Paul Auster wrote a novel about an Argentinian-born silent screen, comic star named Hector Mann called "The Book of Illusions"(published in 2002) that haunted me for days on end after I reluctantly turned the last page. A contemporary of screen legends such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd; Auster, with his usual expert cageyness, adroitly blurred the line between fact and fiction, making the reader lose sight of Hector Mann's fictitious non-existence. When the South American slapstick comic actor left Hollywood, he continued to make films in secrecy at his own private movie studio. It was the notion of a film history unbeknownst to the public sector that drove my imagination, like an alternate universe.
In "Hollywood Chinese", the Auster novel came rushing back to my head with an almost visceral immediateness, as this smart, incisive documentary discloses the existence of a Chinese female director named Marion Wong, who made silent films which accurately depicted Chinese-American life at the advent of commercial motion picture exhibition during the early tens. Clips from Wong's "The Curse of Quon Gwon" possess an uncanny look of otherworldliness, like something that shouldn't exist at all. What's truly remarkable about this lost film is that it has value beyond its ethnographic qualities; Ms. Wong was clearly an accomplished filmmaker in her own right.
"Hollywood Chinese" is admirable for its balance in representing both sides of the controversy behind the creative casting procedures that Hollywood regularly carried out in such films as Sidney Franklin's "The Good Earth"(Caucasians playing Chinese) and "The Flower Drum Song"(Japanese playing Chinese). On one hand, there's the reminder that Hollywood is an industry, a business whose only goal is to turn a profit, so it's nothing personal, asserts the interview subjects from this camp, when a Anglo-American actor like Paul Muni puts on a yellow face. But then there's the other camp who take issue with being misrepresented, especially by Japanese actors, for instance, Miyoshi Umeki in Henry Koster's "The Flower Drum Song", especially during the post-WWII period, when the Chinese were subjected to Japanese domination. Although there is anger, most notably by "M. Butterfly"-star B.D. Wong concerning Gedde Watanabe's performance in John Hughes' "Sixteen Candles", the anger is mostly held in check(there is a little bitterness from actress Joan Chen when she recounts her lack of film offers after Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor").
The filmmaker shows tremendous restraint in not making mention of the obvious irony behind Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha", in which Chinese actors played Japanese actors. Or maybe it's bias. "Memoirs of a Geisha" strengthens the argument that Hollywood is about box office receipts, and not cultural sensitivity, since the casting of Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh as Japanese geishas was clearly a business-based decision born out of economic necessity. There are simply no bankable female Japanese stars.
Incidentally, Paul Auster co-wrote the screenplay for Wayne Wang's "Smoke". "Hollywood Chinese" is a must-see for anybody who has an interest in cultural studies.
In "Hollywood Chinese", the Auster novel came rushing back to my head with an almost visceral immediateness, as this smart, incisive documentary discloses the existence of a Chinese female director named Marion Wong, who made silent films which accurately depicted Chinese-American life at the advent of commercial motion picture exhibition during the early tens. Clips from Wong's "The Curse of Quon Gwon" possess an uncanny look of otherworldliness, like something that shouldn't exist at all. What's truly remarkable about this lost film is that it has value beyond its ethnographic qualities; Ms. Wong was clearly an accomplished filmmaker in her own right.
"Hollywood Chinese" is admirable for its balance in representing both sides of the controversy behind the creative casting procedures that Hollywood regularly carried out in such films as Sidney Franklin's "The Good Earth"(Caucasians playing Chinese) and "The Flower Drum Song"(Japanese playing Chinese). On one hand, there's the reminder that Hollywood is an industry, a business whose only goal is to turn a profit, so it's nothing personal, asserts the interview subjects from this camp, when a Anglo-American actor like Paul Muni puts on a yellow face. But then there's the other camp who take issue with being misrepresented, especially by Japanese actors, for instance, Miyoshi Umeki in Henry Koster's "The Flower Drum Song", especially during the post-WWII period, when the Chinese were subjected to Japanese domination. Although there is anger, most notably by "M. Butterfly"-star B.D. Wong concerning Gedde Watanabe's performance in John Hughes' "Sixteen Candles", the anger is mostly held in check(there is a little bitterness from actress Joan Chen when she recounts her lack of film offers after Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor").
The filmmaker shows tremendous restraint in not making mention of the obvious irony behind Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha", in which Chinese actors played Japanese actors. Or maybe it's bias. "Memoirs of a Geisha" strengthens the argument that Hollywood is about box office receipts, and not cultural sensitivity, since the casting of Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh as Japanese geishas was clearly a business-based decision born out of economic necessity. There are simply no bankable female Japanese stars.
Incidentally, Paul Auster co-wrote the screenplay for Wayne Wang's "Smoke". "Hollywood Chinese" is a must-see for anybody who has an interest in cultural studies.