Book on film appreciation glosses over issues

Book on film appreciation glosses over issues

Dasar-dasar Apresiasi Film (The Basics of Film Appreciation)
By Marselli Sumarno
Grasindo, 1997
127 pages

JAKARTA (JP): It's ironic that at a time when Indonesian films
are all but obsolete, film critic Marselli Sumarno publishes a
book titled Dasar-dasar Apresiasi Film (The Basics of Film
Appreciation). Marselli's conviction about the importance of film
appreciation is commendable, but more admirable is his
persistence in the face of daunting obstacles. At times, he must
feel like a lamb lost in the woods.

Not that there aren't others like him. Considering that the
number of Indonesian films made this year can be counted on two
hands, this year's National Film Day will likely pass with a
whimper. But preparing a bigger bang are the nation's young film-
makers, such as Garin Nugroho and Nan T. Achnas, who have
prepared or are preparing new works that they hope will
revitalize the ailing industry. As befitting a country relatively
poor in production infrastructure and defenseless to Western
cultural influence, the film community in Indonesia is small. But
the few involved, including Marselli, refuse to be silenced.

Marselli is particularly noisy, being a film critic for local
publications, and a correspondent for the U.K.-based
International Film Guide. Currently he is head of the Faculty of
Film and Television at the Jakarta Arts Institute.

The lack of film appreciation here, Marselli says, is
particularly noticeable by its absence in school curriculums
compared to art or music appreciation. Marselli adds that only
one other film-centered book, A. Margija Mangunhardjana's
Mengenal Film (Getting to Know Film) has been published in
Indonesia, and that was in 1976.

Since then, Indonesia's film industry has nearly vanished. Yet
surprisingly, Marselli does not discuss this dire situation and
instead focuses on the aspects of film production. This is not a
topical book, this is a technical one.

The clinical perspective is perhaps not what armchair critics
want to read, but it offers unschooled cinemaphiles a cheap
opportunity to bypass film school and learn the art of cinema at
home. Marselli diligently runs through all the factors of movie-
making, from set design to cinematography, sound systems to
scriptwriting, acting to esthetics. After all, a good film is the
sum of its parts, and the world of film is a web of artists,
technicians, and marketers -- a major film can involve more than
200 professions.

To properly assess the quality of these disparate but
contiguous parts, Marselli presents five questions for each, in a
chapter titled the Basics of Film. For example, in judging a
director's work, a critic should ask: Has the director worked in
unison with his team, and got the most from them? Has the
director realized his ideas with clarity? How creative was the
direction? Has the director successfully steered the camera to
produce effective visuals? Is the work a cliche and is it
believable? The function of the film critic, writes Marselli, is
to recognize and analyze the importance of both anesthetics and
ideas in a film. Film appreciation, he suggests, is not just
about art, but it's about culture.

These discussions of cultural value, in a segment titled Film
Appreciation, show Marselli at his best. He says that although
film is generally viewed as entertainment, it actually elicits a
mental process which teaches its audience how to see and read a
story. Film, Marselli writes, is not just an escape from the
dreary everyday, but provides education and reflection. A film is
a document of social phenomena (whatever it may be), and also
offers audience comparisons between the reality at home and the
"reality" onscreen. It's educational not only in factual or
documentation terms, but in psychological, emotional terms.

However, this cognitive ability to benefit from film is
acquired through experience -- as with any form of education, an
ardent film-goer will find more meaning in a film than passive
audiences.

Yet the persuasive nature of film is often overlooked,
although not by propagandists. The potential of film to portray,
educate, and influence, Marselli writes, is limitless. This can
be seen both as praise or warning.

These conjectural discussions of film's power is preceded by a
studious outline of cinematic history. Marselli begins with the
advent of photography (in 1826, by Frenchman Joseph Niepce) and
follows through the U.S.'s Nickelodeon (nickel is for the
cinema's entry fee, and odeon is latin for small exhibition hall)
era of the early 1900s, and the arrival of color motion pictures
in the 1930s. Marselli praises the pioneers from different
countries (Federico Fellini in Italy, Ingmar Bergman in Sweden,
Satyajit Ray in India, and Usmar Ismail in Indonesia) and
thoroughly presents the various genres of the industry --
documentary, animation, and in fiction: musicals, comedies,
horrors, dramas. If you're interested in film, Marselli will keep
you turning the pages.

Then he bravely delves into the issue of censorship --
although with reference to Indonesia, not brave enough, as
Marselli discusses the toning down of sex scenes while making
little mention of the stifling of political themes and scenarios.
In Indonesia, this is a particularly relevant, sensitive, but
often neglected issue -- one that a proper attempt to save the
local film industry cannot shy away from.

Yet Marselli's excuse may be that Indonesian film is not, from
the outset, the central focus of the book. Marselli tries to
include Indonesian films, directors, and actors (particularly
with the photographs), when illustrating a particular genre or
problem, but the light he shines on them is, to use film-talk,
low, not high-beam. It was a surprise to find the book amid the
demise of the local film industry, but it more surprising yet to
find this book, so rare and welcome, failing to save the object
of its

-- Dini S. Djalal