cinémathèque oct–dec quarterly 2012 -...

Oct–Dec 2012

Cinémathèque Quarterly

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“I could not sleep, I saw the lights, I kept staring at the lights till morning…”

– Zubir Said, on the glimmering

city of Singapore which he

first saw when arriving on a

cargo boat in 1928


Contents

Editor’s Note

World Cinema SeriesO Drakos / The Fiend of Athens by Nikos KoundourosLes Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise by Marcel Carné

MAJULAH! The Film Music of Zubir Said

Perspectives Film Festival

Writings on CinemaDocumenting Affect: Yangtze Scribbler, Jalan Jati and All the Lines Flow Out by Ho Rui An Addendum: The Quiet Man Continues by Noel Vera

Interview Yusnor Ef

Word on the Ground When the Nusantara Rocked…by Bobby Dread

Write to Us

Credits

About Us

Ticketing Information

Getting to the Museum

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Editor's Note

Though this quarter features a mélange of both European and Asian films – some restored, some rediscovered – the overarching focus is on the Nusantara, an old Javanese term coined over seven hundred years ago to encapsulate what we know today as Indonesia.

From the 10th to 20th of October, we’ll be celebrating the film music of cultural icon Zubir Said, the man best known in Singapore (at least, by those who don’t remember the Golden Age of Malay cinema) as the composer of Singapore’s national anthem. The programme pays kudos to Said’s classical, poetically inclined compositional style through the films for which he wrote the score.

Originally from the Minangkabau highlands of Indonesia, Zubir nevertheless became a Singapore fixture. That seemingly small fact characterised the rich film and music industry of the 1940s–1960s. Nusantara – which originally defined the Indonesian islands – came to define the Malay Archipelago as a whole. Those who used it meant it to include Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and in some instances, even the Philippines.

In our interview section this issue, we speak to yet another legend, Yusnor Ef, a teacher, lyricist, composer, producer and film historian who has written well over 250 songs for countless popular Malay singers. Cikgu Yusnor tells us why Singapore was the centre of the arts industry in the 1960s and how the fluid political and cultural boundaries created a collaborative artistic community.

Cikgu Yusnor’s remarks on the complexity and diversity inherent in Malay music are echoed by long-time musician Bobby Dread, who writes about growing up listening to Radio 2 (a Malay radio station, now called Warna) and discovering the eclectic Malay Nusantara bands of the 1980s.

In our essays section, veteran Filipino film critic Noel Vera mourns the passing of legendary Filipino filmmaker Mario O’Hara in late June this year, but avoids eulogising. Instead, he re-visits an essay he wrote a decade ago, re-works


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his thoughts and tells us why O’Hara’s contributions as a scriptwriter, theatre director and filmmaker were integral to the nation’s filmic landscape.

Writer Ho Rui An turns his attention to three films shown at this year’s Singapore Short Cuts: Yangtze Scribbler (Tan Pin Pin, 2012), All the Lines Flow Out (Charles Lim, 2011) and Jalan Jati (Lucy Davis, 2012). Reading them with a Deleuzian eye, he invites the reader to consider ‘affect’, which can be felt, but is not an emotion.

For the World Cinema Series, we feature Marcel Carné’s Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise (1945), that roving portrait of 19th century Paris, shot in a country occupied at the time by the Nazis. Audiences will enjoy a version that has been beautifully restored by Pathé and the Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation.

The well-known classic is joined by an obscure 1956 film by Greek director Nikos Koundouros called O Drakos / The Fiend of Athens. Interest in the film spiked when writer Jonathan Franzen devoted sections of his novel Freedom to describing it through two characters who debate what the film means. Prints of O Drakos with English subtitles were, until recently, unavailable. Thankfully, audiences curious about Koundourous’ work (at one time, called the Orson Welles of Greece) can watch the film on the big screen.

A positive highlight for the quarter is the Singapore Film Festival (1st–3rd October) that will take place in Delhi, India. The Cinémathèque was invited for the second time this year to put together a short programme featuring works by Singaporean filmmakers (the first was from 12–20th May, for the Sintok Film Festival in Tokyo). Organised by the Singapore High Commission in Delhi, the programme is the first of its kind in the Indian city and will feature Sandcastle by Boo Junfeng, 881 by Royston Tan, Red Dragonflies by Liao Jiekai and Singapore GaGa by Tan Pin Pin. If it is a sign of things to come, perhaps Singaporean films will start travelling to other shores outside of the film festival circuit, thereby reaching a wider audience in the long-run.

Vinita Ramani MohanEditorCinémathèque Quarterly


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13 November, 6 December / 7.30 pm

Gallery Theatre, Basement$9 / $7.40 ConcessionPrices inclusive of SISTIC fee A programme of the National Museum Cinémathèque

World Cinema Series is a monthly screening of works by the boldest and most inventive auteurs across the world, from renowned classics to neglected masterpieces. Witness the wonders, possibilities, textures as well as the revelatory moments that have contributed to the rich history of cinema. Take a leap of faith and discover the art of cinema that continues to affect and inspire us on the big screen – as it was meant to be seen – with the World Cinema Series, shown every second Tuesday of the month at the National Museum of Singapore.

WorldCinemaSeries


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World Cinema Series

Tuesday, 13 November, 7.30 pm

O Drakos / The Fiend of Athens

Director Nikos Koundouros1956 / Greece / 103 min / 35mm / Ratings TBCIn Greek with English subtitles

Image courtesy of Alkisti Athanasopoulou


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World Cinema Series

O Drakos, an obscure Greek film from 1956 recently re-surfaced in Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, a novel that went on to become an instant bestseller and received glowing reviews from literary critics worldwide. The film follows a timid little man, working as a clerk, alone and disillusioned on New Year’s Eve. On his way home, he realises he possesses an uncanny resemblance to a renowned serial killer whose photograph has just been published in the newspaper. The word drakos (monster or dragon) is the Greek term for serial killers or rapists. He soon finds himself running away, as everyone he knows including the police mistake him for the Monster. A gang of awestruck crooks rescues him from imminent arrest and forces him to take charge of a desperate criminal scheme they have got going. The poor man becomes enamoured of the idea and decides for once in his sad life to be a tough guy and a hero. He surrenders to his bizarre destiny: to be “The Fiend of Athens.”

An immediate feature of O Drakos is the violent contrasts between light and darkness. A primordial conflict permeates the film with an atmosphere of disillusionment and a sense of foreboding. This is derived as much from the characters depicted as the cinematographer’s art. In essence, this distinctive feature is a significant characteristic of the sub-genre film noir which is founded on the principle of contrastive lighting and highly stylised visuals and narratives. A femme fatale, another primary film noir characteristic, inhabits O Drakos’ shadowy world. As a sub-genre of the crime and thriller movie, film noir had reached its maturity the year before with the release of Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955). From 1956, film noir became a recognised genre. Many films that were subsequently considered film noir masterpieces were released, including Alfred Hitchcock’s similar themed The Wrong Man, Fritz Lang’s Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While the City Sleeps, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing.

While O Drakos shares many visual and thematic preoccupations with the so-called film noir genre, director Nikos Koundouros went beyond the genre conventions in often startling ways. The all-consuming film noir aesthetic is strikingly juxtaposed with that of a cinematic realism - neo-realism, the kind perfected by the post-war Italian filmmakers. Other than the lead actors, the rest of the cast are non-professionals. O Drakos married disparate and improbable styles and while it was rejected by the critics of the day, the film was a harbinger of cinematic art in Greece.


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World Cinema Series

Image courtesy of Alkisti Athanasopoulou


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Nikos Koundouros Born in Aghios Nikolas (Crete) in 1926, Nikos Koundouros studied painting and sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Athens. He was sent to the island of Macronissos to serve in the military because of his anti-government sentiments. His theatre career began there. He turned to cinema with Magic City (1954), a film in which he combined neo-realism with an eye for imagery. O Drakos (1956), a composite and pioneering work which he made in 1956, established Koundouros as a genuine representative of the new age of Greek cinema. In the years of Greece’s dictatorship, Koundouros lived in Paris, Rome and London. Following the fall of the military junta he returned to Greece and served as a consultant on cinema to the Minister of Culture and president of the Greek Film Directors Guild. Some of Nikos Koundouros' films, decidedly avant-garde for their time and for Greece, influenced many directors of the New Greek Cinema. His films have earned him international recognition and acclaim as one of the foremost directors in Greek cinema.

World Cinema Series


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Thursday, 6 December, 7.30 pm

Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise

Director Marcel CarnéScriptwriter Jacques Prévert1945 / France / 194 min / DCP / Rating TBCIn French with English subtitles

Co-presented with Institut français Singapour

World Cinema Series

Image: Collection Fondation Jéròme Seydoux-Pathé © 1945 – PATHÉ PRODUCTION


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In Les Enfants du Paradis, the French masterpiece directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, the French theatrical world of the 1840s comes to life along the string of theatres and diners lining the historical Boulevard du Crime in Paris, which was recreated in a studio. Along the boulevard, boisterous crowds from stage actors, to criminals, dandies and people of all classes, gather in a carnivalesque spectacle. Pathos and romance overflow in this portrait of Parisian life as the magic of the theatre seeps out of the theatre halls within the narrative, spilling over onto the streets, imbuing the crowds with a dramatic and burgeoning passion that dissolves the distinction between fiction and reality, and art and everyday life.

Centred at the Le Théâtre des Funambules, the film focuses on the relationship between the beautiful and mysterious Garance and four men vying for her love: Baptiste Deburau the mime artist who echoes Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the legendary creator of the 19th century Pierrot pantomime; the charismatic actor and playwright Frédérick Lemaître; the thief and anarchist Pierre-François Lacenaire; and the oppressive aristocrat Count Éduard of Monteray. As their lives intertwine, we witness the consequences of their actions rippling through this quadrangle relationship in a plot filled with betrayal, deceit and unrequited love. Yet through Carné’s sensitive expressions emerge a sense of destiny, a fatalistic yet truthful acceptance of one’s fate, and an inviolable idea of dignity amidst tragedy.

Les Enfants du Paradis is a triumphant hallmark of poetic realism and one of the most celebrated films in the history of French cinema. It was shot in Nice from 1943 to 1944, when France was occupied by the Nazis. The production team also included the brilliant set designer Alexandre Trauner, who as a Jew, had to work on the set discretely to avoid prosecution by the Nazis. The film has been read as an allegory of the French spirit of resistance and Marcel Carné deliberately held the completed film till 1945, when it was released to great acclaim at the dawn of the liberation of France.

Les Enfants du Paradis was restored by Pathé in partnership with the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé. The film will be introduced by Mrs Sophie Seydoux, Chairman of the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé.

World Cinema Series


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World Cinema Series

Image: Collection Fondation Jéròme Seydoux-Pathé © 1945 – PATHÉ PRODUCTION


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Marcel Carné Marcel Carné is arguably the most prominent figure of the poetic realism movement in French cinema. He was born in 1906 in Montmartre, Paris. Carné attended evening classes on cinematography and soon entered the film world as an assistant to directors such as Jacques Feyder, Richard Oswald, Alexander Korda and René Clair. At the same time, he established himself as a film critic for Cinémonde and Cinemagazine between 1929 and 1933, and made his first short film Nogent Eldorado du Dimanche in 1929, followed by a slate of features such as Le Quai des brumes / Port of Shadows (1938) and Le Jour se lève / Daybreak (1939), in which he established a long working relationship with screenwriter Jacques Prévert. The years when France was occupied by the Nazis is often regarded as the watershed period of Carné’s career. While most filmmakers fled the country, Carné stayed on to make Les Visiteurs du Soir / The Devil’s Envoys (1942) and the highly celebrated Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise (1945). Carné continued to direct films through the ’50s to the ’70s, but was soon overshadowed by the onset of the French New Wave.

World Cinema Series

Co-presented with With the kind support of

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MAJULAH! The Film Music of Zubir Said

10–20 October / Various Timings

Gallery Theatre, BasementA Programme of the National Museum CinémathèqueWith support from Cathay-Keris Films Pte Ltd, Malay Heritage Centre, Shaw Organisation Pte Ltd and Singapore Malay Film Society

Although best known as the composer of Singapore's national anthem Majulah Singapura and the Children’s Day song Semoga Bahagia, Zubir Said was also a prolific composer of film music, and left an indelible mark on the Malay films of the golden age of Singapore cinema from the 1940s to 1960s. Zubir Said worked as a film music composer for 16 years, starting at Shaw’s Malay Film Productions and later at Cathay-Keris. During this period, he pioneered the use of voice-dubbing for Malay films and composed the music score and songs for some of the most iconic and memorable films of Singapore’s cinema heritage such as Dang Anom (1962), Chuchu Datok Merah (1963) and Sumpah Pontianak (1958). From 10th–20th October 2012, on the 25th anniversary year of Zubir Said’s passing, the National Museum of Singapore will pay tribute to the film music legacy of one of Singapore’s greatest music icons with a programme comprising of a series of 11 classic Malay films with new English subtitles featuring some of his most beloved and memorable film music compositions.


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Schedule

Wednesday 10 October (by invitation)

7.15 pm Dang Anom (1962) by Hussain Haniff

Thursday 11 October

8.00 pm Chinta (1948) by B.S. Rajhans

Friday 12 October

8.00 pm Rachun Dunia (1950) by B.S. Rajhans

Saturday 13 October

8.00 pm Sumpah Pontianak (1958) by B.N. Rao

Sunday 14 October

4.00 pm Bawang Puteh Bawang Merah (1959) by S. Roomai Noor

Monday 15 October

8.00 pm Tunang Pak Dukun (1960) by S. Roomai Noor

Tuesday 16 October

8.00 pm Sri Mersing (1961) by Salleh Ghani

Wednesday 17 October

8.00 pm Chelorong Cheloreng (1962) by S. Roomai Noor


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Schedule

Thursday 18 October

8.00 pm Jula Juli Bintang Tujoh (1962) by B.N. Rao

Friday 19 October

8.00 pm Dang Anom (1962) by Hussain Haniff

Saturday 20 October

4.00 pm Gila Talak (1963) by Hussain Haniff

8.00 pm Chuchu Datok Merah (1963) by M. Amin

Gila Talak (1963)Tunang Pak Dukun (1960)

Chuchu Datok Merah (1963)Chinta (1948)


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Perspectives Film Festival

8–11 November / Various Timings

Gallery Theatre, Basement

The Perspectives Film Festival: Breakthroughs in Cinema returns this year with another exciting and daring theme – sexuality. Organised annually by students from NTU, Perspectives 2012 will feature films that explore sexuality’s impact and influence on love, fear, death, psychology, gender relations and deviance. The films which hail from countries as far as Romania, Turkey, India and Korea, demonstrate how sexuality is not independent of daily life, but rather, an integral part of it. The films curated aim to explore the complexities of human nature and showcase the multiple ways that directors from a variety of cultures and time periods have approached the topic.

More information on the films, screening schedule and venues are available at www. perspectivesfilmfestival.com. To receive the latest updates on Perspectives Film Festival, check out the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/PerspectivesFF).


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Writings on Cinema

What exactly is affect, which can be felt but is not quite emotion? Building on existing conceptions of affect as "pre-personal" intensity, Ho Rui An considers how short films Yangtze Scribbler, Jalan Jati and All the Lines Flow Out seek to capture affect in all its complexity and elusiveness.

How do we begin to plot a line of thought across a selection of short films that include works as diverse as Yangtze Scribbler (2012), Jalan Jati / Teak Road (2012) and All the Lines Flow Out (2011)? Going by crude categorisations, the first is a documentary, the second an animation and the third an idiosyncratic creature that crosses the thresholds of cinematic arthouse into the brave, unruly world of the “artist’s film”. Yet all three films

Documenting Affect: Yangtze

Scribbler, Jalan Jati and All the Lines

Flow Out

Ho Rui An


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Documenting Affect

screened under the same programme for this year’s edition of Singapore Short Cuts complemented each other effortlessly.

Perhaps we can start with a proposition: All three are, despite their appearances, documentaries, insofar as they are constituted by endeavours to document. In Yangtze Scribbler — perhaps the only film among the three that can be unequivocally called a documentary — we are introduced to the work of artist and amateur archivist Debbie Ding who, in her ongoing quest to document the signs and symbols of Singapore’s urban environment, stumbles upon a strange set of inscriptions scrawled on the walls of a dingy stairwell in Yangtze Cinema. The six-minute short is by Singapore’s leading documentary filmmaker, Tan Pin Pin, who has in her previous works documented the country’s vanishing landscapes and cultural practices, as seen in Moving House (2001), as well as the work of the very people involved in the preservation and documentation of the country’s ephemera, as seen in Invisible City (2008). But curiously, in Yangtze Scribbler, the subject of the documentary is neither Ding nor the cryptic inscriptions she has encountered, but the encounter itself — specifically, its affects. Here, affect refers not to emotion, for emotion is intensity already captured and qualified by a sensing body that makes possible the utterance of one’s feelings as “happy” or “sad”. Affect is really more of a force — the sense we get of something acting upon us but which has yet to be assimilated into our subjectivity and to “make sense” to us on the level of the body. In the words of Guattari, it is a “pre-personal” intensity, residing neither within a subject (the documenteur) nor an object (the to-be-documented) but in the transferences between them.1

In this light, what Yangtze Scribbler attempts to document are not the uncanny inscriptions in themselves, but their


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becomings — emergences upon a horizon of experience that a body attempts to own, recognise and qualify, albeit to no avail.2

Yangtze Scribbler, Jalan Jati and All the Lines Flow Out all seek to document affect. This also means that they are impossible projects, for affect, strictly speaking, cannot be documented. As intensities that cannot be qualified, affects resist capture, or at least any attempt at apprehending them can only be provisional, thwarted eventually by how they constantly, erratically exceed themselves. Affects are real insofar as they can be felt as “incipience”3 and virtual insofar as they carry “unactualised capacities to affect and be affected”.4 Thus, while they cannot be documented, they can still be registered, as feelings, sensations or orientations towards the things through which affects circulate — may it be the scribbles uncovered by Ding, an old teak bed in Jalan Jati or a city’s subterranean network of waterways in All the Lines Flow Out. These registrations denote the movements of affect, its rhythms and obstinacies, attractions and repulsions, and are what form the subjects of the three films in lieu of the unwieldy affects that they try to capture but can’t. Serendipitously, this accidental triptych of films also constructs across itself a progression of sorts that maps out the multitudes of affect: what begins with Tan’s film as a modest but nonetheless fascinating observation on the “autonomy” of affect moves on to examine affect’s circulation in larger affective economies in Jalan Jati, eventually culminating with All the Lines Flow Out, which draws attention to how the film itself is implicated as a body entrenched within the circulatory economies of affect. There is a corresponding transformation of the cinematic form: from Yangtze Scribbler to All the Lines Flow Out, codes of documentary are progressively ruptured as the movements of affect become more

Writings on Cinema


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profuse and schizophrenic, testing the mimetic capacities of cinema and demanding for new filmic ontologies. From the detritus of the pulverised documentary of affect arises a new creature: the affective documentary.

Yangtze ScribblerYangtze Scribbler begins with a voiceover by Ding that reminisces over the times when she worked near Yangtze Cinema and would frequent the coffee shop in its vicinity. This plays against observational shots of the coffee shop and cinema. The Yangtze, as Ding informs, has a reputation for exclusively screening R-rated films, and this excites the psychogeographer in her who has always been interested in seeking out Singapore’s “alternative cinemas”.5 She then starts to recount the first time she encountered the aforementioned scribbles in the stairwell of the cinema. The camerawork becomes shakier as the filmmaker ventures into the grimy stairwell, ostensibly taking on Ding’s point of view. There we find the scribbles: three rows of hastily scrawled digits accompanied by two

Documenting Affect

Yangtze Scribbler (2012) by Tan Pin Pin


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stickmen figures, encapsulated in an oval. They appear on every floor, taking on a generally consistent form. Ding speculates on their meanings:

“The thing is the numbers don’t really make sense as dates. It’s not really the size of people, or girls, or phone numbers... It could be gang messages, or a message to someone?”6

Evidently, these inscriptions cannot work on the level of signs for Ding, for she is not privy to its mode of codification. To her, they are akin to hieroglyphs left by an alien society. Nevertheless, she photographs and uploads them onto her ever-expanding digital archive on Flickr which, as an archive of obscure inscriptions, does not seem to follow any taxonomic or hermeneutical principle. For one, she does not group her photographs into categories. She merely tags the location at which the photograph was taken.

Given this, what is captured in Ding’s archive cannot be accurately described as signs and symbols. Neither can they be reduced to purely asignifying marks, for they still possess the potential to be captured and (re-)inserted into “semantically and semiotically formed progressions”.7 Instead, what her archive really seeks to document are the affects of her encounterings, the inscriptions’ becomings, but as affects cannot ultimately be seized and fixed, her archive is really more of a registry, in which the intensities she encounters are not so much documented as registered. Her photographs simultaneously mark presence and absence, each an expression of the capture of affect and of the fact that “something has always and again escaped”.8 Furthermore, by amassing them in a public archive, Ding disseminates these points of potential, opening them to further captures and escapes.

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In her words:

“I hope, when I put them online... this information is still searchable by others. I might not have the sufficient imagination to think of all the stories in the world. But maybe other people out there will have their own take on things.”9

Implicit in Ding’s reflection is the acknowledgement that affect is autonomous, and it is its partial immersion in virtuality that lends it autonomy. Bodies that receive affect select lines of movements and narratives of meaning to be actualised locally10 while allowing others to escape; there will always be a remainder, an excess, a flight.11 The question that then begs to be addressed is what becomes of these excesses as they continue to circulate through and across bodies. To what kind of an affective future does Ding’s archive open? But, alas, that is beyond what the film can cover in its very short duration.

In a way, Yangtze Scribbler merely scratches the surface of the affective, for the complexities of affect are truly only revealed when it is passed on within an entire circuit of bodies, accumulating impressions like a palimpsest. But this is what also makes the film a fitting preamble to Jalan Jati and All the Lines Flow Out, films which not only seek to document such affective complexes, but also work on the level of affect, as we shall see.

Jalan JatiAs a film composed mostly of cutouts and drawings animated through stopmotion, Jalan Jati is a strange beast. The brainchild of visual artist Lucy Davis, the film is part of a larger multidisciplinary project that sees an intrepid team of artists and scientists travel from Singapore to Muna Island in Southeast Sulawesi in

Documenting Affect


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search of the material origins of a teak bed found in a local karang guni junk store, aided by DNA timber tracking technology. The film traces their journey as they transverse not just physical and cultural geographies, but also epistemological ones, in the process endeavouring to coalesce the drifting plateaus of science and magic, the positivist and the animist. The result is a nervous and hypnotic foliation of visual and aural textures, comprising animated woodcuts, DNA prints, charcoal drawings, old photographs and text dancing in small, tentative steps to a luscious and at times, discordant soundscape of field recordings, folk songs and synthetic tunes.

The film is divided into various sequences each introduced by an intertitle, the language of which suggests an anthropomorphism of the materialities explored in the film. The opening sequence, for instance, is titled, “A Teak Bed Remembers”. Correspondingly, it opens with an animated drawing of a seemingly anthropomorphic bed frame that

Writings on Cinema

Jalan Jati / Teak Road (2012) by Lucy Davis


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appears to be breathing as the lines recede and expand in undulating fashion, eventually morphing into a double helix resembling DNA. Yet, the language through which the film speaks is not meant to be metaphorical. One is supposed to take literally the idea that non-living and non-human entities are capable of memory. How is that possible?

Such vocabularies are made available to us through the logic of affects. In fact, the journey that Jalan Jati traces is precisely an affective one, in which beds, boats, birds, islands and of course humans serve as bodies through which affects circulate, with bodies here defined by a “potential to reciprocate or co-participate in the passages of affect”,12 to affect and be affected. This is made most evident in the intertitles that read “Teak Uses Humans to Colonize Southeast Asia” and “The Teak Bed Sends Four Humans from Singapore to Muna Island and Back Again”. What appears to be an ironic inversion of the subject-object relation is in fact an articulation of the affective transferences between equivalent bodies.

The affective journey described in Jalan Jati has no definite points of origin or destination, only multiple entryways, exits and lines of flight in and out of the narrative.13 Instead of tracing arborealities and chronologies, we are made to transverse bodies in time and space, always suspended in the middle of things. When there are references and allusions to specific histories, such as the fifties to eighties timber boom in Muna that eventually left both the island’s ecology and its inhabitant’s livelihoods in ruins, they are framed as affective events. In the sequence, “An Island Remembers a Timber Boom–Muna”, for instance, a quote by the Pentiro Village head recorded in 2010 mentions how during the timber boom, the island was so overrun by teak that one “could walk on wood all the way to the sea”. It is an anecdote that resounds with haptic evocations,

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suggesting almost a “woodification” of the island, as wood—its touch, smell, density, heat, speed—begins to permeate the affective horizons of the islanders; in other words, the becoming-wood of the island, to invoke the language of Deleuze and Guattari. The becoming-wood here is an affect, a “[mode] of expansion, propagation, occupation, contagion, peopling”14 that can, by another movement, be expressed as a becoming-boat, a becoming-bird or a becoming-human. No longer are there the discrete entities of wood, bird, boat or human, only the becomings that occur between and across them.

But what is most radical about Jalan Jati is that it does not merely describe these affective passages through linguistic means. It mimes them, seeking to reproduce the sensational resonances of these affective movements through a cinema that works not on the level of signs, but of skin. The very density of the mise-en-scène replete with grainy, scratchy images evoking the textures of tree barks has the effect of filling the screen to the point of producing in the viewer a certain over-intensity of contact, as if we have entered the wood’s fleshy body and become wood. The hesitant, animatic-like animation also feels “wooden”. Finally, there is the impossibly rich sound produced by Zai Kuning and Zai Tang, which in its scratchings, crunchings, creakings and fizzlings induce the sense of tactile bodies rubbing off each other, of the stretching and pulling of skin.

By testing the skin of the film for its mimetic capacities, Jalan Jati goes beyond being a mere documentary of affect; it is a profound affection of the documentary form.

All the Lines Flow OutIf Jalan Jati has managed to affect and deconstruct the documentary form, All the Lines Flow Out can be said to complete the movement it has started by reconstituting

Writings on Cinema


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from the remnants a new creature that is the affective documentary. In the film by visual artist Charles Lim, there are no provisions made at all for language (except for one small segment), no attempts made at describing the movements of affect. Instead, the entire duration of the film is a sustained encounter with affect and its mediating bodies. What is subliminal in Jalan Jati surfaces to the realm of consciousness here as the film reaches beneath the skin into our musculature and viscera, such that as viewers, we gain awareness of the sense of our bodies in space.

All the Lines Flow Out was filmed almost entirely in the monsoon drains or longkangs of Singapore. It begins with the slightest hint of a narrative: an anonymous man is seen walking through a longkang, seemingly lost and disenchanted. The music that plays is dramatic and foreboding. But by the third minute of the film, all this gives way to a purely affective experience of the city’s vast, labyrinthine waterways. In the most memorable sequences of the film, long takes of the longkangs shot from a boat take us through underground passages, housing estates and construction sites to finally end at the open sea, in the process steeping us in a profound sensorium of stunning imageries, intense sonorities and at times disorienting perspectival shifts.

Our relationship with the film is no longer hermeneutical, but self-consciously embodied. We are not only affected by the film but are also aware of the bodies that are reversibly affecting and being affected upon, specifically those of the viewer and of the film. In naturalistic cinema, these two “embodied acts of perception and expression” that meet “in a coterminous perception of a world”15 are made to appear as one and the same. We are made to identify with the camera’s point of view, to take on the

Documenting Affect


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film’s body as our own and to ignore our own bodily presence in the cinema. However, in All the Lines Flow Out, the film’s body invites us to enter it only to eventually refuse us, snapping us out of our identification with it to be resensitised to our own mode of embodiment, thus making us contend with the fact that the two bodies experience the world in radically different ways. The footage filmed on the boat offers one instance of this, in which the overly smooth movements of the camera exaggerate human motion to the point that it becomes clearly non-human. There is also the dramatic cut that occurs somewhere in the middle of the film, when a shot moving towards an unbearably noisy construction site abruptly cuts to one of a quiet neighbourhood. The cut is shockingly visceral, as if in that breath-stopping instant, we have been exhaled from the film’s body and thrown back into our own.

It is at once a sobering and awe-inspiring moment. As much as we have been returned to own bodily limits, we have also been made aware of the presence of other bodies — in fact, a whole constellation of bodies, of which the film is just one of many.

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Documenting Affect

Ho Rui An is an artist and writer presently pursuing his studies in Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, under a Loke Cheng-Kim Foundation scholarship. In 2011, he published his first novel, Several Islands, written based on the memories and discourses surrounding Singapore’s first independent contemporary arts space, The Substation. His critical writings on contemporary art, film and performance can be found on his website at www.opencontours.com

1 Pierre-Félix Guattari, “Ritornellos and Existential Affects,” in The Guattari Reader, ed. Gary Genosko (London: Blackwell, 1996), 158. 2 Brian Massumi, Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002), 28. 3 Ibid, 30. 4 Manuel DeLanda, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2002), 62. 5 Yangtze Scribbler, DVD, directed by Tan Pin Pin (Singapore: 2012). 6 Ibid. 7 Massumi, 28. 8 Ibid, 35. 9 Tan. 10 Massumi, 41. 11 Ibid, 35. 12 Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth, “An Inventory of Shimmers,” in The Affect Theory Reader, ed. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010), 2. 13 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 21. 14 Ibid, 239. 15 Vivian Sobchack, The Address of the Eye: A Phenomenology of Film Experience (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 173.


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Writings on Cinema

Over ten years ago, film critic Noel Vera wrote an essay about the reclusive Filipino filmmaker and maverick Mario O’Hara, for a special programme at the Singapore International Film Festival. On June 26, O’Hara suddenly passed away. Here, Noel Vera returns to that essay, remembers the man and his work and tells us why O’Hara’s untimely passing has left a gaping hole in the film industry of the Philippines.

It’s 2012, some eleven years since I’ve written “The Quiet Man,” my original article covering (briefly, callowly) the career of one who I believe was one of the best filmmakers working in the Philippines.

The article didn’t change the world much, not even said filmmakers’ career; he still worked away quietly in the background, still came out with interesting films and, in one case, a theatrical production that reworked one of his most well-known scripts.

So once again, briefly and callowly:

Addendum: The Quiet Man

ContinuesNoel Vera


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Insiang (1976) was arguably O’Hara’s finest, most famous collaboration with long-time friend Lino Brocka. His script, originally a one-hour TV episode, was expanded by Brocka into a ninety-minute feature that went on to be the first-ever Filipino film to screen at Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight. O’Hara has since taken back the screenplay and reworked it, setting the action in the Manila district of Pasay (where it was originally – and more realistically – set), and adding a narrator who, much like The Common Man in Robert Bolt’s A Man for all Seasons (1966) provides footnotes to the otherwise realistic story. The narrator is important; it’s O’Hara’s way of claiming the play for his own, his version of a story filmed by Brocka as the definitive slum drama (with suitably squalid cinematography by the great Conrado Baltazar), that had now become a drama about the abuse of children and the possibly disastrous consequences of such abuse.

Addendum: The Quiet Man Continues

Insiang (1976)


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Writings on Cinema

The ending – originally Brocka’s concession to the censors of the time – was changed. The protagonist speaks the same lines to her mother (“I was lying, I never...”) but the tone and meaning is altogether different. What in the original was a loosening of tension and betrayal of Brocka’s uncompromising spirit has now become a confirmation of that spirit, that the slums truly eat their children. The production was successful enough that Tanghalang Pilipino, the group that staged it in 2002, did a revival in 2007.

Babae sa Breakwater / Woman of the Breakwater (2003) was O’Hara’s take on roughly the same subject as Lino Brocka’s most famous work, Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag / Manila in the Claws of Neon (1975). Where Brocka’s film focused on a provincial innocent corrupted by the hell of Manila, O’Hara’s film was a touch more lighthearted, if broader and more varied in scope: two brothers, fleeing political terrorism in the countryside, come to the Manila breakwater; there they find a community of homeless people who have built makeshift shacks along the bay’s shoreline. Violence, eroticism, and a touch of magic realism ensue, all accompanied by a traveling troubadour (Yoyoy Villame) singing folk ballads that help transition from one scene to the next, comment on the action, and set the overall tone and mood for this lovely picture.

Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio / The Trial of Andres Bonifacio (2010) was O’Hara’s take on a lesser-known but no less beloved Filipino hero. Where his film on the life of fellow hero Jose Rizal (Sisa, 1998) used conjecture and not a little prestidigitation (he contended that Sisa, Rizal’s most famous literary creation, was a real woman and Rizal’s true love), O’Hara, like Carl Dreyer with The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), takes the actual minutes


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of Bonifacio’s trial and uses them as the basis for his script. Throw in, again, a magic commentator (played by Miles Kanapi), staged excerpts from moro-moro (a genre of Filipino folk theater) dance numbers (Bonifacio himself used to be a moro-moro actor), and a lovely folk ballad or two and you have, well, not a traditional film production of an actual historical event but O’Hara’s interpretation of one, as brilliantly idiosyncratic as his Sisa.

It is interesting to note that O’Hara, with his first-ever digital production, again flouted film fashion and trends.


Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio / The Trial of Andres Bonifacio (2010)


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Writings on Cinema

Unlike most filmmakers who went digital, he didn’t exploit the medium’s obvious advantages (camera mobility, the tendency to give one’s picture a handheld ’shaky-cam’ look). His camera setups were generally static, with an emphasis on subtle mise-en-scène to give his images power; he took his cue from the moro-moro and gave both trial and musical interludes a claustrophobically stagebound, inevitable feel – his unforced, unspoken commentary on the validity of the entire judicial process.

O’Hara’s latest film to date was a return to his melo-dramatic roots. Back in the ’80s he was director of the popular television soap Flordeluna; in 2011 he’s gone back to directing a soap. Sa Ngalan ng Ina / In the Name of the Mother was his return to prime-time television, and his first collaboration with actress Nora Aunor, (who had acted in Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos / Three Years Without God [1976] and Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? / Why is the Sky Blue? [1981]) in over twenty years. The series is a daringly political re-telling of the Corazon Aquino story: wife and mother living a quiet life whose husband is assassinated by a powerful rival, she is forced to run against said rival herself – and win.

Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos / Three Years Without God (1976)


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That’s easily the most unbelievable part of the whole story and, ironically, the story’s most genuinely true-to-life element. The mini-series has it all: sex, drugs, corruption, violence, inter-family and intra-family conflict – all set against a miniaturised backdrop of contemporary Filipino politics. O’Hara’s directing here is remarkably restrained: he uses simple, beautifully shot setups and coaxes understated acting from his large cast, even when they’re dealing with the most over-the-top situations. As Elena Deogracias, the series’ housewife turned political matriarch, Nora Aunor is remarkable: O’Hara often com-poses tumultuous panoramic images of chaos swirling around her, with Elena as the still, sane center.

What was O’Hara like in the new millennium? He reworked old material, resorting to sprinklings of fantasy, of surrealism to spice things up a bit. He turned more often to music and song, in the Brechtian manner, as a means of keeping us distanced – intellectually as opposed to emotionally engaged – from the material. He was relentlessly experimenting; at the same time, with Sa Ngalan Ng Ina, he demonstrated a still undiluted mastery of the melodramatic form. He followed his own instincts, marched to his own music, dwelt on his own interests and obsessions. In short, he did what he’s always done – worked quietly in the background without our notice (most of the time), doing unique work, making himself essential almost without meaning to.

And then of course, it all ended. On June 19, 2012 the report came out over online social media that O’Hara had been rushed to the emergency room due to symptoms of acute leukemia; the family, respectful of his retiring nature, withheld the hospital’s name (it was later revealed to be San Juan de Dios). Brother Jerry O’Hara reported that he responded well to chemotherapy. The optimism was



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Writings on Cinema

Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio / The Trial of Andres Bonifacio (2010)


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Bulaklak Sa City Jail / Flower in the City Jail (1984)


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Writings on Cinema

premature: on the morning of June 26th word went out that O’Hara had succumbed to cardiac arrest, the quiet man silenced at last.

O’Hara was a crucial collaborator of Brocka’s, and it’s possible to argue that he introduced a note of moral ambiguity not found in Brocka’s other pictures – at the end of Insiang, for example, one couldn’t really tell who was the victim, who the victimiser; in Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974) the character O’Hara plays (Berto the Leper) is first seen as a possible rapist. He took up Brocka’s social-realist mode of storytelling (Bakit Bughaw ang Langit? [1981]) and introduced baroque, even fabulist variations with Mortal (1976) and The Fatima Buen Story (1994); later in his career he managed to fashion a mode of cinema inimitably his – imaginative in both form and content, yet filled with political, sociological and historical concerns (Pangarap ng Puso / Demons [2000], Sisa [1998]).

Arguably O’Hara was more fluent than Brocka in at least one or two dialects of the language of filmmaking. The prison riot that climaxes Kastilyong Buhangin (1980), the varied and at times elaborate fight sequences in Bagong Hari (1986) confirm his status as one of Philippine cinema’s finest action filmmakers; his use of pointedly angled shots and distinctly staged mise-en-scène reveal him to be the visual descendant of Gerardo de León (and behind de León the classicists: Ford, Eisenstein and Griffith).

O’Hara’s early training in radio possibly distinguished him from other Filipino filmmakers of the ’70s, who mostly hailed from Filipino theater: I submit that this training helped free him (the way it freed another filmmaker active in radio, stage and film) from the tyranny of the proscenium


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arch, giving one the sense of watching a film film instead of a film recording of a stage performance. Musical cuing (Brocka’s weakness, according to O’Hara), sound transitions, overlapping dialogue linked his images, subtly amplified their cumulative emotional power. Moreover, there was a fluidity to his editing (see Pangarap ng Puso, where the montage of photo stills act like the flicker-images of memory), a constant bounding from reality to fantasy and back (the protagonist’s schizophrenia in Mortal, the children’s view of supernatural creatures in the context of provincial life in Pangarap ng Puso) that suggests not so much a spatial orientation as an aural one, or at least one less limited by the unities of a specific location – a heedless leaping across time and space and

Sisa (1998)



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emotion, taught to him by the equally fearless transitions (from present to past, reality to fantasy, comedy to drama) found in the radio shows of his childhood.

Not that he turned his back completely on theatricality. In Babae sa Bubungang Lata / Woman on a Tin Roof (1998) he would present large swathes of Joaquin’s play as a play, as two characters moving about in a tiny set with the camera just sitting there, drinking in their performances; the plainness of the approach underlined the plainness of their lives, their aspirations (this in contrast to the film’s more fabulist characters, who are shot in a variety of angles and lighting). In Ang Paglilitis ni Andres Bonifacio, O’Hara’s first ever digital feature, O’Hara refrains from taking advantage of digital video’s most obvious virtues (the mobility of the equipment, the ease in creating handheld, constantly moving shots) and instead locks down the camera, viewing the actors with an unblinking, dispassionate eye (if anything he takes advantage of the digital medium’s other virtue, its ability to record long takes). The stable framing and vivid color palette emphasises a stylisation not inappropriate to a moro-moro production, one of which is quoted extensively in the film, and serves as an unspoken commentary on the politics behind the trial (in the moro-moro, the outcome is settled long before the play begins).

What to say, finally, of O’Hara the filmmaker? Frankly I could write for years and it wouldn’t be enough. But a few words might help: He is, I believe, Philippine cinema’s wayward spirit, its silent wanderer-observer (especially around the Makati-Malate-Quiapo-Divisoria area), its whispered yet insistent conscience. He is its reluctant poet, its low-key fabulist, its (to borrow a phrase from Manny Farber) termite artist, toiling away in the mud and filth to build something that isn’t intended to be anything

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beautiful, perhaps doesn’t even presume to become anything near beautiful, but which somehow, in some way, almost by accident if you will (though this random quality may be a hallmark of its authenticity) achieves a wayward, reluctant beauty.

He is (again, strictly in my opinion) the Philippines’ finest filmmaker, and his death does our cinema an irretrievable, irrecoverable harm – not just for the life’s worth of recognition owed to him, but for the works he might have given us, if he lived but a year longer (I once spent an evening listening to him talk of the scripts he has squirreled away, one more fabulous than the next). The world is a quieter place with this man gone, not necessarily a better one. We do well to mourn our loss.

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Noel Vera is a Filipino film critic and author of Critic After Dark: A Review of Philippine Cinema. He has written for The Manila Chronicle, The Manila Times, Cineaste, Criticine, Senses of Cinema and Cahiers du Cinéma. He has been consultant and programmer for the Cinemanila Film Festival, the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, and the Singapore International Film Festival. Noel shared a FAMAS Award for Best Story for his work on the screenplay of Tikoy Aguiluz’s Rizal sa Dapitan (1997). He has translated into English the screenplays of Mario O’Hara’s Babae sa Bubungang Lata / Woman On A Tin Roof (1998), Sisa (1998) and Pangarap ng Puso / Demons, (2000) for international screenings. He is at: www.criticafterdark.blogspot.sg



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From left to right: Yusnor Ef, Mohd Zain Hj. Hamzah (producer of the musical programme Dendang Perindu), and singers Ahmad Daud and Rahimah at a recording for Radio Singapore in 1960.


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From hanging out with filmmakers and the crew at the Jalan Ampas Studio as a young teacher, to penning his own screenplays and lyrics for film songs, Yusnor Ef has come a long way. Now a veteran producer, lyricist and researcher in the industry, he continues to document the history of the Golden Era of cinema and the music scene in Malaysia and Singapore. The spritely 75-year old tells the Cinémathèque Quarterly what it was like to be mentored by the legendary P. Ramlee, why he is an indefatigable archivist and why Singapore was the cultural and creative centre of the Nusantara (or the Malay Archipelago) in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He also recounts tales of rivalry between the two major film companies of the golden era: Cathay-Keris and Shaw Brothers and comparing the spirit of his time to the industry now, he tells us why the preservation of Malay heritage remains an endeavour that is close to his heart.

Your career began, in many ways, with a desire to work in the music industry in the early 1950s. But you didn’t have formal musical training. Were there challenges to entering the industry without these skills? Yes, I don’t know how to write music notation. But I have a good sense of hearing and a feel for music. I started out in my school days, around 1954 to 1956. Then I joined a pancaragam, or a type of band in the kampong, and mostly played at wedding ceremonies. That was the time I started as an amateur singer. Later, I became involved in drama and acted in stage plays. Next, I became a director for stage plays, and directed many Malay dramas too. I was the director for a play entitled Siapakah Bersalah (or Whose Fault? in English), which was written by my friend. I wanted to include a song element in the drama, so that the actors and actresses

Interview

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could sing in it, something that had not been done before in this part of the world.

So it was like a musical, but it hadn’t been done in a stage play here before?Yes, but in the end we only included one song. I asked my friend, Kassim Masdor, a composer, music director and writer who was working with Studio Jalan Ampas, to compose the music, while I wrote the lyrics. That was the first time a song with my lyrics was performed on the stage. Later on, when my friend became a part-time producer at EMI, he recorded that song for the late Fazida Joned. He gave me the opportunity to write more and more lyrics for songs, and to date, I have written the lyrics for more than 260 songs for popular artistes.

When you were working as a lyricist, were you influenced by the playback singers in the Indian film industry like Mukesh, Latha Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi?Yes, mostly Mohammad Rafi, Latha Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Mukesh, and Udit Narayan. I’d translate Hindi songs. I don’t know Hindi but my wife knows Hindi as she’s Punjabi. Whenever we watched Hindi movies, I would always ask her to translate the meaning for me. When writing lyrics for songs in films, I would sometimes look at the story or meaning in the films first. At other times, I would create my own story in the lyrics, from films like Jeene Ki Raah (1969) and Ganga Jamuna (1961).

So did the soundtrack, as well as lyric-based songs become an important part of filmmaking at that juncture?Yes. When Pak Zubir Said was working with Shaw Brothers, he didn’t have the opportunity to write the score for the soundtrack or background music of the films. Those days, they used pre-recorded Western music for the background tracks. Pak Zubir Said was unhappy that he could not develop his own scores. He managed to compose for a few films only, like Aloha (1950) and Rachun Dunia (1950), before he transferred to Cathay-Keris. At Cathay, he had the chance to compose background music for the films produced by the company. He said, “If the Indians


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can do it, why can’t we?” Later, when P. Ramlee came onto the scene in 1948 as a playback singer, he started to learn from Zubir Said. So when P. Ramlee became a film director and music director himself, he composed and arranged his own soundtrack for films like Sumpah Orang Minyak (1956) and Semerah Padi (1956).

I think that the last film of this kind made in Singapore was A-Go-Go ’67 (1967). There are a lot of songs in that film; it’s a bit like West End Story (1961). I still recall sitting in for the session where the music directors Kassim Masdor and Yusoff B interviewed the Pop Yeh Yeh groups for the film.

Can you tell us a little about your own writing process?During that time, the melody comes first, then the words. The words are in turn based on your experience, the story you see, etc. When I was courting my wife, I wrote songs for her, which she rejected. As a Punjabi, she could not really appreciate the Malay songs I wrote. One day she told me, “Take me as a friend, not more than that.” As a young man, I was broken-hearted and I recall going to the Jalan Ampas studio shortly after that. There, I listened to a sad melody written by my friend, Kassim Masdor. When I heard the music, I decided to write the lyrics for it, expressing how I was disappointed with her. The song was later recorded by the popular singer, Ahmad Jais, and Gelisah (or Restless in English) is still a classic today.

Apart from writing lyrics for popular singers, how did your career in the film industry evolve?My involvement in the arts has always been very wide. It’s not restricted to music. I was also a scriptwriter for radio plays, TV, and later on, for films. But I did not write lyrics for film songs during the Golden Era. I started in 1962 for films produced in Malaysia. I went into scriptwriting to make use of the experience I gained from working with my mentor P. Ramlee, who taught me how to write screenplays. I first got the opportunity when Indra Film asked me to write the lyrics for the songs in a film entitled Keluarga Si Comat (1975). From there, the company wanted to produce another action story, entitled Serampang Tiga (1981), and

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I was roped in to write the screenplay for the film, together with the Cambodian director Ismail Sasakul, who was a perlarian or refugee who ran away from Cambodia to come live in Malaysia after the war there.

After that, I worked with the Indonesian scriptwriter Pak Misbah Wiran on the script for Irisan-Irisan Hati (1988), which was about the post-Konfrontasi period between Malaysia and Indonesia. I wrote all the Malaysian parts of the dialogue, and was invited to a film festival in Bali where this joint venture production was screened. The film won the award for the best joint venture film in Malaysia and Indonesia in 1988. The actor and actress, Deddy Mizwar and Christine Hakim, were very popular at the time. For that film, we also discovered Tiara Jacquelina, who is now a famous producer and actress in Malaysia.

What were your ambitions at that point in time? What were you trying to achieve?Since 1954, my ambition has always been to join the film industry. But I did that only in 1980, working freelance or part-time at the Indra Film company in Kuala Lumpur. I enjoyed production work and during my part-time stints, picked up skills related to the filmmaking process, from scriptwriting to camerawork. It was a satisfying and interesting side job to my full-time job as a teacher.

A lot of this work was going on during a very turbulent historical period. There was British colonial rule, followed by the Second World War, then the Japanese Occupation and the Malayan Emergency. What impact did that have on the industry and on composers?When the British first came, there weren’t many Malay composers or much music being produced. We mostly just knew western music or music influenced by the west. Then, when the Japanese came with their propaganda elements, everything became Japanese-controlled and we were not even allowed to have a radio in the house. There is a Malay film about the situation at that time, called Mata Hari (1951), which was produced by Shaw Brothers. There was a lot of control on artistic activity during that time. But, when the British came back, after the war, the film

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Actor and singer Omar Suwita (on the left) from Shaw’s Malay Film Productions at an interview with Yusnor Ef for the documentary

Gemilang Filem Melayu (2006) for the Malaysian TV channel, Astro.


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Yusnor Ef shows some of his writings and recordings to the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (on the left) in Putrajaya, Malaysia, 25 January 2011.


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industry experienced a resurgence, first with Shaw Brothers, then with Cathay-Keris, who were industry competitors.

When P. Ramlee came down to Singapore around 1948, Shaw Brothers became a strong industry player with P. Ramlee as the backbone for the company. Anything Shaw Brothers was also P. Ramlee. Pak Zubir, on the other hand, began as a composer for Shaw Brothers before transferring to Cathay-Keris, just as P. Ramlee started working there.

It seems like there was this interesting dynamic between Shaw and Cathay-Keris and, correspondingly, between P. Ramlee and Pak Zubir Said. Presumably the two men were quite different?Pak Zubir composed almost all the music for films at Shaw, and later for Cathay-Keris. His music is very classically Malay and reflects a strong Malay identity. He uses a lot of traditional pantuns in his lyrics, with influences from Malay dance music. P. Ramlee is a bit different. The films that he made for Shaw Brothers were more popular, because he incorporated Western, pop and modern influences in his music. So, for profit reasons, Cathay-Keris started to ask Pak Zubir to write like P. Ramlee, but Pak Zubir refused and persisted with his principles. I heard that he left Cathay-Keris because of his unhappiness over their request. Wandly Yazid, who is Indonesian like Pak Zubir, then took over as a composer with Cathay-Keris. To this day, Yazid’s most famous song is Gurindam Jiwa. His son keeps his fathers’ materials in a sort of mini-museum near Sultan mosque in the Arab street area (in Singapore).

When I was a student of P. Ramlee, I once asked him how he felt about becoming more popular than Pak Zubir. He said that he respected Pak Zubir because he knew and kept his Malay culture and identity alive, whereas he (P. Ramlee) was “cacar-marbak” (fond of mixing everthing).

Why was Singapore such a draw for players in the industry?In many ways it was because the British made Singapore the centre. They wanted Singapore as the port for everything. Zubir Said, Wandly Yazid, Yusoff B and Ahmad Jaafar all came here from different parts of

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Indonesia. I always say, “There would have been no P. Ramlee without Singapore.” But some Malaysians are not happy when I say that, because the Malay community hails P. Ramlee as their creative icon. I try to explain to them that P. Ramlee was born in Penang and he had talent but the place where he wanted to develop and nurture his talent was Singapore because the film industry was here. It was when the Indian director, B.S. Rajhans watched P. Ramlee win the best singer award in a singing competition at Bukit Mertajam in North Malaya, that he decided to invite P. Ramlee to come to Singapore as a solo singer. It was in Singapore that P. Ramlee built his career as a director, writer and actor.

It sounds like there was a lot of mutual support in the film community. For instance, Hussain Haniff started out as an editor, went on to become an assistant director, and later on a director. So looking at him, you get the sense that being a part of such a close-knit community in the film industry helped him develop his craft. Yes, it was like one big family. It was easy to start a film too. When there was crew needed for a film, we could always simply ask around within the community. This spirit was especially alive at the Jalan Ampas studio. The people in the industry literally lived where they worked, because Shaw brothers gave them quarters in the form of two-room barrack houses to stay in, at Boon Teck road. So even after a full day of shooting, the interaction continued outside of work.

Even when I wasn’t working on any particular film, I enjoyed hanging out with the crew and directors at Jalan Ampas. Sometimes P. Ramlee would call me to tell me, “Hey, there is a shoot today. Come in the afternoon.”

Once, I was at the shooting of Labu dan Labi (1962), just observing the filmmaking process, when P. Ramlee called me over and said, “Go and look in the viewfinder.” In this way, and in many other ways, he slowly helped me to develop my interest in the filmmaking process. I took some of these skills with me and applied them to TV documentary production.

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What was P. Ramlee like as a mentor? How did he influence your creative process?He taught me through discussion and dialogue. For example, I would show him a storyline. After reading it, he would give comments such as, “If you want to make a novel, this is the way. But if you want to write a screenplay, this is not the way.” He would write down instructions for me on how to write a screenplay, things like “Scene 1: Kampong Melayu. (rumah orang kaya, or rich man’s house)…Camera focus inside or outside…etc.” I would then go home to type them out and show him my revised drafts for further correction. I still have his handwritten instructions, as well as the manuscripts we worked on.

He tested me, too. When I first went to meet him at his house on Cedar Avenue, he made me wait for him for a long time to see if I was really interested in filmmaking. Then, when he was confident that I was serious, he called me from the studio to tell me, “Mohd Noor, I’m coming back now. Don’t go home.” Since I was still working as a teacher back then, he also asked me if I could teach his children.

Later, when I became very close to him, he gave me my current name, Yusnor Ef. I was writing my name as “Mohd Noor Effendi” on plays that I wrote back then, and his remark was, “You are not Arab. Why do you call yourself Effendi?” So he wrote the name “Yusnor Ef” on my file. That was in 1959, and I recall it was a Sunday morning, at 11a.m. I thank God for this name!

Do you think Singapore could become that cultural centre for music and cinema again, with that kind of support?It will be very hard. I like to say that luckily, in the end, P. Ramlee died in Kuala Lumpur. If he had died in Singapore, no one would remember him. I think I’m the only one who is documenting him here.

Moving forward, how did your career as a producer for television develop?I started teaching in 1954, before transferring to the Ministry of Education as a textbook writer for Malay language in primary and

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secondary schools, as well as for Islamic Religious Knowledge (IRK). After that, I was transferred to the Educational Television Programme (ETV) division, where I produced 78 programmes for the teaching of the Malay language. That’s where it started. In 1994, I had a heart attack. I was working under the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore (CDIS) then, and so I asked to retire. After a year, I was asked to produce programmes for ASTRO TV Station in Malaysia. At first, they wanted me to work there as an executive producer, but I declined because of my age. Before that, I had also set up my own production company in Singapore, called the YKNA network, for which I produced a few programmes for the Suria Channel. I have been producing many programmes, mostly documentaries, for ASTRO and now for Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM).

What prompted the move to work with television stations in Malaysia?I was disappointed with Suria, our local Malay station in Singapore. I think the role of TV stations is to inform, educate and entertain. But currently, most of the focus at Suria is on entertainment. This situation is different from Malaysia, where there is a special category for heritage in television and radio station programming. That said, it’s not just that the TV stations here are not interested. First, I think they don’t have the budget. Second, the people who are in charge of the station do not share the values we once shared. In the past, as artists, we were creating work that drew from our roots and our culture, and our art came from the heart. Now, things are profit-driven or based on mass appeal. This is not the ethos of my time and generation.

My good friend, Tun Ahmad Sarji bin Abdul Hamid, who is the president of the Heritage Board of Malaysia, always says, “The soul of the nation lies in our heritage. Without the past, we have no present. Without present we have no future.” This is especially important because Singapore used to be the centre for Malay film, music and literature. That’s why many actors, actresses and musicians, including Pak Zubir Said himself, came from Indonesia and Malaysia to work here.

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What sorts of projects are you working on at the moment? I’ve worked on a 39-episode programme about the Malay film industry since 1933 (Gemilang Filem Melayu) and the development of the Malay music industry since the 1940s. I also have a programme that aired on RTM recently about how traditional Malay dance started being featured in Malay films, and the Indian and Western influences on such dance forms (such as on Malay keroncong1). Later on, when P. Ramlee became a famous director, you can see how he incorporated elements of Malay culture and Malay dance in films like Ketipang Payung (1959), Semerah Padi (1956), and in the song Sekapur Sirih Seulas Pinang.

You cannot deny that Malay culture is mixed or is influenced by all these elements, be it from the bersanding2 ceremony, clothing, berinai3, because the Indians were here before the Arab traders. Music like keroncong, ghazal4, dondang sayang5, boria6, mak yong7 – all these forms of music originated from different countries.

For a programme that I produced about the music of the nusantara, or the Malay Archipelago, entitled Rentra, I went to Solo to meet and interview Pak Gesang who composed Bengawan Solo. For research, I also went to Jogja (Yogyakarta) where they make angklungs8 and gamelan9 instruments. This is pribumi music, or music from your own region. For example, when you think of boria, you think of Penang. But boria also has Persian influences, just like the ghazal. Likewise, Dondang Sayang is from Melaka, with its Portuguese influences that were later mixed with Baba and Peranakan influences. The zapin10 and gamelan has a more Arabic influence. So, from a cultural point-of-view, we cannot deny, forget or ignore the external influences on our heritage. This kind of knowledge is important and it’s missing among Malay youth now.

Now, for the RTM Station, I’m in the process of producing documentaries about the development of Malay Pop Yeh Yeh music which started in Singapore in the 1960s, and was influenced by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles etc. This production spans 13 episodes, shows how the movement started and includes interviews with many singers and composers of the Pop Yeh Yeh scene.

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What do you feel is your role in the contemporary context, as a veteran of the scene?With my ability to do research and with the experience I have in this field, I feel I have a responsibility to try and compile and educate, in the form of TV productions, books, and university lectures. I’m also working on a book on how to use film footage to teach the Malay language. It comes with a DVD, teachers’ guide and workbook. The book covers how to teach the Istana, or palace language used in Malay films. I came up with this idea because many teachers like to use films as a pedagogical tool, but are not equipped with a structured method on how to do it. So the teachers’ guide is very important. I’m also about to publish a book on the Malay film industry.

And finally, what drives you? Why do you do all this work?When I do artistic work, my first thought is whether this is good for the people as a whole. Do not become like what the Malay proverb says: “Indah khabar dari rupa,” which means the picture is really nice on the outside, but inside there is nothing. So I believe we have to take our heritage and our own history seriously. That has always been my driving principle.

1 Indonesian musical form which predominately utilises the ukulele. 2 Malay wedding ceremony in which the bride and groom sits on the Pelamin (bridal couch). 3 Henna staining ceremony. 4 Poetic form originating from Arabia. 5 Portuguese influenced music form that uses improvised poetry within a set musical form. 6 Malay theatre form practiced in Penang, Malaysia. 7 Traditional Malay dance practiced in Kelantan, Malaysia. 8 Indonesian musical instrument made of bamboo. 9 Traditional Javanese percussion ensemble. 10 Traditional Malay dance originating from Arabia.

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Mohd Noor Mohd Yusofe (or Yusnor Ef) is a Cultural Medallion recipient and legendary figure in the Malay music and film industry. He has written lyrics for more than 260 songs, composed by songwriters like P. Ramlee, Zubir Said, Kassim Masdor and Dick Lee, 128 of which are compiled in the CD, Aku Dia Dan Lagu. He is the author of P. Ramlee Yang Saya Kenal / The P. Ramlee I Know (2000), 7 Magnificent Composers (2000), Melodies of Temasek (2005) and Muzik Melayu Sejak 1940… an (2011). For his contribution to the arts, Yusnor was awarded the Meritorious Award by the Composers and Authors Society of Singapore (COMPASS) in 1997 and the Public Service Medal in 2002. He currently serves on the board of directors of COMPASS and as president of PERKAMUS (Association of Malay Singers, Composers and Professional Musicians). He is also the Chairperson of the National Arts Council’s Malay Music Development Committee and is an advisor for the National Library Board’s digital archive, Music SG.

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Azura (1984) by Deddy M. Borhan


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Word on the Ground

When the Nusantara Rocked… Bobby Dread

Growing up in a cramped one-room rented flat in the early 1980s with parents and grandparents, one of our sole luxuries back then was a simple radio casette player. Needless to say, those tiny speakers blared constantly: 94.2FM. I don’t think the dial on our radio ever moved away from that station frequency. Aside from broadcasting the usual Malay music from all over the region, Radio 2 (or WarnaFM as it is now known) broadcasted Islamic programmes and the call for the daily prayers. It was very wholesome family fare, but there wasn’t much of a choice either. It was the only Malay language radio station back then and stations from neighbouring countries were quite out of reach for our little radio’s antenna.

Fortunately, the station didn’t restrict its programming in terms of genre or music from across the region. Back then the difference between a Singapore artiste or a Malaysian one (or even an Indonesian) was almost non-existent. The station played a well-balanced repertoire from all the major artists in the Nusantara Malay Archipelago region. The camaraderie back then was stronger. Malays from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia shared a common language and a Malaysian producer like Ahmad Nawab could work with Ambon, Indonesia-born Broery Marantika and record the songs in Singapore. That was the norm. So it was never weird for us to hear an evergreen P. Ramlee tune followed by a Jamal Mirdad dangdut song to a ballad by Papa Rock Ramli Sarip. It was an amazing introduction to a wide palate of the Malay lenggok or lilt.

From time to time, there was this young man who would knock on our door holding a box. I recall that he didn’t quite look like he was local and


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in his strange accent, he would peddle the latest casette releases to us. I don’t think those tapes were official releases, but they were cheap. In the early 80’s, the big sellers were groups like Alleycats, Black Dog Bone and The Flybaits. Influenced by contemporary pop, disco and funk, these bands ruled the airwaves with their tight musicanship and slick showmanship. However, my personal favourites of that era were two virtuoso singers whose tragic lives added poignancy to their songs.

As a six-year old kid, there was no other singer I would imitate more than Sudirman Haji Arshad. Sudirman was still studying to be a lawyer when he won a talent show in 1976. His rise to superstardom culminated in him winning the Best Performer at the Asian Music awards in 1989 beating other much more well-known luminaries like Leslie Cheung and Anita Sarawak. Sadly, he was struck down with a mysterious illness and passed away soon after in 1992. What made Sudirman such an icon in an industry that was mostly dominated by bland Malay music was his willingness to experiment and break new ground in his art. The tried and tested formula of ballads and sentimental sachharine tunes were not for him. His repertoire consisted of only patriotic songs or traditional Malay music. After exhausting this musical frontier, he turned to acting. His only film appearance was the leading role in Kami, a 1982 film directed by Patrick Yeoh, in which he played a vagrant who dreams of becoming a pop star. Though the movie was received favourably, it didn’t do as well as he’d have liked.

Jamal Abdillah on the other hand, scored a box office hit in the first Malay film to hit 1-million ringgit with his role as a rich man's son in love with a poor girl in the 1984 film Azura, directed by Deddy M. Borhan. Like Sudirman, he was also a winner of the same talent show in 1979. Though Sudirman was considered a positive role model, Jamal was cast as the opposite when he was jailed for drug abuse at the height of his career. Continuous drug problems and domestic issues hounded him throughout his career. He only recently resumed his singing career after going through rehabilitation. Blessed with matinee idol good looks and

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a melancholic baritone, Jamal though, unlike Sudirman was a very shy performer. He always hid behind his trademark sunglasses and seldom communicated with his audiences. This added to his mystique and even today, his voice really reflects the aches and pains of a wounded soul.

Once in a while, when I had saved enough pocket money I would head to the dingy cassette store in our neighbourhood. Introduced to it by an older cousin, he bought Search's seminal sophomore effort Langit Dan Bumi in 1986 at that store. He and I probably spent hours staring at the cassette sleeve while listening to the music. I was nine years old and at an impressionable age when the burgeoning Malay glam rock scene consumed me. The following year, a bunch of 19-year olds who called themselves Wings arrived on the scene. At last, I had something to call my own. While all the other major acts were well established before I knew of their existence, here was a band, not that much older than me, rocking out to a form of music more brash and raw than I had ever heard before and in a language I understood. And so, an adolescent Mat Rocker was born at a time when was the rock craze reached fever pitch. Rock bands began forming so rapidly in that period; so much so that in 1991, all the 12 finalist slots for the annual Song of the Year awards were taken by rock acts.

I remember November 1992 vividly. That was the day when both Search and Wings, two iconic bands of that era, gave up their defiant stance by cutting their long hair, sporting a shoulder-length look that was deemed acceptable on live television. The law had been enacted previously in Malaysia. It was an attempt to nip the rock craze in the bud by banning men with long hair from appearing on telelvision and live shows. While other lesser-known smaller rock acts complied with the ruling, Search and Wings were well known enough to flout the rule for a few months before they finally gave in as well. It was a symbolic move; while it was not enough to wipe out the massive influence of rock music on Malay musical culture, it did dim the spotlight on it. In many ways, after that, the industry slowly leaned towards contemporary R&B influenced pop music that was more suited to the tastes of urban dwellers.

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Malay Rock's influence in general began to get eclipsed by a more mellow pop sound and this was evident when Nash, the former lead singer of Lefthanded, won Juara Lagu (Champion of Song Awards) 92 with a totally different image than his previous incarnation as a rocker. Awie of the megaband Wings followed suit when he left the band to embark on a very successful solo career with a radio friendly pop rock sound. He even went on to star in several Yusof Haslam's blockbuster movies.

With the advent of the Internet, radio in its current format has struggled to stay relevant. The current generation, with its short attention span and a desire for immediate gratification won’t know the delight I had when I was growing up, of having your favourite song surprise you unexpectedly on the radio, or of those trips to that dingy cassette shop, to buy one album and listen to it again and again.

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A 35-year old construction worker by day, a rock’n’roller by night, Bobby Dread wears different hats as the co-owner of guerilla recording studio The End of Recordings, rhythm guitarist for the critically-acclaimed Malay indie-punk outfit V, and also the lead singer with lounge lizard rockers The Guilt, who have performed at major local festivals, including Baybeats and ZoukOut. He also works with local indie production team SubsceneTV who have been actively documenting emerging bands in the region. Bobby has also edited and directed several of V’s music videos and intends to continue experimenting with digital filmmaking.

When the Nusantara Rocked...


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Write to us

Submissions are eagerly encouraged. We’re keen on writings on cinema that include, but are not limited to:

– overviews of a director’s work;– photo essays celebrating or studying images in a film;– explorations of one particular film or groups of films;– analysis of moments within a film;– situating a film within its historical/political context;– stories or narrative non-fiction pieces inspired by films.

We are not looking for academic treatises, nor are we interested in lightly journalistic film reviews. We’re keen on writing that is sharp, intelligent and knowledgeable, though not without humour. Each piece should be between 1,500 to 2,500 words long.

For submissions and letters to the editor, email: [email protected]

or write to: The Cinémathèque Quarterly National Museum of Singapore 93 Stamford RoadSingapore 178897


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Credits

Editor Vinita Ramani Mohan

Editorial Adviser Ben Slater

Editorial Intern Tay Huizhen

Programme Text Zhang Wenjie, Warren Sin, Low Zu Boon

Graphic Design LSD Corporation

Cover Image Les Enfants du Paradis / Children of Paradise (1945) by Marcel Carné, Image: Collection Fondation Jéròme Seydoux-Pathé © 1945 - PATHÉ PRODUCTION p24–39 Documenting Affect © Ho Rui An, 2012 p40–53 Addendum: The Quiet Man Continues © Noel Vera, 2012 p54–69 Interview: Yusnor Ef © National Museum of Singapore, 2012 p70–75 When Nusantara Rocked… © Bobby Dread, 2012

The Cinémathèque Quarterly October–December 2012 is published by the National Museum of Singapore

ISSN: 2251-2993

All information is correct at the time of print. Every reasonable care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information within, hence, neither the publisher, editor nor writers may be held liable for errors and/or omissions however caused. Every effort has been made to identify copyright holders. We deeply regret that if, despite our concerted efforts, any copyright holders have been overlooked or omitted. Any reproduction, retransmission, republication, or other use of all or part of this publication is expressly prohibited, unless prior written permission has been granted by the National Museum of Singapore or the appropriate copyright owner. The Museum reserves the right to make changes and modifications to the programme without prior notice. The views and opinions expressed by the writers in this publication and the speakers and facilitators in the programme do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or the official policy and position of the National Museum of Singapore.


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About Us

About the National Museum of Singapore CinémathèqueThe National Museum Cinémathèque focuses on the presentation of film in its historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts, with a strong emphasis on local and regional cinema. Housed in the 247-seat Gallery Theatre, the National Museum Cinémathèque offers new perspectives on film through a year-round series of screenings, thematic showcases, and retrospectives that feature both essential and undiscovered works from the history of cinema.

Besides the presentation of film, the National Museum Cinémathèque is also active in film preservation, especially the heritage of Asian cinema, and has worked with regional film archives to restore and subtitle important film classics. With an imaginative and diverse programme that includes Singapore Short Cuts, World Cinema Series, and Under the Banyan Tree, the National Museum Cinémathèque aims to create a vital and vibrant film culture in Singapore.

About the National Museum of SingaporeWith a history dating back to its inception in 1887, the National Museum of Singapore is the nation’s oldest museum with a young soul. Designed to be the people’s museum, the National Museum is a custodian of the 11 National Treasures, and its Singapore History and Living Galleries adopt cutting-edge and varied ways of presenting history and culture to redefine conventional museum experience. A cultural and architectural landmark in Singapore, the museum hosts vibrant festivals and events all year round – the dynamic Night Festival, visually arresting art installations, exciting performances and film screenings – in addition to presenting lauded exhibitions and precious artefacts. The programming is supported by a wide range of facilities and services including F&B, retail and a Resource Centre. The National Museum of Singapore re-opened in December 2006 after a three-year redevelopment.


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Ticketing Information

www.sistic.com.sg / (65) 6348 5555SISTIC counters islandwide or National Museum Stamford Visitor Services: 10 am–7.30 pm

ConcessionsConcession rates for most programmes are available to students (full-time, with valid student pass), seniors (aged 60 years and above, with valid identity pass showing proof of age), NSF (with valid 11B pass), National Museum Volunteers, National Museum Members, NHB Staff and MICA Staff. Passes have to be presented when purchasing tickets.

General Enquiries (65) 6332 3659 / (65) 6332 5642

Film Classification GuideG (General) Suitable for all ages.PG (Parental Guidance) Suitable for all, but parents should guide their young.PG13 (Parental Guidance 13) Suitable for persons aged 13 and above, but parental guidance is advised for children below 13.NC16 (No Children Under 16) Suitable for persons aged 16 and above.M18 (Mature 18) Suitable for persons aged 18 years and above.R21 (Restricted 21) Suitable for adults aged 21 and above. For further details and the latest film ratings, please visit www.nationalmuseum.sg


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Getting to the Museum

Train Bras Basah MRT Station (5-minute walk) Dhoby Ghaut MRT Station (5-minute walk) City Hall MRT Station (10-minute walk) Bus YMCA Bus-stop (08041) SBS: 7, 14, 14e, 16, 36, 64, 65, 111, 124, 128, 139, 162, 162M, 174, 174e, 175 SMRT: 77, 106, 167, 171, 190, 700, 700A, NR6, NR7 SMU Bus-stop (04121) SBS: 7, 14, 14e, 16, 36, 111, 124, 128, 131, 162, 162M, 166, 174, 174e, 175 SMRT: 77, 106, 167, 171, 190, 700, 700A, 857, NR7 Taxi Pick-up and drop-off points are at the Fort Canning entrance or the Stamford entrance. Car Limited parking facility is available at the National Museum. Other parking facilities are available at YMCA, Park Mall, Singapore Management University and Fort Canning Park.

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National Museum of Singapore 93 Stamford Road Singapore 178897 www.nationalmuseum.sg


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