She said that the two parts of her soul were fighting like cats and dogs. Her immigrant nostalgia was something she had never met before, and she had imagined it over and over in her mind. Her visual awareness is a by-product of her insightful, cosmopolitan visual experience. And she consciously observes global urban culture, avoids traditional routes as a female wanderer, and accompanies her lonely figure through city after city, her whereabouts are erratic. During her travels in Shanghai and other cities, she screened out those people and things that impressed her in order to form her own aesthetic taste. "
In the Netflix series "Hollywood", I was pleasantly surprised to see the portrayal of Anna May. Although there are many elements of drama creation, the characters are very carefully portrayed, which makes me want to focus on her in history.
Speaking of Anna May Huang, I heard about the first Chinese female star in Hollywood history when I was in high school. At that time, some media compared her to the contemporary movie star Bai Ling, which made people preconceived that she was the kind of person who wanted to be famous. Custom women who can be manipulated by others, it can be seen that the formation of "prejudice" is lighter than feathers, but the curing is more important than Mount Tai . I have seen some classic clips of Ms. Huang in the film class at the university, and I still commented on it as a cultural symbol of Orientalism, and my impression of her still remains as a "Chinese doll" objectified and eroticized by the West.
Until a few years ago, when I was living in Los Angeles, I made a documentary called "Country Silk" , which told the story of the legendary family struggle of the owner of the first Chinese silk import store in the United States after World War II. On the bustling Beverly Avenue in Los Angeles, there is a well-known fabric store "Oriental Silk". The owner, Mr. Huang, is an old-fashioned figure who is out of tune with this fast era. He has collected many exquisite traditional silk products with exquisite craftsmanship. Behind it is the history of his father's struggle in the United States for more than half a century. Eventually became Hollywood's premier supplier of premium silk. However, with the passage of time, "Oriental Silk" does not know where to go in the commercial wave of globalization and "fast consumption". Mr. Huang can only express his remembrance of his parents and his respect for the traditional Chinese culture (which he romanticized) through his solitary maintenance of the status quo. The video depicts the coexistence relationship between Mr. Huang and the store through the structure of flowing clouds and flowing water and the delicate and quiet observation. It also reflects the intertwined relationship between immigration status, discrete memory, changing times, and material cultural heritage through his recollection of the past.
Unexpectedly, Anna May Huang has become a key character in this story, because her father, like Mr. Huang's father in my film, used to run a laundromat for most of his life, and both of them are from Taishan, Guangdong, and belong to the same family. genealogy. Ms. Anna May used to visit Mr. Huang's laundry in her spare time, and personally told the old couple who were going to "wash their hands" from the laundry business: If there is spare money to invest in a business that is not so hard, after World War II No one in the U.S. imports fine silk from China yet, and if they can do it, it will be very profitable.
It was the early 1970s, China was going through the Cultural Revolution, and there were no official trade channels between China and the United States. However, the Chinese people were always flexible. Successfully purchased a large number of silk fabrics at the Silk Fair in Guangdong, and shipped them to the United States via Hong Kong, and successfully passed the customs. As a result, "Oriental Silk" began its business history on the West Coast of the United States for more than 40 years, and was once the most favorite silk store in Los Angeles for Hollywood filmmakers and celebrities.
From this short story, we can see two characteristics of Ms. Anna May, one is eager to help her compatriots, and the other is well-informed and economical. And these two points have been repeatedly confirmed in the biography of Ms. Anna May.
Ms. Anna May Wong's life is full of ups and downs. As a Capricorn, she is very adventurous and challenging. As a third-generation immigrant born in the United States, she grew up at a time when the "Chinese Exclusion Act" in the United States was in full swing. The Chinese were third- and fourth-class citizens in the United States, and as the daughter of a laundry owner, although the family's economic situation was in the Chinese community It is considered a well-off in China, but its social status is extremely low and low. On the one hand, her parents are very traditional, and the requirement for her is to receive a good education and to teach her husband and children in the future; Accepted and recognized by the mainstream American society, no matter how beautiful, intelligent and hard-working she is.
When Anna May was nine years old, the American film industry moved from New York on the east coast to California on the west coast. At that time, more and more genre films were filming in the filthy Chinatown. The most important decision of his life has been made: he will become a movie star. Years later, Anna May Huang once said: " The career of life should be taken seriously early. " It can be seen that she is indeed a precocious girl.
By playing truancy, hanging around the set every day, and begging directors and producers for her role-playing, the nine-year-old Anna May really got her chance and made her debut. At the time, she may not have known that she would become the first Chinese actress on the Hollywood screen in the future. Anna May has a natural love for acting, which was evident from her first trip abroad. She had secretly imagined and rehearsed countless times in her obsession and fanaticism with movies, so she was more excited and excited than nervous.
Anna May Huang is an actress who loves acting and takes great care to improve her acting skills. Even in the era when the Chinese were severely discriminated against and could not be the starring role in the film, or even allowed to kiss white actors on the screen, Anna May Huang was in one after another. In a genre film with a low artistic level, in one after another greatly limited role, he tries his best to show the charm of his acting skills and his respect for the performance itself.
If I hadn't read this biography, I'd probably think like many people today that Anna May Wong is indeed the rumored movie star who sold her self-esteem in order to be famous, but as she said, even if she doesn't play these roles, Hollywood will find other yellow races. People play, and she really enjoys the process of performing, so she tries to keep hone in the range that she can control.
Her whole life was neither accepted by the mainstream American culture, nor was she always condemned by the Chinese elites (at that time, overseas students headed by the gentry, officials of the Republic of China, and cultural elites all regarded her as a representative of immorality, although in the 1930s when Anna May Wong visited Shanghai , was entertained by some famous people in the Shanghai film industry, such as the movie star Hu Die), but in a very narrow gap, she continued to expand her own play space quite flamboyantly, and also gained recognition and rewards to a certain extent. , Western avant-garde intellectuals (such as Benjamin) and artists (such as Andy Warhol) were once very fascinated by it, and her charm as a fashion icon has not diminished.
Anna May Wong is very good at self-promotion, and she has written articles in many fan publications and newspapers discussing various important topics such as interracial love, Hollywood life, Japanese invasion and so on. But unlike many of today's cultural celebrities who build "persona" for the sake of "persona", Anna May Huang does have a lot of stories to tell and a lot of opinions to discuss.
For example, she was never married and explained to the world the embarrassing situation faced by Chinese-American artists like her - not being able to kiss white actors on the screen, not being able to play the leading role, not being able to have a happy ending, and having died on the screen more than a thousand times Second-rate. She once compared her culturally awkward situation with mixed-race children. Chinese men in the United States were more willing to choose to marry a woman born in China, while most Chinese students in that era came from gentry and official families, and it was impossible to accept a Western-style woman like her. , So Anna May Wong is too western for the East; too eastern for the West .
Even if her career is going well, her financial strength can support the family's expenses, and she is also very financially savvy. The Chinese cultural background provides her with the self-esteem needed to navigate Hollywood, so that she is not like other movie stars. Lost in a lewd life - however, her racial anxiety and personal grief are always on the rocks in her desire to change herself, and it can be said that the prejudice of the times has shattered her dreams . Finally, in the 1920s, she left America for the more culturally liberal Europe of the time, with residencies and performances in Berlin, Paris, Viana, and London. In 1928, she was interviewed by Benjamin, the most high-profile philosopher in German intellectual circles at the time, and this interview is still the subject of intense research for many scholars. "The flower buds in a cup of tea are blooming gradually, full of moonlight, and no vulgar fragrance." ——Benjamin first saw the Chinese face full of western cosmopolitan temperament, and he was fascinated at once. (It is worth mentioning that Benjamin, a Jewish-German, committed suicide a few years later while fleeing the clutches of the Nazis.)
Anna May Wong was gifted with languages. After a short training course, she could speak German comfortably. Later, in London, she learned the accent of British high society, and this was enough to shock the nouveau riche in Hollywood. She made friends all over the place and managed to keep in touch throughout her life even after she left the area. Anna May Wong, who has been unsuccessful in her lifelong pursuit of love, cherishes both family and friendship.
Freedom and the search for freedom are the primary motivations in her character, and this is fully reflected in her desire to travel, learn a new language, and even want to become a pilot. She travels around each city, both strikingly and deconstructing everything from the point of view of understanding the daily life of each sojourn. She has a strong imagination and intuition, and is very infectious to intellectuals such as artists, poets, and novelists. At the same time, she combines the exploration of knowledge with the pursuit of sex, and does not seem to care what outsiders think. She has changed lovers one after another, and even had an affair with the German actress Marlene Dietrich. Anna May Wong famously said: The mistake most people make is to be confused, to go with the flow, to be neither successful nor happy, and to complain needlessly. And what about herself? Although suffering from moral controversies and identity anxiety, after all, he has been able to pursue a career he loves for most of his life, and rely on shrewd business acumen to maintain a decent and interesting lifestyle.
After living in Europe for a few years, Anna May is no doubt more confident in her on-screen presence, and she uses her outfits to show off Chinese culture, because that's the only thing she can do in a Hollywood movie.
Interested viewers may wish to read Anna May Huang's biography "Anna Huang: From Laundry Daughter to Hollywood Legend" (by Graham Russell Gao Hodges). The author's writing tends to be academic. However, for a more objective understanding of Ms. Huang's life, Still quite helpful. The book's most brilliant summary of Anna May is:
She said that the two parts of her soul were fighting like cats and dogs.
Her immigrant nostalgia was something she had never met before, and she had imagined it over and over in her mind.
Her visual awareness is a by-product of her insightful, cosmopolitan visual experience.
She consciously observes global urban culture, avoids traditional routes as a female wanderer, and accompanies her lonely figure through city after city, erratic whereabouts. During her travels in Shanghai and other cities, she screened out those people and things that impressed her in order to form her own aesthetic taste.
She has faced fatal prejudice all her life, but precisely because she was born in the United States, she was a little more fortunate than Ruan Lingyu, the Shanghai actress who committed suicide in anger and indignation because of her "horrible words". However, after all , she is a lover The duckweed, her emotions and mental strength will eventually be prematurely exhausted in the embarrassing situation of long-term unsatisfactory, although she has a high self-esteem , but she still had to stubbornly carry out her life to the end in the doomed attempts again and again.
Chinatown in the early 20th century was an independent kingdom, where people struggling on the fringes of society had no chance to consider higher pursuits than survival. Anna May Wong broke through this level by herself, and she tirelessly pursued for future generations (especially of Chinese descent) paved the way.
To this day, her legendary pictures in the same frame as "Oriental Antiques" and "Rare and Exotic Herbs" create a kind of reverie and contemplation that transcends time and space. In any case, Anna May Huang is an outstanding person. The limitations of class and times, continue to persevere when most people will give up, exchange loneliness for freedom (of course, relative), exchange courage for the life that suits you best under limited conditions, and the most important thing is , since she was a child, she has discovered a path that can realize the value of life and constantly strives for it. Of course, her life is not just optimistic and enterprising (she is also plagued by family conflicts, love frustration, identity crisis, alcoholism, health problems, etc.), on the contrary, She moved forward tenaciously in the face of extremely severe blows (the blows were so big that any time she wanted to give up or sink, it could be said to be "there is a reason"), her life can be described as facing the most unbearable predicament in life, looking directly at herself The limitations and struggles, but never give up the pursuit of dreams, and sometimes with humor and cynicism on this road, enjoy all the joys and sorrows of life.
【Finish】
Attachment: Anna May Huang's Biography [Source: Wikipedia]
Anna May Wong (January 3, 1905 - February 2, 1961), the first Chinese-American Hollywood star and the first Asian-American actress to achieve international fame. Her career has been long and rich, with an acting career spanning silent, sound, TV, stage and radio. Anna May Wong has a seat on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She is one of the three Chinese other than Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and the only Chinese woman.
Anna May Wong, who was born near Chinatown in Los Angeles, is a third-generation Chinese-American. Her parents are both native-born Chinese in the United States, and their ancestral home is Taishan, Guangdong. Her father, Wong Sam Sing, runs a laundromat nearby. Anna May Wong is the second of eight children in the family. In 1922, she became an instant hit with the first film "The Passing of the Sea", which was shot with the special colorful technique. Later, her representative works include "The Prosperous Dream of Chinatown" in 1929, "Dragon Girl" in 1931, "Shanghai Express" with Marlene Dietrich, and the 1937 film "Shanghai Express" with a positive Chinese image. Daughter" and "Chongqing Heroes" in 1942.
In 1935, Pearl Buck, the Nobel Prize winner for literature, started the film "The Earth". MGM rejected Anna May Huang as the heroine and instead invited German actress Luise Rainer to play the yellow-skinned role. Anna May was very disappointed, and the latter won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film. The following year, Anna May Wong visited China for the first time, and went to visit her father in her hometown to learn Chinese language and culture, and even learn Peking Opera with Mei Lanfang. During World War II, Anna May Wong contributed a lot of time and money to support China, ignoring her film career. In the 1950s, she returned to television.
Anna May Wong tragically passed away in 1961 at the age of 56.
In the decades after her death, Anna May Huang left the world's memory mainly of the typical and distorted Oriental image "Dragon Girl" in the eyes of Westerners or her often played "Mrs. Butterfly" type role. Up until the centenary of her birth, Anna May Wong's life and acting career were re-evaluated in three major literary works and a retrospective of her film.
Zhu Xiaowen
August 2019
in Berlin
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