DOCUMENTARY
CINEMA
Vs. DOMINICAN CINEMA
An interview with René Fortunato.
Note: This interview was published on Listín Diario´s edition of May 11,
1997.
-Nexcy D'León-
N.L.- I have noticed that when speaking of recent Dominican cinema and
a chronology is shown, your work is not included....It seems like your
work is not cinema, and if it is not cinema, then…..what is it that you
make?
I make feature films documentaries, supported on video images and technology.
The colleagues who have recently produced movies in our country have made
fiction cinema, supporting images on a thin, transparent tape made of
plastic, covered by a photosensitive emulsion, called film.
Now give me more details.
What is cinema?
The word is an apocope of cinematograph which is at the same time a construction
of the greek “kinema”, which means movement, and the suffix “graph”, which
means drawing/image.
As you can see, cinema is IMAGE IN MOTION.
This is the essential quality that distinguishes it from other artistic
expressions known by the human being.
In a few years of evolution and development, the art of cinema has become
a language with its own expression codes, norms and basic principles.
Therefore, the fundamental concepts of cinematographic language are three:
Time, Space and Movement. From these basic elements become others, with
diverse variables that allow us to express ourselves with images in motion.
When we were studying at school, grammar teachers struggled to teach us
that, in order to write Spanish correctly, we needed to know that the
smallest grammatical unit with complete sense was the sentence, composed
by Subject, Verb and Predicate.
Once the fundamental writing rules are known, we can write on our notebook,
on a house wall, on a computer diskette, or anywhere else where writing
is possible.
The material that serves as a support for our writing will not determine
what language we use or if we are communicating effectively in our language,
NO WAY. What will determine is if we are expressing ourselves correctly
is the proper use of the grammatical norms that rule our language.
It is the same situation with cinema.
The material that serves as a support for the images in motion does not
determine the artistic expression that we call cinema.
It is comprehensible that through the use of language we tend to call
movie what really is commercial fiction cinema, just because of the material
that it is made of; but what we can not spread is the false concept that
it is not a movie if it is not made of film.
It is important to emphasize that the material we call film was invented
in 1888 by the North American manufacturer George Eastman Kodak, seven
years before the beginning of cinema in 1895.
Movie and film are not the same.
Film, I repeat, refers to the material, and movie refers to the artistic
expression that is captured on that material.
N.L.- When did you come up with the idea of using video to produce national
cinema, particularly in the documentary genre, and what have been the
results of that experience?
In 1988 when I presented the documentary “APRIL: THE TRENCH OF HONOR”
(Pitírre Award to the Best Documentary in the Caribbean Region during
the 2nd Movie Festival in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Oct. 1990), I wrote an
article under the title: “Video: The National Cinema Alternative”.
On that opportunity I proposed that video technology should be used to
put the national cinema in motion and made public the recommendations
that motivated me to start the production of feature film documentaries
using, as image support, video technology.
Today, almost ten years after the publication of that article, the last
Dominican movies have had to use video technology, not to support their
images, but to support one of the fundamental procedures of the cinematographic
production, like the editing process.
Regarding video technology, I have explained that I use it as image support;
but in addition to that, I have to point out that this word designates
different, yet interrelated things:
*Video, the recording VHS device (Video Home System)
*Video, the tape on which we record images-Video format-
*Video, the expressive genre which codes are constantly being shaped and
defined.
*Video, wave that carries the received image in our television and known
in the TV argot as “video signal”. (In the fifties, on La Voz Dominicana
scripts, the word “Video” appears referring to the image shown on TV screen).
Despite the fact that video was born from the television core, today is
a completely independent media. Therefore, video and television are not
synonymous.
Television refers to “distant transmission of animated images, particularly
those made through hertzian waves”- P. Larousse Dic.-
The distinctive characteristic of TV is immediacy, and when that quality
requires to be transcended, it has to resort to film or video.
N.L.- How do you see the Dominican audience response towards your work,
do many people go to the movies, do you have box office success?
When the art of cinema was born, on December 1895, several characteristics
of this new art where established: image in motion, an obscure theater,
a giant screen and an audience paying to get into the theater.
From the first showing in Paris it was established that there is no movie
without an audience; the audience is the component that allows the filmmaker
to influence society and therefore measure the acceptance or rejection
levels of his work.
The 27th of October, 1988, premiered APRIL: The Trench of Honor, in four
movie theaters in Santo Domingo, that same day premiered two multimillion
productions from Hollywood in the same amount of theaters.
According to data of that year, obtained by Cinedom, Cinema Centro Dominicano
and Multicine Colonial, the amount of people who assisted during the first
week to watch those premieres, were as follows:
--BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY - - - - - - - - - - - - 7,067 viewers
(Luces de la Gran Ciudad)
--MAID TO ORDER - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - -4,431 viewers
(De Sirvienta a Millonaria)Maid to Order)
--APRIL: THE TRENCH OF HONOR - - - - - - -12,764 viewers As you can see,
the amount of people who assisted to watch the Dominican documentary is
almost twice the amount of people that concurred to see the foreign fiction
movies in 35 millimeters format.
Let´s reproduce a part of the cinematographic summary of year 1991, published
on January 12, 1992, at El Nacional Newspaper under the signature of Bienvenido
Olivier:
Blockbuster Record, Dominican Republic, 1991:
1. Terminator II.
2. Y... donde está el policía? Parte 21 D2.
3. TRUJILLO: THE POWER OF THE GENERALISSIMO
4. Un detective en Kinder.
5. Ciudad de la Nueva Guardia.
6. Robin Hood.
7. Edward Scissor Hands.
8. Dance with Wolves.
9. Silence of the Lambs.
10. The Godfather part III
Let us take a look at the cinematographic summary of year 1996, published
on Listín Diario- Escala Magazine- January 12, 1997.
The movie with the highest exhibition rate in theaters was “Nutty Professor”,
with 16 weeks, followed by:
*THE POWER OF THE GENERALISSIMO ---8 weeks.--
*EL PUERQUITO VALIENTE. ---7 weeks.--
*PARA VIVIR O MORIR. ---6 weeks.--
*FUEGO CONTRA FUEGO. ---6 weeks.--
*EL CALLEJON DE LOS MILAGROS. -5 weeks.--
If we analyze this information carefully, we will verify that the audience
support to documentary cinema has been massive and that in the case of
some theaters in the interior of the country the assistance has been amazing.
In few parts of the world, documentary cinema can be scheduled to be shown
in movie theaters, competing with the multimillion productions of Hollywood,
because it is assumed that the documentary genre is not commercially appealing.
N.L.- To whom do you blame the blockbuster success of the movies you make,
specially if we take into account that you work with an unconventional
format like video and a non commercial genre like feature film documentary?
The explanation is that in my work there is an adequate use of the essential
elements in the cinematographic language, as well as the joint of the
dramatic structure of fiction cinema, but adapted for historical data
and events.
Someone will say, like I have been told “People go to the movies to watch
your work because of the topics they show”.
That isn´t true at all. Without a doubt, the topics get people´s attention;
but if the topics are not well suggested, in 15 minutes people will raise
from their chairs and walk out of the theater, or simply won´t go watch
a documentary made by the director that bored them before.
N.L.- Tell me about the distribution. How do you distribute your work
in order to reach those who can not get to the theaters, for one reason
or another?
One of the issues of the Latin American cinema is distribution.
It is very hard for a director in our latitude to reach his target audience
effectively, either at his home land or beyond its borders.
The multinational North American film companies control most of the theaters´
schedule in our countries. Therefore, among other reasons, to distribute
fiction movies internationally is almost an impossible mission, imagine
now feature film documentaries.
These and other thoughts crossed my mind in the eighties. It was then
when I decided to use the home video system, widely known as “VHS”, in
order to reach the audience directly, without intermediaries in the way
or boundaries to get to any place where there was a concern about our
country.
When someone tells me that he has seen one of my works, I use to ask him
where did he see it. To my surprise, some of them tell me that they have
seen it in Alaska, Palestina, Paris, Chile and other unimaginable places.
Out of modesty, I mention these places so that people can have an idea
of how far a movie can be distributed using the video format, and how
useful VHS is to reach people anywhere there are.
N.L.- Could you make a list of the cinematographic productions made in
our country and that can be considered part of the Dominican national
cinema?
Of course, I recently prepared a chronology of the Dominican cinema feature
films of the last twenty years, ignoring value judgment and prejudices
of any kind.
It is fair to highlight the effort made by Dominican filmmakers, which
has been astounding, in their determination to show Dominican aspects
on the big screen. A tangible example of that effort has been the diversity
of formats used to print images in motion, as you will be able to confirm
in the following chronology, which was made taking into account the following
conditions:
1.Produced by Dominicans with a Dominican theme.
2.Premiered at commercial movie theaters in our country charging the audience
an entrance ticket.
3.Approximate time:
90 minutes.
DOMINICAN CINEMA CHRONOLOGY FOR THE LAST 20
YEARS.
1. Title:
VIACRUCIS, 7 DIAS CON EL PUEBLO y RUMBO AL PODER.
Director:
Jimmy Sierra and José Bujosa Mieses.
Genre:
Documentary
Format:
16 mm reversible, extended to 35 mm.
Premiere date:
October, 1978.
Theaters:
Olimpia and Doble.
(The three together completed a 90 minute program)
2.Title:
UN PASAJE DE IDA.
Director:
Agliberto Meléndez.
Genre:
Fiction (Drama).
Format:
Super 16 mm, extended to 35 mm.
Premiere date:
February, 1988.
Theaters:
Palacio del Cine, Doble, Triple and Cinema Centro.
3.Title:
APRIL: THE TRENCH OF HONOR
Director:
René Fortunato.
Genre:
Documentary.
Format:
U-Matic Video.
Premiere date:
October, 1988.
Theaters:
Triple, Doble, Bolívar and Palacio del Cine.
4.Title:
TRAFICO DE NIÑOS.
Director:
Alfonso Rodríguez.
Genre:
Fiction (Drama).
Format:
U-Matic Video.
Premiere date:
December, 1988.
Theaters:
Cinema Centro and Max.
5.Título:
TRUJILLO: THE POWER OF THE GENERALISSIMO
Director:
René Fortunato.
Genre:
Documental.
Format:
U-Matic Video.
Premiere date:
September, 1991.
Theaters:
Palacio del Cine and Cine Triple.
6.Title:
TRUJILLO:
THE POWER OF THE GENERALISSIMO II
Director:
René Fortunato.
Genre:
Documentary
Format:
Betacam Video SP.
Premiere date:
October, 1994.
Theaters:
Cinema Centro and Plaza Central Manzana.
7.Title:
NUEBA YOL.
Director:
Angel Muñiz.
Genre:
Fiction (Comedy).
Format:
35 millimeters.
Premiere date:
October, 1995.
Theaters:
Palacio del Cine, Triple, Doble, Cineplex, Doble
(Santiago) and Vega Real, La Vega.
8. Title:
TRUJILLO:
THE POWER OF THE GENERALISSIMO III.
Director: René Fortunato.
Genre:
re date: February, 1996.
Theaters:
Cineplex Naco, Triple, Palacio del Cine,
Cine Doble (Santiago) and Progresista (La Vega).
9.Title:
PARA VIVIR O MORIR.
Director:
Radel Villalona.
Genre:
Fiction.
Format:
35 millimeters.
Premiere date:
April, 1996.
Theaters:
Palacio del Cine, Cineplex Naco, Triple and Doble.
10.Title:
4 HOMBRES Y UN ATAUD.
Pericles Mejía.
Genre:
Fiction (Comedy).
Format:
35 millimeters.
Premiere date:
December, 1996.
Theaters:
Palacio del Cine, Cineplex Naco, Triple and Doble.
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