Lino Brocka (1939–1991) was one of Asia and the Global South’s most celebrated filmmakers. A versatile talent, he was at once a bankable director of genre movies, an internationally acclaimed auteur of social films, a pioneer of queer cinema, and an outspoken critic of Ferdinand Marcos’s autocratic regime. José B. Capino examines the figuration of politics in the Filipino director’s movies, illuminating their historical contexts, allegorical tropes, and social critiques. Combining eye-opening archival research with fresh interpretations of over fifteen of Brocka’s major and minor works, Martial Law Melodrama does more than reveal the breadth of his political vision. It also offers a timely lesson about popular cinema’s vital role in the struggle for democracy.
José B. Capino is Associate Professor of English and Cinema Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His first book, Dream Factories of a Former Colony, received the prize in cultural studies from the Association for Asian American Studies.
List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgments1. The Country and the City: Social Melodrama and the Symptomsof Authoritarian Rule2. “A Thoroughly Different Kind of Mother”: Surrogate Autocrats,Restive Youth, and the Maternal Melodrama3. The Melodramatics of Crime: Film Noir in the Twilight of Martial Law4. Tales of Unrelenting Misfortunes: Family Melodrama and the 1980sEconomic Crisis5. Men in Revolt: Two Experiments in Political Cinema6. A Dirty Affair: Political Melodramas of Democratization7. Picturing “A Faggot’s Dilemma”: Sexuality, Politics, and a Commercein Queer MoviesCoda: Three Non-endingsNotesIndex
"Written in clear and urgent prose, Martial Law Melodrama invites a wide readership, giving access to an intricate sociopolitical history and awakening the desire to revisit Brocka’s impressive oeuvre . . ."
