THE NATION observed the 35th death year of National Artist for Film Lino Brocka two days ago.
This isn’t a belated piece for this commemorates the relevance of the man not only in arts and culture but in everyday life of the Filipinos.
I was lucky enough I had the chance to navigate around him not necessarily as a friend but as a colleague in the entertainment industry.
It was because his former publicist and business manager, the still missing TV host, star maker, entertainment writer and talent manager Boy de Guia was my mentor.
It was Kuya (a term of endearment to an older man or brother by blood or affinity) Boy who brought us to Lino and from there on, we had our regular meetings and exchanges of notes, no matter how flippant or gossipy, and ideas, mundane or socially engaging.
I learned a lot from Lino, especially, professionally.
I might not be a fulltime director yet but it was from Brocka, a very fast worker, that I should emulate the attitude of “loving the craft and enjoying it at the same time.”
He took his heavy job lightly.
I remember when we were shooting “Akin ang Iyong Katawan” in Baguio City for PLG Films.
The movie starred Christopher de Leon, Carmi Martin, Dennis Roldan and Maria Isabel Lopez.
The scene was shot in a hospital room.
Lino would just instruct his assistant director Jon Arino, production designer Joey Luna, production manager George Santos, among other staff to prepare the set for the next scene or sequence.
He would just go to a corner and take a nap.
When the mise-en-scene was already prepared, Jon would call Lino who rose up quickly.
On the set, Brocka would just shout “Okay, motor, roll!” and the actors would play their parts.
That’s how cool Brocka was.
No tantrums, no yells.
Yes, he would sit his actors down on separate occasions, on any subject that he felt his stars, whom he considered family, misbehaved or confused over a lot of things from professionalism to personal attitudes to political views.
At the set of “Hot Property” which starred Carmi who at the time was hesitant to do the “bathing scene” in a girlie bar where she would play a model wearing a see-through nightie and sitting alluringly on a giant basin to be poured in water with a tabo (dipper) by male customers to wet her body.
He didn’t waste time and talked intently with Martin who finally understood what her director wanted her to do without pressure and negative repercussions. It was all for the beauty of the film.
Even in his political films like “Bayan Ko Kapit sa Patalim” or “Orapronobis,” Lino was bubbly on the set in an atmosphere mimicking a tension-filled opposition between labor strikers against a petty bourgeois business operator or rallyists versus the military or police.
Before embarking on a film or TV project, Lino would sit down with the producers with Kuya Boy in tow. and discuss thoroughly the whole production.
Lino was straightforward in his dealings with creative capitalists.
He would speak up, without hesitation, his points and called spade a spade.
In one of his business meetings with Lily Monteverde, also known as Mother Lily, the late matriarch of Regal Entertainment, he would say, as witnessed by Kuya Boy, “bobo ka, Lily” right to her face.
He had the temerity to beg off directing Kris Aquino and Sharon Cuneta at the prime of their career.
It was only when Vic del Rosario, Viva Entertainment honcho, gave in by producing “Macho Dancer” that Lino touched Sharon.
It was a “compromised deal.”
Look! “Macho Dancer,” a trailblazing project made well at the box-office which is considered the longest running film internationally.
The day In-ya (a term of endearment, a jumbled word for Inay as in Mother many of his colleagues addressed him) met his fatal car accident on May 22, 1991 as we still commemorate him, memories rush in.