productions, allowing the elimination of the battles between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Although the market is still dominated by foreign films, Brazil has begun to export their films. In 1997 Brazil imported 680 millions of dollars against the 38 millions that were being exported.

The Federal Constitution clearly established in the 2 articles (215, and 216) states that the competency of the state guarantees the cultural rights.  Also access to the cultural source, value and incentivation of the cultural productions and preservations of the national heritage. Especially the ones from the various ethnic groups and trends that encompass the Brazilian society. So the 3 fundamental dimensions of the cultural phenomenon (creation, diffusion, and preservation) are contemplated in the constitutional text. This places them under the public responsibilities in collaboration with its society.

The countrys cultural area is changing to a more stable structure of organization and financial support. The federal legislation that incentives the culture has 2 powerful laws. Law 8.313/91, which is the federal law to stimulate the culture, and law 8685/93 which is the audiovisual law. With these two laws the federal government incentives and supports the firms to contribute with a percentage of the taxes to be used in the support of the arts. As a result of these laws we have the Revival of the Brazilian Movie, with an increased income of 80 million reais (Brazillian currency) in 1997. These figures are four times bigger than the 1995 figures. An illustration of this is the ministry of culture that gave 40 awards for film shorts, 15 for scripts, and 15 for the development of the audio-visual projects. In 1998, the ministry of culture will center its efforts to increase the market for Brazilian productions of audio visual context. By doing so, one hopes that this can increase the structure and the implementation of the audio visual industry in Brazil.

In conclusion, I believe that the Brazilian film industry was lacking when it first started. Gradually the industry has begun to grow and produce films that are even entertaining foreign audiences, such as O Quatrilho in Europe and the US. Hopefully as the years pass I believe that even though Brazil is a third world country, it is rich enough in culture to bring forth a different quality of films that will reassure the foreign audience and market to give them a chance.