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THE
stage is dark. A spot in gelatinous blue is trained onto
a figure coming out of a frame. All throughout piano
music is neither here nor there, with no chord to hint
us what the song is all about. Suddenly, the blue turns
ashen white and catches her, insolent, macabre, flaming
and theatrical. It’s Eartha Kitt rediscovered on YouTube,
that Internet phenomenon that allows artists to rise
from the dead or oblivion—or both.
She is
singing that ditty “Love for Sale,” made truly immortal
by the sublime diva of them all, Billie Holiday. Gone
are the blue notes and the depression; instead, a fun is
brought onto the lyrics of the song, each line made
wittier and dirtier, each thought collapsed into double
meanings by Kitt.
The
other shadows around the singer turn out to be
half-naked men, illustrating for the audience what is
already underscored and over-dramatized. Kitt gives out
her signature purr, bends and is caught by one of the
boys, swoons and places her face right on the neck of
another man. The crowd roars out in approval. She walks
down the ramp. Dominatrix and Mother Earth, Torch Singer
and Flame Thrower. In an atmosphere that is flamboyant
but strangely sincere. In that territory that Susan
Sontag called “Camp.” Just the kind of atmosphere to
remember a unique individual like Joey Gosiengfiao.
I do not
profess to know personally Joey Gosiengfiao. I am
neither a fan nor a collector of trivia about him. And
yet, for someone growing up and beginning to appreciate
films in the ’70s, I, too, subscribe to the belief of
the growing legion of film readers and viewers that
Gosiengfiao does have a legacy in the short history of
Philippine cinema.
His
place in the pantheon of filmmakers in this island is
perfectly cemented with one film:
Temptation
Island, undisputed as the only Filipino film around which
parties are elaborate organized. By most accounts, the
parties are informed by an air that is brimming with
faux boredom, abrasive sophistication and a charming
intellectualism. And yet totally fun—that is, if you are
the kind of person who can spend hours talking about
Silvana Mangano and Anita Ekberg not because they are
beautiful but because they are obscure pin-ups.
Temptation Island, were it a wedding, will have for
motif a bride wearing black, as in The Bride Wore
Black, with Jeanne Moreau, the actress that
according to Jigs Recto, he of sepia-toned and edgy
mythical elegance, was a favorite of Joey.
His
women and men
PERHAPS,
Joey Gosiengfiao will be amused, not flattered, by all
this extolling. I do not know. As I said, I really do
not know the person. What I do know, what I remember
now, are his films. Those products coming from Sine
Pilipino. Like Eartha Kitt’s over-the-top performances,
the films that he directed and those he made as
executive producer, for reasons only the gods and muses
can explain, had gravitas or had the gumption to claim
gravitas by being odd and fun, strange and fun,
enthralling and fun.
Even
when the films upon their release then challenged any
reader of values—films like Katorse and
Underage—they nevertheless demanded our attention.
In the mid ’70s and the early ’80s, Gosiengfiao’s films
exhibited what is given these days: the manufacture of
images for the leading personages of the film, the
breakdown in the realities and fantasies molded around
actors, the fusion of bad publicity and astute PR work.
Name them for they are the characters authoring the
period: Al Tantay, Alfie Anido, Ricky Belmote, Orestes
Ojeda and even a discovery named Domingo Sabado.
His
leading ladies did not become Jeanne Moreau but they
proved up to the extravagant demand of Gosiengfiao. They
wore chemise and discarded them. They acted funny and
cried silly but we watched. Some of them grew up and
began their liaison with films that were deemed serious
but were merely drab. Where it was pretension for some
directors, for Gosiengfiao it was honesty and glee.
Gosiengfiao’s actresses did not become icons but you
certainly would need their silhouettes if you want to
paint that period when democracy and dictatorship were
cinematically wedded in a bacchanalia of aesthetics. At
the end, even the most hardcore and formalist of the
critics enjoyed writing about his films. Those who
managed to check in their sense of humor in their
boudoir still composed essays about the unsaid in
Gosiengfiao’s films.
He gave
Vilma Santos her first real hit, Lipad, Darna, Lipad,
a trilogy he shared with Emmanuel Borlaza and Elwood
Perez. The film used Mars Ravelo’s story but for the
first time, it allowed us to think how much of the film
owed to celebrity and the betrayal of memory. Gloria
Romero in this film is Impakta. So, what’s the
big deal? By the ’70s, Romero owned one role, that of
Virgin Mary, and for her to be employed in a role of an
entrails-eating creature is to court the anger of the
Catholic consciousness then. The film would not only
push Vilma to the area of commerce but would herald,
too, the personage of Celia Rodriguez in a role that,
give and take the snakes for a hairdo, would immortalize
her as The Virago par excellence.
But I
remember one film, La Paloma, not for the heavily
stylized vignettes but more for that tango scene. The
dance is not executed beautifully. Rather, the dance is
dramatized. Like our memory of things. Like Joey’s
reenactment of the elegance he would rather recall
through mists created by spotlight in surreal blue and
by an endless supply of silken regret from smoke coming
from lipstick-stained cigarettes. In his film, contrary
to those who enjoy what Sontag called again “the love of
the unnatural” and the “artifice and exaggeration,”
Gosiengfiao’s contribution to our cinema is the
guilt-free rendering of one’s imagination.
Unfortunately, in a poor country like ours, those things
are expensive. It took one filmmaker to bring down the
price of hysteria and happiness through stories that are
simply fun. |
