MANILA, Philippines - In his richly documented book titled ?The Cinema of Manuel Conde? (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 280 pages), scholar-playwright Nicanor G. Tiongson presents with meticulous attention to detail the prolific and illustrious artistic achievements of Manuel Conde, better known to his fans and admirers as Juan Tamad.

With a hefty load of judicially chosen archival materials in the form of splendid production stills (handsomely reproduced by UST Publishing House), news clippings, publicity posters, pages from handwritten shooting scripts, set and costume design sketches by National Artist Botong Francisco and on top of all these, an annotated filmography with a synopsis for each of 39 films Conde directed (along with a list of his documentary films, acting and writing credits in other films), Tiongson serves a sumptuous spread of Conde?s film output for film scholars and movie buffs to savor and relish.

Tiongson?s meaty volume is to a large extent (as acknowledged in the author?s introduction) the result of the generous archival contributions of the surviving members of Conde?s family. With their help and by drawing from other research materials in different libraries and viewing copies of seven of the films Conde directed, Tiongson has been able to provide a full-bodied profile of Conde covering five periods of his life.

In the book?s first five chapter biographical section, Tiongson traces Conde?s entry into the movies and moves on to his apprenticeship with directors like Carlos Vander Tolosa, his early directorial successes, his establishment of his own production company called MC Pictures, his trips to Hollywood and participation in the 1952 Venice Film Festival where he showed a re-edited ?Genghis Khan? (featuring an English track written by the renown American film critic James Agee), his critical and commercial hits like the Juan Tamad series, and his final productive years.

Colorful

Along the way, Tiongson spices his narration with interesting quips and quotes which reveal Conde?s personality and work ethic.

Some of the colorful anecdotes refer to the ?Conde Touch? which was Conde?s way of extracting realism from his stars? acting. On one occasion before shooting a scene for ?Ibong Adarna? (1955), Conde prepped his actor Nestor de Villa by running 10 times around the LVN lot with the actor so that by the time they returned to the set, the actor had no trouble projecting the scene?s message that he was exhausted from traveling a very long distance.

As Tiongson often underscores in his narration, Conde?s emphasis on realism contributed to the critical and commercial success of his films and was among the chief stylistic innovations he did in his films.

For instance, in the case of Genghis Khan (1950), he relied on Botong Francisco?s encyclopedic knowledge of Mongolian nomadic life to make the sets, costumes and battle scenes as authentic as possible.

At a screening in Hollywood, some viewers commended Conde for fielding short horses typically found in Mongolia. (Conde himself was amused by this remark since the short horses he found were from the karitelas in Angono and Taytay where the film was shot.)

Even if a film was a royal adventure fantasy picture like Prinsipe Paris (1949), he injected realistic swordplay which thrilled audiences because actual blades were used instead of the typical wooden sticks that were the bane of eskrimahan scenes in many Filipino films.

Social comment

Another style that was Conde?s signature mark was his integration of social comment and nationalism in his films whatever the genre of the movie was be it musical, comedy, drama or action.

His Juan Tamad films became the epitome of this aesthetic as Conde perfected his style of tackling the issues of the times without becoming preachy or didactic.

As he shared in an interview: ?Good movies are like castor oil. It?s good for the body but nobody wants to take it. You have to sugarcoat serious films.?

Due to his singular artistic vision, Conde eschewed making films which to him had no educational value or social relevance at all. Abiding by his principles, Conde sought to maintain his creative independence and set up MC Pictures as his own production company.

For Tiongson, Conde?s progressive thinking and resistance to the demands of the commercial studio system in his time parallels and even anticipates or predates the non-mainstream efforts of today?s independent filmmakers.

In the book?s last chapter, Tiongson expounds on this insightful thesis and he persuasively shows that wherever Conde worked, be it with other studios or his own company, the long arc of his artistic growth and maturity was delineated by a strong independent aesthetic sensibility which empowered him to explore and introduce new ways of adapting folk literature or reshaping popular genres, critique the status quo or take on the challenge of rising to the standards of world cinema like the Venice Film Festival.

Cultural studies

Although Tiongson?s explanation of Conde?s significance as a filmmaker to today?s audiences is comprehensive and multi-faceted, much of his appraisal emanates from a cultural studies point of view.

His arguments can still be fortified by intensive and close critical readings of significant parts of Conde?s extant films, particularly in the way that Conde constructed and codified film space, the interplay of various elements within the frame and the evolution of such a system over time as shown in different films.

For example, Tiongson quotes what a number of local and foreign critics have often remarked about Conde?s Genghis Khan?that first, his molding of film space and time is reminiscent of Sergei Eisenstein, the seminal Russian filmmaker and second, that his visual rendering of spectacle is far more involving and evocative than the other multimillion dollar Hollywood studio versions of the same subject.

While such information is vital, an in-depth shot analysis of key sequences from the film needs to be done to substantiate and validate these comparisons.

A thick description of how Conde configured the screen world and moved his camera in film space or directed the movement of his actors and other production elements in relation to each other and to the camera can advance our knowledge of and enliven our appreciation for Conde?s peculiar film language and poetics of his compelling imagery.

Perhaps this task can be tackled by the other books following Tiongson?s volume, it being the first in the Filipino Film Directors series under the direction of Cesar Hernando.

Nevertheless, Tiongson?s account of Conde?s achievements is a solid and engrossing read and delivers a forceful case for declaring him as one of our National Artists for Cinema. It is a pioneering effort that sets high standards for succeeding volumes to match or surpass.

Given the pitiful state of film preservation in the country and the lack of documentation about the works of our film masters, Tiongson?s book is an invaluable resource for it saves for posterity and restores to our cultural memory the enduring artistry of Conde by the wealth of its archival materials, depth of its analysis and breadth of its appraisal of his magnificent cinematic legacy.

?The Cinema of Manuel Conde? is available at Solidaridad and leading bookstores. Call 7313522, or 4061611 loc. 8252, 8278.

The author is an associate professor in the Department of Communication of De La Salle University and is chair of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino and the Committee on Cinema of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.