May Day Eve
Tonight, I’m going to enter one of the two stories I wrote for Chari’s class to this year’s Palancas. I had planned on submitting the other story too, but for some reason I feel too lazy to revise it, at least for now. It’ll be a waste of money and paper if I submit that story in its current state. But I have to revise it sooner or later; the premise has a lot of potential.
And the story I’m going to submit? I really don’t want to dwell on its chances, especially since it will be up against very stiff competition. But I can hope, right? That’s the best thing one can do. I have learned long ago not to expect too much; you will be setting yourself up for possible disappointment if you do. It’s a no-brainer that luck plays a key role in these things. The high quality of an entry will help it pass through the first round, but I believe it’s the combination of (certain) judges that will decide which ones will place in those three coveted spots. No matter how objective the deliberations may be, personal preferences will usually crop up.
I could’ve submitted my entry earlier, but I like submitting on the day of the deadline. It’s kind of fun meeting up with friends who also joined and have something like this:
ME: Sino pa ang alam mong sumali this year?
FRIEND: Si [ganito] at si [ganyan].
ME: Talaga? (Laughs) Wala na. Talo na entry ko. Dinig ko sumali din si [ganoon].
FRIEND: Gano’n? Naku, siguradong mananalo ulit siya.
To those who are joining the Palancas this year: GOOD LUCK!
Holy Weekend!
Could you guess what I did in Batangas last Thursday? Ü Below are a few clues:
Exhausting yet quite enjoyable. What a day. I wonder where I will going next year.
UPDATE (April 16): A HAPPY AND HEARTY EASTER, EVERYONE!
A Provocative Film with a Powerful Premise
OK, here’s another one of those reviews recycled as blog posts. As my way to mark Holy Week, I’m posting my DVD review on Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, which was first published in the March 22, 2004 issue of the Philippine Graphic.
Title: The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriter: Paul Schrader, based on Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie
Nomination: 1988 Academy Award nominee for Best Director
Rating: R for nudity and violence
From its earliest beginnings, Christianity has taught believers that Jesus is both human and divine. The Apostles’ Creed attests that He is God’s “only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary”; and the Angelus, in turn, declares how “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Yet Christian art and literature has too often portrayed Jesus as a stoic, remote and dignified figure, more God than man; and the Church has focused more frequently on His divinity than on His humanity.
The Last Temptation of Christ, Martin Scorsese’s provocative adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s very controversial novel, presents the Son of God as a hesitant, all-too-human savior. The film became so controversial when it was first released in 1988 that countless conservative Christians, the now-Blessed Teresa of Calcutta among them, had publicly denounced it without ever seeing it. Hundreds had even picketed at the theaters exhibiting the film. Only Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ had matched the furor Scorsese’s film had caused.
Still, the movie offers the open-minded viewer an ultimately worthwhile experience. Gritty and sparse, even occasionally powerful, The Last Temptation of Christ gives the familiar account of Jesus’ ministry, passion and death a fictionalized and rather radical spin. Here, Jesus (Willem Dafoe) starts out as a self-doubting carpenter, unsure of His mission; then develops into a very inspiring and passionate preacher; and finally evolves into the reluctant redeemer who eventually accepts His fate, but not before experiencing one last temptation at Calvary.
But that’s not all. Judas (Harvey Keitel, sporting kinky orange hair and a New York accent) now comes across as a more sympathetic figure, and even becomes Jesus’ first disciple. And the harlot-turned-disciple Mary Magdalene (Barbara Hershey) now turns out to be Christ’s former beloved. Not only that, there’s Saul (Harry Dean Stanton), a Zealot who later becomes the apostle Paul; and Pontius Pilate (David Bowie), who now looks more formal and stern than he ever did in the Gospels. No wonder conservative Christians were so incensed.
Provocative as the movie is, its power lies at how it portrays Jesus’ struggle with His humanity, and Scorsese and his longtime screenwriter Paul Schrader manage to bring this to life. No doubt Scorsese has done better work elsewhere (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas easily spring to mind), but no one can deny the commitment and sincerity he brings to the movie, and they show. Plus, one can’t help but admire his courage to take on such risky material. That said, the film is a little overlong (the climactic final temptation could use some further trimming) and Peter Gabriel’s music scores in some scenes, but somewhat misses in others.
The actors, particularly Keitel and Hershey, also deserve admiration for the sincerity they bring to their respective roles. But I have to single out Dafoe’s underrated performance in the title role for a number of reasons. Here, he portrays the ultimate good guy, and heaven knows how hard it is to play such a character, and play it convincingly. But Dafoe manages to pull it off: his Jesus is a very human one—emotional, questioning, struggling. One can’t help but feel His self-doubt concerning His mission, or His passion as He preached about God, or His understandable reluctance to face His fate, to sacrifice Himself to save the world from sin.
The Last Temptation of Christ certainly challenged Scorsese and his actors, and one can’t help but wonder: What attracted them to the novel? What compelled them to make the movie at all? What are the insights they have gathered as a result? Regrettably, the DVD contains no special features that could answer these valuable questions. All it can show for are the usual: chapter-selection and subtitle options, and an unremarkable theatrical trailer.
It may have its shortcomings, but The Last Temptation of Christ remains to be a provocative film with a powerful premise. It may not be for everyone, but those open-minded enough to see it should find it worthwhile. If nothing else, what the movie achieves is that it presents another side to Jesus, a more human side, full of conflicting emotions and contradictions. A Jesus we can truly relate to. For that, one can’t help but appreciate His sacrifice all the more. In this season of Lent, what He underwent for us is something we should reflect on. (Copyright © 2004 by A.I.D.)
From Charlson to Chari
Yesterday, I submitted to Chari Lucero my revised drafts of the two stories—one is conventional realist fiction; the other, speculative—I had presented in her Ph.D.-level fiction-workshop class, effectively ending a very challenging semester that really tested my ability as a fictionist.
I can’t help but remember all the fiction-workshop teachers I had since I entered UP as a graduate student. Charlson Ong was my first. During one of our first sessions he had us read what I suppose were his favorite stories, including Bharati Mukherjee’s The Management of Grief and Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. His final requirement was easy: one revised short story. I later left that story in some dustbin; I’m ashamed of it now. I admire Charlson as a fictionist, but as a teacher—well, it’s a good thing that he was the first. Ü
After Charlson, Butch Dalisay. I truly cherish my first writing class under him, not only because he was the one teaching it, but also because he and the five students (myself included, of course) that made up that class became quite close by the semester’s end. I also cherish the three stories I wrote for that class, because these were responsible for getting me a slot in the Dumaguete workshop five years ago. As a teacher, Butch can really inspire. But I found it rather frustrating whenever he would give me oblique comments when what I wanted was for him to tell me straight what were the flaws in my stories. I asked him once about this, and he told me he doesn’t like using the direct approach because if he did, he would be “trampling” on his students’ (writing) dreams.
In contrast, Jing Hidalgo would honestly tell me what’s wrong with my story and what I may do to correct it. I appreciated her a good deal for that when I attended her fiction-writing class. That said, she doesn’t quite inspire the way Butch does. Both are formalists to the core, but between the two of them Jing’s formalist orientation is stronger, especially when she’s on professor mode. She’s now my thesis adviser, and I’m sure she’ll make me work hard to come up with several publishable stories for my thesis. Now, if only her hectic schedule can accommodate me sometime.
Chari was easily the most passionate of all my fiction-workshop teachers, not to mention the most knowledgeable about Philippine literature. Not only in English and Filipino, but also in the regional (particularly Visayan) languages. She was a relentless taskmaster: requiring us to type and print our comments on our classmates’ drafts, which my classmates and I have never done before, and requiring us to provide excerpts as examples of fictional elements as listed in David Lodge’s book The Art of Fiction, and so on. Every meeting we had to submit something to her. We discussed many diverse stories, from Haruki Murakami’s Barn Burning and Ana Blandania’s The Phantom Church to Ines Taccad Camayo’s People of Consequence to Estrella Alfon’s Fairy Tale for the City. And her comments on our drafts were as sharp as surgical blades. She’s that good. My classmates and I naturally learned a lot from her. We have learned so much that most, if not all of us, plan not to enroll in any of her fiction-writing classes in the future.
I plan to take another fiction-workshop class next semester as a penalty subject. I don’t know who’s going to be my teacher this time, but I’m hoping for Butch again. In any case, it will be another class for me to push myself to write new stories. I've never been a prolific writer.
Come to My Window: A Year Later
When I first began blogging exactly a year ago today, I really didn’t know why. Was it because I have friends who were blogging? Was it because it’s trendy to do so? What it maybe it might help me with my writing? It could be any or all of those reasons.
But I do know is that I don’t regret having my own blog. It may not be the best or the most popular, but who really cares? Being better at writing than at speaking, I like to think that the things I posted here allowed more people to know me, or know me better—who I am, what my interests are, what my worldview is. At the same time, having my own blog allowed me to know other people—actually, other bloggers—better. I’m quite sure these wouldn’t happen at all without blogging.
What else can I say? I made my very own space in cyberspace, and I’m glad for it. I’m also glad that I managed to maintain it. I have completed a cycle. Now on to the next.
