Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Number One-Hundred-Three

Succès de scandale!

The One, The Only and The Perpetually Cool Anna May Wong
By Shirley Hsu

Author/professor Anthony Chan poignantly explains why there’ll never be another Anna May Wong and what he means by ‘European Americans.’

Anthony B. Chan, author of “Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong” is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the author of “Li Ka-shing: Hong Kong Elusive Billionaire” (1996), “Gold Mountain: The Chinese in the New World” (1983) and “Arming the Chinese: The Western Armaments Trade in Warlord China, 1920-1928” (1982).

Chan has also worked as a journalist in Hong Kong and Canada, and an independent filmmaker. He has produced The Panama (1996), Another Day in America (1989) and Chinese Cafes in Rural Saskatchewan (1985). He is currently completing a four-part series on Asian Americans in Vietnam.

Shirley: What motivated you to write a book about Anna May Wong?

Anthony Chan: I wanted to write this book for Asian Americans. It wasn’t for European America. I wanted to write it for Asian Americans; I wanted to tell them what I thought as a Chinese American, what I thought about Anna May Wong as a Chinese American woman. And the things she went through, I went through. When I was young, growing up, people would call me ‘chink,’ and she was called ‘chink.’ And I wanted to go to China to find out what the hell’s going on, and I went to China, and I found out I’m not Canadian - but I’m not Chinese either - so am I suspended between two worlds, as she says? Then I realized, after writing the chapter on Daoism, that you can go on two paths. Or three paths, because that’s the Chinese way.

Shirley: Are there any contemporary Asian (or Asian American) actresses or actors that are currently “following in the footsteps” of Anna May Wong?

Anthony Chan: No one. I can’t think of anyone.

Shirley: In terms of name recognition, what about stars such as Lucy Liu?

Anthony Chan: Did you read Scarlet Cheng’s article in the LA Times?  She talks about Anna May Wong being “the right person at the right time.” Somehow, the situation in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s allowed Anna May Wong to star in the first Technicolor film. It’s quite amazing; why her?  There were other people like Eda Lee, Winter Blossom, and there were some Japanese American actresses - why Anna May Wong?  Why Eichberg saying, “I’m going to give you a five-picture contract?”

This would never happen today to Lucy Liu. Why? Because the situation is so different today - television has a huge impact. At that time, British films and German films were really independent industries. American films were certainly pervasive, but they weren’t as pervasive as they are today where they really control maybe 95 % of the market.  So somebody like Richard Eichberg from Germany, with Germans having their own cinema, could say to Anna May Wong, “Hey, why don’t you come do this.” I can’t think of any German filmmaker that could do this to Lucy Liu.

Lucy Liu is not Anna May Wong. No one is Anna May Wong. The quality of the acting…and first of all, she’s five feet seven. Anna May Wong was stunning. She wasn’t beautiful - she was stunning. She had great legs - and you never see that!  I mean, Chinese women with great legs, because they’re usually short. Here’s a tall, statuesque woman of empowerment, who knew who she was, and this confidence was shown right away in all the films she did.

Look at how she stole all the scenes in Shanghai Express. When she’s there standing with the bag and she has a dagger, and Marlene Dietrich comes behind her and pulls her up, and [Wong] flips the dagger, and see how she flips the dagger - you’re looking at Anna May Wong, you’re not looking at Marlene Dietrich. And in the end, she’s the heroine. She goes out with 20,000 bucks. Where’s Marlene Dietrich? She becomes a housewife. She marries this guy, and he takes her away. It’s the old European American idea of saving a woman by marrying her. So how does Hui Fei save herself? She becomes a heroine. I love that [scene in which Wong says], “I don’t know what your standard of respectability is.” I just love it. It was a great line, and the way she delivered it! The writers just aren’t there any more. They’re not there for Lucy Liu, or whatever Asian American actress is around.

Shirley: In Daughter of Shanghai, AMW costars with Philip Ahn as the two heroes of the movie, and at the end, they actually become romantically involved. How is it possible for a film like this to be made in the 1930s, with two Asian American leads who are the heroes and who become romantically involved?

Anthony Chan: It’s amazing, isn’t it?  I mean, I think about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but that’s not really a Hollywood movie, that’s like an Asian movie. There’s no movie like that today. When I saw that movie, I mean, Philip Ahn, he’s this skinny little guy, right?  He’s jumping around, he’s doing this Captain Kato stuff, and he’s beating up the big European American guys. At the end, [Ahn and Wong are] sitting in the car next to each other, and he says to her, I’m being transferred to Washington D.C. She says-and this is so Asian, so Chinese - “Does that mean you’re proposing to me?” He says, “yes,” and she says, “I’ll go.” That’s it!  No kissing, no nothing, but here you have two Asian Americans actually being romantically involved, which was remarkable stuff.

Shirley: So, I guess the obvious question is, at this time, when there was so much racism against AA with the Exclusion laws, how was it possible for a movie like this to be made?

Anthony Chan: I think the times were right. She was such a big star in 1937. She had been playing since 1922, so you’re looking at 15 years, and they tried to link Philip Ahn with Anna May Wong romantically outside of Hollywood, too. She was such a big star after Shanghai Express. It was just… different; there was no television, there was no real theater, so films were really one of the major vehicles of entertainment. So, why was it possible then, even when you have the Exclusion Act until 1943 and there was a lot of racism…I think the answer is, she was such a star. And remember, Hollywood was still there to make money.  And she was such a star, that she was bankable.  They used her.  And after 1936, she wanted more positive roles.

The Daughter of Shanghai is really a wonderful movie; it’s really kind of a campy movie, but there are two Asians, hitting it off!  And this is a major [studio], it’s Paramount - today, if you have an Asian male and Asian female hitting it off, romantically involved, what happens? It’s an independent. It’s not a Paramount or any other kind of film.

Shirley: Do you think that the paranoia of the time period was actually helpful in promoting Anna May Wong’s fame, as it sparked interest and curiosity in Asia?

Anthony Chan: It’s kind of ironic isn’t it? That there’s this paranoia, and yet in a lot of films this paranoia is illustrated. I can’t really give you a reason why it happened, except that it happened. Why did it happen? Well, Hollywood figured it could make some money. And she was a star. I mean, look at the turnout today!  [At the retrospective.]

Can [actresses] learn anything from Anna May Wong? Sure. I mean, look at the way she stands, the way she enunciates. She took political stands against a lot of things; she wrote an article called “Manchuria,” which I mentioned in the book, in which she really castigates the Japanese for invading Manchuria. She was a very complex person, very rich in her personality. Lucy Liu is not rich. I mean, who is Lucy Liu? She wants to be a debutante, she wants to be a starlet. If she would say things…but she’s probably got an agent who controls her. Anna May Wong had an agent but she basically controlled her own career.

There’s only one Anna May Wong, and there will always be only one Anna May Wong, because she was complex, she was always learning, always willing to take risks, and after a while, she didn’t really care about her career, she gave away the money - she did Bombs Over Burma, and the Lady from Chungking - she gave the money away! To the China Aid foundation. You think Lucy Liu would do that?  I don’t know, I have no idea, I don’t even know Lucy Liu.

Shirley: In your book, you call the US “European America.” Are you referring to the America of the 1920s, or of today?

Anthony Chan: It still is [European America].  The media is European American. I mean, its not Asian American, its not African American, its not Hispanic American, its European American.  It’s white. And, in the introduction, I talk about the using the word “white,” and I decided not to use the word white, because when you think about it, the whites will call themselves whites, but they call everyone else blacks, black Americans, or Asian Americans - we’re not called yellows. So I decided that since you’re giving us a label, I’m gonna give you a label. And the label is this - it’s not based on race or color, it’s based on culture. And geography.

Therefore, instead of calling people Caucasians or whites, I call them European Americans. And in Asian American studies, there is a huge emphasis on “Chinese America.” So I started thinking, Chinese America?  There’s got to be a European America. And if you classify European America as regions based on culture, what happens is you destroy the whole idea of superiority of whites over everyone else. You destroy the idea of dominance, you destroy the idea of hegemony. So, I don’t call people Caucasian anymore, or whites. I call them European Americans. And they get pissed off.

I ask, where you from? ‘Well, I’m Jewish.’ Well, where you from? ‘Well, I’m from Germany.’ Well, is that in Europe? What about Chinese people who are born in the Netherlands, are they called Chinese? Yes! So, it’s not specifically where you are born, but the regions that you come from that illustrates some cultural thing. So, those people that have ancestors in Europe, they are European Americans. Those people that have ancestors in Asia are Asian Americans. Simple as that. Geography and culture instead of race. That way, you eliminate the whole concept of dominance

So what I wanted to do was to level the playing field. So when you look at the media it’s European American media - to illustrate that there’s Asian American media. There’s African American media.

That’s where it starts, the terminology. And unless we start to do it, nobody’s going to do it. We want our own media. We want our own film. We got to start referring to others as we would like to refer ourselves. So, we’re called Asian Americans. Where’s the Asian American media? Well, we know where the European American media is. But where do we stand? Maybe we have to do it ourselves

Shirley: What are people’s reactions to your calling them “European Americans?”

Anthony Chan: They hate it. The first reviewer, Phil Hall said he really hated that term, “European American.” “I’m white, I’m not European American.” Well, that’s what you say as a white person. I’m saying that you’re European American, from my perspective, from an Asian American perspective. In other words, I’m telling you what you’ve always told me for many years. I’m telling you now, that you shouldn’t think this way, that we’re going to call you that, whether you like it or not.

I hope it really takes hold, because words really mean stuff.

Shirley: You’ve been criticized for the chapter in which you say that Anna May Wong was a Daoist.  What’s your reaction?

Anthony Chan: Somebody wrote a review of my book on Amazon, and one of the things he said was that Anna May Wong was a member of the Christian Scientist church - so how could she be a Daoist? See, European Americans don’t understand that as a Chinese, there’s no separation. You can be a Daoist, because it’s a philosophy, right? And you can be a Buddhist, which could be a religion and could be a philosophy, and then you could be a Christian. It’s not either/or. See, this is the problem. You’re either American or you’re Chinese - no, no no. Anna May Wong proves it to me. You can follow two paths. You can be Chinese American. You can be a US citizen or neither. And I surmise that she was neither.

After she left China, and she became more Daoist, and all the things she said were very Daoist. She really became Anna May Wong. There was no race, no ethnicity, no color, no nothing - there was no citizenship attached to her. And once you do that, you know what happens? You adopt your own persona. I know a lot of people are going to criticize me for the Daoist chapter, because they don’t get it.

Shirley: Do you think the timing is right today for another Anna May Wong?

Anthony Chan: No. In the ‘20s and ‘30s, the world was more…forgiving. Although it was racist, and it still is racist now, but [now] its more mild; it’s there, but it’s more subtle. The racism was not so subtle in the ‘20s and ‘30s. European Americans are afraid of Asians. They’re afraid of China.

China’s a real threat to the United States, so maybe that’s the reason they’re kind of pushing down Asian Americans. Margaret Cho, why was her show canceled?  It was canceled because the ethos of the show was white - they tried to put European American values on this Asian American sitcom. You can’t do that. You see, it’s easy to have shows with European American values. The values that Asian Americans have are different.

Shirley: So you actually think that the situation now is worse?

Anthony Chan: Yes. In the ‘20s, China was weak. I mean, there were warlords and all this business, and the Chinese Communist party was developing, and the Japanese were coming in, so they were weak. So, we can have some stars, and there’s no threat to us. So, if your gonna depict the Chinese in movies, its got to be bad images. The Soviet Union used to be the bad guys; now the Chinese are the bad guys. Would there ever be a Chinese American Bill Cosby? I don’t think its very promising.

You know what I think it is?  You’ve got to have really good writers. Before this takes off, before there’s an Asian American presence in cinema, there has to be really good writers, writers that don’t ape after European Americans stories. It’s a big question of storytelling. These guys have got to not do the stuff that people do in Hollywood; they have to do something different, varied, complex enough that people say wow, what’s this? When Anna May Wong went to Europe, all these people went, “Wow, what is this?” Like an apparition, right?  They were just enamored; they fell in love with her.

So, if there’s gonna be an Asian American film industry, it’s got to be written by Asian American writers.

What are the lessons of AMW? She’s such a star. Why aren’t there any [Asian American] stars today? In those days, Hollywood and Europe were willing to give her a chance.

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PICCADILLY
Reviewed by Appellate Judge Mike Pinsky, of DVD Verdict

The Charge
“Just imagine the whole place being upset by one little Chinese girl in the scullery.”
-- Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas)

Opening Statement
Welcome to the Piccadilly Club, where London’s elite comes to wine, dine, and dance. Valentine Wilmot (Jameson Thomas) may look unflappable, but he runs the club like his own magic kingdom. Everything must be perfect, from the manners of the staff to the dance steps of his star performer, Mabel Greenfield (Gilda Gray). Just like the Piccadilly, Valentine made Mabel, and their love only seems a natural consequence of their professional obligations. Valentine wants his world to be perfect.

So when a dirty dish sends Valentine down to the scullery to fire the imperfect, immigrant maid responsible, he finds himself drawn into the seedier, more passionate side of the jazz age. He meets Shosho (Anna May Wong), a clever, talented dancer who seduces Valentine almost as an afterthought. But Shosho finds she is quickly overwhelmed by stardom and the demands it brings. If she does not figure out how to play this game soon, success may destroy her.

The Evidence
Piccadilly begins with a card announcing that the film has been passed by the British Board of Censorship. The idea of approval is intriguing here. This film, the certificate suggests, is proper, correct. But the story is about the improper. Set among the jazz clubs of London, Piccadilly is about the hedonistic world between wars. The horrors of the Great War and the flu epidemic are over, and England is celebrating as only a country that has survived the apocalypse—and sees the next apocalypse looming in Europe—can. The people drink too much, dance too much, love too much.

Still, they are British, and so they must act refined and proper. Miss Mabel is the diva of the music hall. The tuxedoed elite of the Piccadilly worship her, none more than Victor (Cyril Ritchard), her lovestruck dance partner. Although he is light on his feet during the show, he is really jealous over Mabel’s relationship with Valentine Wilmot, the debonair owner of the club and the man who made her career. It looks like we might be in store for a love triangle among the dapper and dashing.

Then, only minutes into the picture, Victor is jettisoned from the story and we head off on a curious tangent. A customer (Charles Laughton in his screen debut) complains about a dirty plate. The camera follows Valentine backstage, where proper people never go. We see the rough workers who operate the kitchen. Then we go a step further, into the scullery, where the lowest level of London society lurks. Among these immigrants, these strange foreigners, Valentine notices a strange figure: a willowy gamine dancing to entertain the staff. She is alluring without effort.

At first, Valentine seems content simply to fire Shosho for incompetence. But when he meets her, her effortless charisma leads him to hire her as a dancer. Does he realize that this will make the aging Mabel jealous? Does he realize how dangerous it is for a rich white man to wander into the Limehouse district in search of a poor Chinese girl?

At first glance, the thought that Shosho might supplant proper and adoring Mabel as the toast of London might be read as a fear of the intrusion of Asian culture into the West, commensurate with the “Yellow Peril” villains of pulp novels. There was a sinister allure attributed to the “mysterious East” in these stories. This fits perfectly with the sinister allure attributed to women in popular culture of the time. Woman as other; Asian as other; poor as other. Shosho becomes the alien invader.

But Shosho is an innocent victim of neither manipulative capitalists nor the corrupting influence of foreign sexuality. Where E.A. Dupont’s Piccadilly stands out from its time is in its ability to embrace the outsider position. Even Shosho’s arrogant rejection of the desperate Mabel late in the film, when the two women have reached their apotheosis, is born out of her need to survive in a world that would erase her. And this is also the story of Anna May Wong. The Chinese-American actress toiled away in Hollywood for years, trapped in background roles that never took advantage of her powerful screen presence. Like Paul Robeson or Josephine Baker, Wong found Europe more receptive. Although she is third-billed in Piccadilly, this British production by German director E.A. Dupont is widely considered the finest showcase of her talent. What is meant as a secondary role, the ingénue who comes between lovers Valentine and Mabel, turns into a scene-stealing performance. From the moment she comes on screen, you know that this is Anna May Wong’s show.

It is difficult in this film to divorce Shosho as a performance from Anna May Wong as an actress. In a sense, Wong is both immersing herself in a role here and consciously crafting Shosho as a representative image of all Chinese women. In this way, Shosho bursts forth from the screen and takes over the film. While it might seem a stretch for film critics to read politics into some films (and I know I have tried your patience as readers more than once on this account), it is impossible to discuss Piccadilly without considering its sociological subtext. It is there because Anna May Wong fought to put it there. The filmmakers around her might have thought, “Here is a pretty Chinese girl. She would be perfect as a slave or a maid.” Anna May Wong was thinking, “How can I be a Chinese woman on a movie screen?”

The key moment comes when Valentine visits Shosho in Limehouse. He is out of place, a foreigner here. Surrounded by people who are clearly not white—and are not deferring to his authority—he tells Shosho to try on an embarrassingly baroque costume he wants her to wear when she performs at the club. She refuses, making Jim (King Ho-Chang), her infatuated cousin, put it on instead. Later, when her show at the Piccadilly is a hit, she reads back the glowing review for Jim, literally rubbing it in his face, then peeking in to kiss him. It is as if she has just discovered her sexual power, and it is intoxicating. Her sweet smile betrays only the joy of personal fulfillment, without haughtiness.

Does Shosho really understand her power over men? Only enough to use it to her advantage, but never too much to become the villain of the film. A weak screenplay would have used Shosho as a femme fatale, warning us of the power of foreign women. Writer Arnold Bennett rarely stoops to melodrama or goes the expected route. Only an awkwardly structured final act threatens to collapse the film, but otherwise, the focus here is on strong character interaction rather than forced plot twists. Mabel, who could easily have been turned into a hysteric, is handled sympathetically. Even Valentine Wilmot is no cardboard master-of-the-house. Dupont’s direction is remarkably fluid and crisply edited, surprisingly modern in some scenes. In one shot, just a throwaway, he mounts his camera on the inside of a door, so when the door opens, our eye follows Valentine as he enters the room. Dupont knows when to cut to close-ups of hands or faces to communicate mood and intention. And he knows how to frame Wong so that her raw sensuality shines winningly through.

Considering how little dialogue Wong is allowed (after all, Asian women must be quiet and mysterious), it is fitting that the actress knows exactly how to use her eyes and mouth to convey her increasing sense of power. Shosho realizes how to play the men in her life off one another with only a small glance. We empathize with Shosho, a woman whose class and race make her powerless in both Chinese and British society. We also sympathize, if somewhat less so, with the erosion of Mabel’s sexual potency, a woman whose age is just beginning to show. But Anna May Wong steals the show with a sexual allure that is neither innocent nor sinister. Sexuality, as you can see in her eyes, is an afterthought.

Wong herself had a life no less tumultuous than that of Shosho. A fine overview of her career written on the DVD insert by film scholar Zhang Zhen suggests that Wong’s quiet rebellion against both Chinese tradition (women as objects) and Hollywood racism (Asians and women as objects) found her caught between two cultures that both love her and view her with suspicion. That she managed to find in director Dupont an artist who understood how to translate that tension to the screen is the stroke of luck from which marvelous works of art like Piccadilly are born.

Piccadilly was long considered one of those silent classics whose full glory was lost to decay. The British Film Institute managed to reconstruct a 109-minute print recently, and this print, the centerpiece of Milestone’s excellent DVD release, has sparked a major revival for Anna May Wong. Richard Corliss wrote a strong essay for Time, academic panels were convened, and Wong was credited as a pioneer for Asian-American women in popular culture.

Milestone has included excerpts from an informative panel discussion called “Dangerous to Know: The Career and Legacy of Anna May Wong,” during which several Asian-American women (including actress Nancy Kwan) and one white male biographer discuss the impact of Wong. While the sound is badly recorded (subtitles would really help here), the panelists are unpretentious and the insights sharp. Wong worked hard to consciously project on screen what her biographer calls her “Chineseness,” and viewers can easily see how Piccadilly is a real cultural breakthrough in this light.

Other features on the DVD include a leisurely prologue for the sound version of the film released simultaneously in 1929 (presumably to those theaters with the new technology). There is also an audio interview with composer Neil Brand, discussing his strategies for developing an original score for this restored version of the film. There is no word on whether Piccadilly had a score during its 1929 release. Brand’s music, incorporating jazz, British period music, and touches of noir, is an interesting choice, although he sometimes incorporates too many anachronistic musical motifs (World War II big band style, for example) that might confuse audiences as to when this film is set. Still, I think going with a jazz score, rather than the traditional orchestra or organ people expect for silent films, was the right choice here.

A photo gallery highlights some striking portraits of Wong. Look at how often photographers tried to overwhelm her presence with garish costumes or accessories—and how she invariably showed through. There is also a collection of photos from the film and a copy of the press kit. If you have a DVD-ROM, you can also access Milestone’s press kit and a set of excellent biographical analyses of Wong and her career, including some solid assessment of Piccadilly, all in PDF format. Unlike most DVD-ROM content, these essays are well worth a look.

The only thing missing here that I wish Milestone had included might be a selection of clips from some of Wong’s other films. While the European-made Piccadilly was easily the high point of her cinema career, boasting a powerful role that Hollywood could not bring itself to offer her, it might help viewers to understand the differences between this film and her Hollywood life if we had some direct comparisons. It is a minor quibble, which I only suggest because of the disc’s focus on the film as a showcase for Wong and her place in cinema.

Closing Statement
Piccadilly is another winner from the Milestone Collection, which has proven to be one of the leaders in preserving significant landmarks of cinema history. The film is a great example of the potential of silent cinema to turn the human body into pure signage: Anna May Wong transcends her character to become the embodiment of the Asian Woman on screen. Perhaps Anthony Chan might overstate a bit in his essay (on the DVD-ROM portion of the disc) that Wong is “the fulfillment of every European male’s wet dream,” but if a teasing phrase like this makes you go buy a copy of this movie, I’m glad to do my part in pandering.

To those who need no pandering, be sure that Piccadilly is a fascinating and accessible movie presented on a disc that accentuates its historic and cultural significance. If only we had a few more Anna May Wongs out there in those rough and racist years, American cinema might be very different today.

The Verdict
Although the laws of European society of 1929 might prevent Anna May Wong from prevailing at earlier tribunals, this court sets aside any previous injunctions against her. Piccadilly is released and all prior charges expunged. Court is adjourned.

Scales of Justice
Video: 85
Audio: 85
Extras: 87
Acting: 95
Story: 90
Judgment: 95

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A remarkable and mystically exotic story of love and destruction - the kind of film for which both star and director became legends. As “the White Flower of Chinese coast” Marlene speaks her most famous line in the film: “It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily”! Dietrich, as always gave Von Sternberg the exact performance he envisioned while Clive Brook is pretty good as Captain Harvey, the object of Marlene’s affection. Anna May Wong had probably her best Hollywood role as Hui Fei, the prostitute in search of redemption; she had been raped by insatiable rebel leader Oland. The story on which this movie is based is clearly drawn from Guy de Maupassant’s classic short story of a French prostitute - “Boule de Suif”. The photography of this film is in every respect excellent (Lee Garmes). Dietrich was dressed by Travis Banton for this and she looks truly ravishing throughout the movie (the film made 3 million dollars in the depressed year of 1932). ----Amazon review

For her work in Shanghai Express (Dietrich and Wong played a pair of prostitutes), she received $6,000 in comparison to Dietrich’s more than $78,000. Many critics, however, believed that she stole the film from Dietrich with her intense performance, despite only playing a supporting role, and the two actresses never worked together again. ----Wikipedia

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Sincerely.
Eve and JW3 and Mélisande
Dirty Girl Things ©
Unrepentant.  Unpretentious.  Unconventional. ©

Next entry: Number One-Hundred-Four Previous entry: Number One-Hundred-Two