Table Of Content

P A ( n g ) L A B A S a r c h i t e c t u r e + c i n e m a Projections of Filipino Space in Film 1 Publication of this book has been assisted by the Offi ce for Initiatives for Culture and the Arts (OICA) University of the Philippines, Diliman and Charter Chemicals and Coatings, Incorporated © 2009 National Commission for Culture and the Arts and Gerard Lico Photographs contained herein are owned by their respective fi lm companies. Printed in the Republic of the Philippines. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Author: Gerard Lico Curation and Th ematic Text: Patrick D.Flores Photographic Research: Cesar Hernando Design: Gerard Lico ISBN:978-971-814-126-7 Cover: Studio set of Bahay Kubo interior for the fi lm Pasang Krus produced by Sampaguita Pictures in 1939. Th is book was made possible through the cooperation of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts with Offi ce for Initiatives in Culture and Arts of the University of the Philippines at Diliman and Charter Chemicals and Coatings, Incorporated. Th e National Commission for Culture and the Arts General Luna Street, Intramuros, Manila www.ncca.gov.ph 2 T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S 3 Architecture in 24 frames per second 2 Tickets to Dreamscapes 9 Design 28 Location 54 Enchantment 74 Dwellers 84 Device 94 Bibiliography 124 Acknowledgement 125 4 P A ( n g ) L A B A S 5 a r c h i t e c t u r e + c i n e m a Projections of Filipino Space in Film Architecture in 24 frames per second Th roughout the twentieth century, fi lm and architecture have At the basic level, architecture and cinema share natural built-in played out a relationship forged in space, and thus may be cast as affi nities. Architecture and cinema are both infl uenced by a some- spatial, one that mutually informs and interpenetrates. Architec- what analogous mode of production: plan; construction: script; tural and cinematic practice thrives on the apprehension of space, production. Architects and fi lmmakers pass through parallel routes taking on the fl esh of time and inhabiting a life of movement. Th e in appropriating space and orchestrating the spatial experience most interesting contribution of cinema to architecture is how and modes of perception of building occupants and movie audi- fi lm creates a distinct synthetic space, through the accretion of ences, respectively. fragmentary images over time through montage and the dogged stalking of scene in deep focus. In a way then, the house of archi- How is architecture mediated through the language of cinema? tecture has many rooms, and the cinema roams. Cinema can imitate the human eye in recording reality and evoke the kinetic experience of a body as it moves through architectural Th e title Pa(ng)LABAS is doubly coded to encompass both the space. Akin to cinema, architecture can be programmed into se- concepts of projected moving image (palabas) and the exteriority quences to unfold a spatial narrative and to confi rm or negate of architecture (panglabas). Both posit a sense of place, a sense expectations of location: origin, destination, routine, rupture, of locus. Th e collection of works dramatizes the juxtaposition of iteration, cycle, advance, retrogression, spiral. architecture and the imaginary environment of the cinema, and at the same time, probes the transformation of Filipino space, In exploring cinematic space, the viewer’s eyes are practically re- architecture, and urban landscape as visualized and mediated placed by the camera. Th e camera can follow the eye or footstep, but through the cinematic lens. cannot establish the relationship between body and vision, which is essential to the experience of architectural space. To experience A fi lm without architecture is unthinkable. Architecture gives fi lm architectural events is to get entangled in a web of choices, impli- its semblance of dimensions; setting the mood, character, time, cating the selection of path, voluntary or involuntary, conscious or and place for the action. It aff ords it the sensibility of position. Film unconscious. Cinema frustrates this logic or habit by providing a off ers a representation of movement through space in real time, preselected route, where we psychologically abandon our capacity approximating the architectural experience of the moving subject to choose and orchestrate our individual experience of space by in an immersive milieu. Like fi lm, architecture has the potential to allowing the director to maneuver it for us. Th e director assumes a create, stage, or frame events so they assume discursive density god-like role as he controls the entire syntax of space, tempo, and and the rondure of signifi cation. movement expressed in diff erent camera angles, panning, zooming, 2 3 Glass Shot of a Moorish Palace Ibong Adarna (1941) LVN Pictures, Inc. Mayan-inspired Kingdom of Mu Enkantada ng Mahiwagang Pulo (1948) 4 LVN Pictures, Inc. and editing techniques. Space and its process of taking root, the Film architecture is gifted with the alacrity to fulfi ll its own visions, very essence of architecture, is now captured, re-presented and however impossible, in the celluloid space neither negotiating with mediated by the director, rather than experienced directly. But on client demands nor contending with constraints imposed by the the other hand, the viewer may also defy the omniscience of this structural engineer. With plastic freedom that disregards all formal central aesthetic intelligence and feel fi lm in a range of creative rules of architectural vocabulary, celluloid space becomes an aes- ways and dispositions. Th is prospect is open, indeed. Conversely, thetic laboratory for unbuilt and unbuildable architecture. Cinema, the architect may at a particular level be authoritarian, too, con- thus, becomes a forerunner of style as edifi ces are desired before stricting us to fi t into a scheme of space. But as art forms and they are actually built. Th ey are buildings, cities, and landscapes viewers as aesthetic agencies they are not reduced to convention; in wood, cardboard, painted backdrops, back projections, matte they emerge in the tension between “scheme and surprise.” paintings, mirror tricks or virtually-generated digital images that come into transient existence as projected patterns of light and Part of this surprise is the future. Film provides architecture with shadow, and an illusion played out in 24 frames per second. an outlet for realizing visions that can never exist and conjures up experiences that in reality have not occurred. Freed from reality’s 5 fi nancial, logistical, and legal constraints, set designs have recre- ated imaginary environment from a distant past or experimented with new spatial ideas. Otherworldly Landscape Zarex (1958) LVN Pictures, Inc