Ely Cruz, 1948 - 2023

Shadow man

Ely Cruz passed just a few weeks ago, an event little noted by newspapers or even by the studios he worked for-- a tragedy, because he was a master cinematographer who worked for filmmakers as diverse as Mike de Leon, Peque Gallaga, Gil Portes, Chito Rono, Tikoy Aguiluz. 

Cruz was a believer in onscreen realism, in camera movement that served the narrative and wasn't just for show. He also believed in shadows-- in their power to add depth to a shot, preserve the mystery of a character's inner life, lure the viewer out of his seat into the film frame.

Cruz was born on 18 February, 1948, in Taguig Rizal. He majored in commerce for two years at Arellano University, got a job as visual artist at Channel 13, worked his way up to news cameraman, shot and directed the series Vigilantes, and (in 1975) was chief cameraman for the Metro Manila Commission's Metro Magazine.

Cruz's first film assignment was as camera operator in Mike de Leon's short Monologo (Monologue, 1975) and later, with Rody Lacap, as cinematographer in de Leon's first feature Itim (Rites of May, 1976)-- a gothic drama about a wheelchair-bound paralytic living in an old Spanish colonial mansion, and the young woman who haunted him. The wheelchair motivated the film's gliding shots as the camera followed the paraplegic; the harsh incandescents from above gave the characters a lonely brooding look that stood out in the surrounding dark. 

Cruz would parley his gift for shadow into a career working on (among others) noir and horror. In the OG Shake Rattle & Roll (1984) he helped Ishmael Bernal craft a wittily sexy short about-- I kid you not-- a killer fridge. The scene where Janice de Belen in a hot summer night cools herself by standing before the appliance's opened door-- you both cringed and stood at attention, watching the fridge breathe deep of her sweaty nubile body. In Eskapo (Escape, 1995) Cruz's camera managed to capture the uncertainty of the first few days of Ferdinand Marcos' Martial Law-- the late night raids, the improvised incarceration (Serge Osmena is locked into a dentist's waiting room while Geny Lopez takes a nap on an X-ray table), the terror of waiting for an unknown fate. 

Tikoy Aguiluz's Tatarin (Summer Solstice, 2001) showcases the contradictory impulses that drive Cruz's imagery: documentarylike footage of 1920s-style dried noodle production, the basis for the Moreta family fortune, versus relentless percussive dancing (as if disco were repurposed for a fertility ritual) underneath a gigantic balete tree-- realism as background for a celebration of pagan sensuality, the film a spirited reenactment of that oldest of battles, the war between sexes. 

Perhaps Cruz's purest expression of realism can be found in Gil Portes' 'Merika which finds Mila (a quietly astonishing Nora Aunor) in bed trying to sit up but can't-- it's winter morning in Jersey City and the windows are bright with sun but it's a bleak light, a cold light, a light that can barely warm fingers, much less melt the surrounding ice. In the film's opening minutes Cruz evokes America in the eyes of Filipino immigrants: a country far from family and friends, a land of the free where you spend your spare time fending for yourself. Made for a pittance with a production barely able to afford the cost of location shooting, Portes and Cruz (and of course Aunor) fashion a fine film about the Filipino diaspora; if Yasujiro Ozu were ever persuaded to leave Japan you might imagine him directing something like this-- I can think of no higher praise.

Then of course there's the film for which Cruz will be best remembered, Peque Gallaga's erotic masterpiece Scorpio Nights. Legend has it that the sex scenes-- between a lonely housewife (Ana Marie Gutierrez) and the obsessed college student (Daniel Fernando) observing her through a hole in the apartment ceiling-- were shot and choreographed like action sequences, and I believe it. Gallaga and Cruz take their cue from Lino Brocka's Insiang and shoot the housewife mostly through mosquito netting, a rose-tinted lens through which the scholar watches  his object of desire. The film is a triumph of style over substance-- Gallaga took a notion from art director Rommel Bernardino and with Cruz's help evokes a grubby lower-middle-class neighborhood complete with communal baths and a never-ending karaoke chorus accompanied by guitar. It's not crafted to mean anything and isn't meant to be anything and even without trying it's a potent metaphor for life under the Marcos dictatorship: where the best game of all involves tiptoeing past the fascist patriarchy and literally fucking in the face of death.  

Cruz is described by writer-director Frank Rivera as "a good man" who "shared his craft with his co-workers. He was particularly kind to me because he was my first cameraman when I started directing...we clicked immediately. He will be missed."

Cruz's daughter Mariel, also a cinematographer, had this to say: "As a father, he would always make sure to make up for lost time... ramdam namin na he's proud of us (we felt he was proud of us)... dahil lagi niya ako isinasama sa shoot when I grew older, sa kanya ako na inspire to be a filmmaker (because he always brought me along to shoots when I grew older he inspired me to be a filmmaker).

"As part of a team naman, his staff and crew are always all praises for him. Madami siyang natulungan na crew (he's helped many crew members) to be better at their craft and to move on to better positions. Marami siyang crew noon na DOPs na ngayon (he's had crew members that have risen to become directors of photography today). Until now, they still consider him as their mentor.

"Obviously he is one of the greatest in Philippine cinema, pero never niyang ginamit yan para maging mayabang (he never used his status to brag)." 

First published in Businessworld 11.9.23