Acknowledging a Recognition vs. Appreciating an Achievement

John Berger, in his acceptance speech upon receiving the Booker Prize for his novel ‘G’ in 1972, spoke of the meaning of prizes:
“Since you have awarded me this prize, you may like to know, briefly, what it means to me. The competitiveness of prizes I find distasteful. And in the case of the prize the publication of the shortlist, the deliberately publicized suspense, the speculation of writers concerned as though they were horses, the whole emphasis on winners and losers is false and out of place in the context of literature.

Nevertheless prizes act as a stimulus-not to writers themselves but to publishers, readers and booksellers. And so the basic cultural value of a prize depends upon what it is a stimulus to.”

**

“Why is it, that when an athlete competes and succeeds on the world stage, as in the case Manny Pacquiao, the entire country is united in cheering him on, but when a filmmaker competes and wins in a prestigious film festival, this isn’t always the case?” An eminent scholar on Southeast Asia questioned the programmer of an important Southeast Asian film festival during a film conference in Manila late last year.

The programmer had been discussing the nature of film festivals. While I don’t recall everything he said, I remember two things quite clearly, the first an anecdote, the second a statement. They may have been the reason for the scholar’s question or they may have been the answer to it. What matters now is simply to recount them:

Anecdote: “Malaysian filmmaker U-Wei Haji Saari has vowed to always premiere his films in Malaysia before showing them in any film festival in the world, and he does it. That’s why I respect U-Wei: he knows who he is making his films for.”
Statement: “I don’t give a fuck about Cannes.”

The scholar couldn’t have known the gravity with which his question would resonate months later, when Filipino director Brillante Mendoza was given the Best Director Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his Kinatay, causing impassioned discussion (with merit of otherwise) about the award, and the manner in which it was acknowledged on local shores.
**

Boxing is a sport, and as such is a spectacle of the moment. When Manny Pacquiao wins a boxing match, we witness the reason for the achievement – the fight itself – either by watching it on TV, listening to it on the radio, catching a replay on YouTube or seeing the highlights on the news. We celebrate what we saw and felt, the achievement we were able to participate in.
When a director wins a prize at a foreign film festival we read or hear about it in the news and unless we have seen and think highly of the film ourselves (so rare a case given that our films that win prizes are seldom the ones widely screened), when we celebrate, we celebrate the fact of their recognition, but not, as in the case Manny Pacquiao, the reason for their achievement itself. It often involves what we call blind faith.
This is the great difference between art and sport: in sport the greatness of an athlete’s skill is tested on the world’s stage; in art we look to the world not to test our greatness (which is, unlike sport, is not quantifiable) but simply to acknowledge it. If Manny Pacquiao had only fought local fighters, we wouldn’t be able to tell how good he really was or what he was capable of as a boxer: it is crucial to understanding the immensity of an athlete’s skill that he go outside of the country and fight the best in the world, for the extent of his ability be tested. To remain at home and continue fighting inferior boxers would be to waste his ability.

When a Filipino director wins an award at a film festival abroad, we swell with a distinctly different kind of pride, because the recognition a film (or any other work of art) receives abroad doesn’t change the nature or quality of that work of art. The work remains the same; at most, it is our perception of it that changes. Art is not sport and neither is it competition, sport relies on competition to test ability; ability in art cannot be measured by competition and neither can it reasonably be validated by it: it is industries that organize competitions in the arts in order to put concrete value on what is otherwise intangible: beauty.
***

Brillante Mendoza’s victory in Cannes has been received, if not lauded, by the following local institutions: the City of Mandulong (where he resides), the Province of Pampanga (where he is from), University of Santo Tomas (his Alma Mater), the Director’s Guild of the Philippine Islands (of which he is a member), and the President of the Republic (who, with great craft and in a single sentence, turned her praise of Mendoza into praise of herself, and whose recognition comes with a One Million Peso ‘thank you for bringing the country pride’ check). Mendoza has taken an appropriately cool stance to all the fanfare: “there is a lot of attention but in a week or two, everything will be back to normal”. Many in the media, however, have voiced their displeasure, wondering, as our scholar did at the beginning of the article, why Mendoza wouldn’t receive an even warmer welcome, one similar, say, to the type Pacquiao receives?

While a marching band, a grand dinner, a parade or even a million pesos are all appealing gestures, they are effused more with the pomp of celebration than any authentic attempt at appreciation: a facile way of saying we acknowledge the recognition you have received – a sentiment giving greater premium to outsider recognition than to the work itself. A proposition for the future: perhaps a more generous way to show appreciation for the work of our artists, should we truly believe the work itself important and not just the recognition: show them.

Just imagine: how many free screenings could be sponsored for a million pesos?
–

With thanks to Nika Bohinc.

(Originally published in the Philippines Free Press July 18, 2009.)

- by Alexis Tioseco