Photo of The Walks from a second-floor window: used under Creative Commons licence [CC BY-SA 2.0]
Photo of the statue of Francis Bacon: used under Creative Commons licence [CC BY-SA 2.0]
In a new Broadway revival of ‘Yellow Face,’ Daniel Dae Kim explores racial identity
A revival of the play “Yellow Face” will make you laugh despite the fact that it examines some hefty topics: cultural appropriation, racial identity and representation in the theater, to name just a few.
The play written by David Henry Hwang centers around a fictionalized playwright named DHH, who has made a name for himself fighting against yellow face — the practice of using white actors to play Asian roles — in the theater. That mirrors events from Hwang’s real life: In the 1990s, he led the protest against “Miss Saigon” for casting a white British actor (Jonathan Pryce) in a lead role, playing a Eurasian character.
In “Yellow Face,” DHH (Daniel Dae Kim) runs into a problem when he accidentally does the same: He casts a white man in a role he wrote for an Asian actor. Instead of admitting his choice, DHH tells the world his actor is a Siberian Jew, and Siberia is in Asia.
The whole thing comes to a head when reporters and the government start investigating Chinese Americans for spying and money laundering. That includes the actor and DHH’s father, a wealthy businessman who loves the U.S. – but does the U.S. love him back?
“Yellow Face” first premiered in 2007 at the Public Theater, and the revival opened last week to rave reviews. Hwang and Kim joined Alison Stewart on a recent episode of WNYC’s “All of It” to discuss racial identity, Rachel Dolezal, ambitious flops and more. An edited version of their conversation is below.
Alison Stewart: David, I’ve heard you describe “Yellow Face” as a mockumentary, like “Spinal Tap.” Some things are true, some things are turned up to 11, some things are false. Let’s start with the true stuff. What made you decide to protest “Miss Saigon”?
Hwang: I owed my career to an earlier yellow face protest, people who protested in front of the Public Theater 10 years earlier, which led Joe Papp [founder of the Public] to start to look for an Asian playwright, and that was me. And so when the “Miss Saigon” protests came around, it just felt like someone had paid it forward to me, and I needed to be part of that.
This was all happening when you were starting out in your career. What did you think about the protests, Daniel?
Kim: I remember thinking that they were necessary because, as a young Asian actor, I knew what a dearth of opportunities there were for us. And when you have a chance to play a lead on Broadway, and that is no longer there for these kinds of reasons, it’s problematic. At the same time, I also sympathize with my friends, who also said, “Well, when else are we going to be on Broadway in a supporting role, other than in a show like ‘Miss Saigon?’”
It represents one of the few opportunities we have to do anything, even in the ensemble. I had some mixed feelings about it, but there’s no question that David was on the right side of history there.
It was a big story. The point was made, and it was bypassed. The play came to Broadway. In response, you set out to write “Face Value,” with a white actor cast in the Asian role, and it was originally a farce. What part of it made you think, “Oh, I’ll write a farce?”
Hwang: After the protest, which was sort of an early culture wars event, and being caught in the middle of that and arguably being a little bit canceled by mainstream media and opinion, I felt traumatized, and I needed to process that. So I decided to write a comedy of mistaken racial identity about the question: What does it really mean to play a race, to play one’s own race? But I wrote it as a door-slamming farce and it became one of the biggest flops in Broadway history.
You say that with such joy, in a way. When you think about it now, would it be a flop now?
Hwang: Oh, yes. I can have some joy about it, because after 20 years, the story has a happy ending.
What?
Hwang: Well, in the sense of taking that concept again – a comedy of mistaken racial identity – and coming up 15 years later with “Yellow Face,” a different way to approach the same idea.
Daniel, in “Yellow Face,” your character is DHH. How would you describe him?
Kim: He is a man who is wrestling with this idea of who his authentic self is and what are the masks that he’s developed over the years to try and protect who he really is, and what does it require for those masks to come off? Even though he has the best of intentions, there are other parts of his personality that serve as obstacles to him being his true self.
What are DHH’s flaws?
Kim: I would say a little bit of hubris, a little bit of narcissism, a little bit of inability to acknowledge mistakes until the consequences get so high that he’s forced to acknowledge them.
Hwang: I feel like Daniel’s being a little kind because I’m also in the studio, but I would say a lot of hubris, really, and really trying to protect his reputation as an Asian American role model after making mistake after mistake after mistake in this play.
Are you really self-aware? I mean, when you write something like this, you had to write your own flaws into your play.
Hwang: There are a lot of autobiographical works. It’s just that usually, the author doesn’t name the main character after themselves. In this case, I found, well, once I did that, I really needed to make him a character. So yes, there are ways in which he’s like me, and then there are things that happen because it helps the plot and it helps the character have an arc and some redemption at the end.
Kim: I give David a lot of credit for not making himself a very shiny hero in his own work. He’s very human. More than human. I’m not sure what that means exactly.
People get it.
Kim: He presents himself as the butt of many of the jokes in this piece. It takes a very healthy sense of self to allow people to laugh at you openly.
Apparently, this script has 30 minutes knocked off the length from the original 2007 version. Intermission is gone. What did you do?
Hwang: After a certain amount of time has passed, both Leigh Silverman, the director, and I were able to look at the piece with a little more objectivity. We had originally intended it to be an intermission-less evening, but the show was just too long. And I think most of the changes that have happened between 2007 and the ’24 version just involved cutting and shaping and polishing. There was stuff that we got rid of and then we didn’t miss it.
In “Yellow Face,” DHH casts a white actor to be the lead in his play. It’s pre-Internet, so he can’t really check him out. Why do you think DHH goes along with the white actor? Why doesn’t he just say, “Wait. No, we need to stop.”
Kim: I think for him, there’s too much at stake. As David mentioned, there’s protecting his reputation, especially as someone who protested the casting of a white actor previously. And again, hubris, this idea that he can get away with it if he chooses to make these choices. I think we’ve all been in positions where we have to make choices and sometimes the honest choice is the one that comes at the greatest cost.
Well into the play, DHH is having a fight with the white character, and you call him a racial tourist. What does that mean to you?
Hwang: Ethnic tourist. The line is, “You come in here with that face of yours and everyone falls at your feet, you ethnic tourist.” In the play you have the white actor, Marcus. David gives him an Asian identity, which is invented, but then Marcus runs with that and becomes an Asian activist of the sort that David is not willing or able to be at that point in the story. David is saying he just skims the cream and gets to have the advantages without any of the real consequences.
Kim: Which I think is very funny, too, because he’s criticizing Marcus in that moment for a mantle he could be taking, and he’s criticizing the very creature he created.
It’s interesting because the white actor is saying, “I like being part of something.” “As a ‘Eurasian’ actor, I can be part of this.” When you think about it, is he wrong?
Kim: No, absolutely not. I think that’s what makes this play so human and universal. We all want to find a place of belonging. We all want to be validated in some way and just because you’re of one particular race or another race doesn’t change that need. We all are looking for our home and our community, and I think that’s what makes Marcus sympathetic.
Hwang: I would also add it’s complicated because his need to be part of the community, or his justification, is based on a lie. He’s not actually a mixed-race Asian. Hopefully, it gives the audience stuff to chew over and discuss after the show.
I wrote “Rachel Dolezal” across the top of my notes. She was a white woman who portrayed herself as a Black woman, headed the local NAACP, and there was a big hoo-ha. I’m wondering what you thought about that.
Hwang: It happened after the original production, and so I guess I thought in the original play, “It seems likely to me that this sort of thing is going to happen as we move forward as a more multicultural and more diverse society, and that passing might end up going both ways.” So yes, when Rachel – I don’t even know how to pronounce her last name — came around, and there are a couple of others that have come up since, particularly in the publishing world, it’s been, I don’t know, either gratifying or horrifying.
Kim: By the way, you don’t have to not be a member of a particular ethnic group to start using the emphasis on identity and inclusion as a mask. There are a lot of Asian Americans who never cared about this issue until very recently, and then suddenly they’ve taken up the mantle and the question is: How genuine is that or how much is that just going along with a rising tide?
Then to add another layer to it, in your cast, you have people playing against type. You have a woman playing a man. Marinda Anderson plays Jane Krakowski. Kevin del Alguila plays Ed Koch. How does this set up the audience to maybe understand the play better?
Hwang: Well, in the original production, the casting was essentially binary. It was just Asians and white people. And because society has moved on in some good ways, by the time we get to 2024, we wanted this production to be more inclusive. Then there was the question of: Okay, what does it mean – I mean, now we’re pretty used to actors of color playing white people.
“Hamilton” certainly has mainstreamed that, but what will it mean for actors of color to play other characters of color, not of their own ethnicity? We try to be very mindful about the choices that we made. But to me, in a good and fun way, maybe it pushes the envelope a little more and it’s something that people can talk about, too.
Daniel, what is DHH having a hard time understanding about his dad?
Kim: Well, I think as a second-generation immigrant or a 1.5-generation immigrant, there are expectations, I think, speaking as a 1.5-generation, there are expectations that we could have of our country that sometimes recent immigrants do not have. What I mean by that is, for instance, my parents, when they came here, they thought of themselves as visitors to this country. They didn’t think to question the issues that are problems in the country as much as to say, “We’re lucky to be here. Take what you’re given and work hard. Put your head down.”
As a person who’s grown up with the issues in our country, there’s more of a sense of ownership, and I’ll just speak for myself. And so when I see problems, I want to raise my voice and say, “This place is not perfect. I 100% choose to live here and love this country, and at the same time, I can be a voice that helps shape this country.”
When I went to the theater on Saturday, I saw a lot of Asian Americans in the audience everywhere I went. What did they get to see?
Kim: First of all, they get to be entertained and I love that most of all because our job, first and foremost, is to entertain. When there are people in the audience who wait for me backstage or outside the stage door and they say to me, “This is the first Broadway show I’ve ever seen.” That is one of the biggest compliments that I can receive because it tells me that we’re expanding the number of people who come to the theater.
I think that couldn’t be more important for a new generation of theatergoers to know that that’s part of the entertainment landscape. I would also say that I think it’s really important for young Asian Americans in particular because this show is about our history. And those who don’t know who David Henry Hwang is and don’t know what the controversy around “Miss Saigon” was, it’s important that they do because very often we are considered the silent minority, that we do not speak up for ourselves.
We did have pioneers all throughout history who did that and there are very necessary chapters of our history that are included in this play. By the way, this is not just Asian American history, this is American history. I think if it spurs people to say, “Who was Wen Ho Lee?” then I think we’re serving a dual purpose.
Did you want to respond?
Hwang: Well, it’s needless to say, we are very fortunate to have Daniel, because there are a fair number of Asian Americans – and people in general – who come to see Daniel. Broadway is looking for new audiences, and that isn’t going to happen as long as we keep appealing only to a narrow slice of the demographic. Pieces like “Yellow Face” but also pieces about other communities that have been marginalized in the entertainment world, are so important in expanding our audiences as well as our definition of what constitutes the American theatrical canon.
“Yellow Face” is playing at the Roundabout Theater on 42nd Street until Nov. 24.
Chris Stapleton review – bringing southern comfort to the Manchester drizzle | Chris Stapleton
‘Do we have any truck drivers here tonight?” is not a question you hear at many gigs in Manchester. But when Chris Stapleton asks, countless cheers go up from a sea of cowboy hats. It’s emblematic of just how vastly popular the US country singer now is: he’s collaborated with everyone from Taylor Swift to Adele, racks up more monthly listeners on Spotify than the Eagles, Amy Winehouse or Dolly Parton, and has countless awards to his name.
The Kentucky man hardly trades in spectacle. The stage is a modest, almost homely setup, further enhanced by having his wife and collaborator, Morgane Stapleton, close by his side as they sing intimately to one another. Joined by a killer five-piece band, the opening White Horse – all big, punchy, rousing country-blues to be blasted while hurtling down a freeway – is immediate testament to what a tight unit they are.
You can immediately grasp the widespread appeal of Stapleton. He straddles the line between easy-listening country, the kind that pumps out of diners and waffle houses, and old-school back porch whiskey-drinking songs; combined with modern pop flourishes, a pinch of soul, and some contemporary Americana. Think I’m in Love With You has an unshakably infectious groove, with a purring bassline bouncing against its almost country-disco rhythm as Stapleton’s voice glides on top of it pristinely. There’s a ZZ Top sheen to the rollicking stomp of Parachute, while Whiskey and You is a moment of stripped-back acoustic tenderness, and the huge pop hooks in You Should Probably Leave are undeniable.
As a vocalist Stapleton is pretty remarkable. He’s effectively a soul singer who frequently sounds more like Joe Cocker than your typical ragged country outlaw – but his huge range indicates he can easily do both. It’s an incredibly lively crowd: the seated floor section remain on their feet for the duration, and the closing Tennessee Whiskey, followed by an encore of early favourite Traveller, sends them into a spin. Then the unexpected army of Manchester cowboys file out into the rain-lashed streets.
It’s Strictly Come Dancing & It’s Week 4 on the Dancefloor
Marmalade sandwich, anyone? Paddington, Birds of a Feather, Kangaroos & The Penguin. It’s week four on Strictly Come Dancing. Marmalade, optional.
Motsi Mabuse
Shirley Ballas,
Anton Du Beke,BBC Public Service,Guy Levy
Montell & Johannes Viennese Waltz to Nobody Gets Me by SZA
✨ Punam & Gorka Jive to 2 Be Loved (Am I Ready) by Lizzo
✨ Sam & Nikita Samba to Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira
✨ Sarah & Vito Foxtrot to Birds Of A Feather by Billie Eilish
✨ Tasha & Aljaz Charleston to Unhealthy by Anne-Marie, Shania Twain
✨ Chris & Dianne Salsa to Down Under by Men At Work
✨ Jamie & Michelle Salsa to Danza Kuduro by Don Omar, Lucenzo
✨ JB & Amy Rumba to You Might Need Somebody by Kara Marni
✨ Paul & Karen Quickstep to I Won’t Dance by Fred Astaire
✨ Pete & Jowita Quickstep to Town Called Malice by The Jam
✨ Shayne & Nancy Cha Cha to Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) by Sub Sub feat. Melanie Williams
✨ Wynne & Katya Tango to Money, Money, Money by ABBA
For all the Strictly Come Dancing news, click the image below
Paddington Square transforms its patch of central London with its 'elevated cube' – Wallpaper*
Paddington Square transforms its patch of central London with its ‘elevated cube’ Wallpaper*
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The green, green grass of Gray’s Inn Gardens
Apollo has recently moved office and now overlooks one of the most generous and attractive green spaces in central London. The Walks, to give this space its proper name, are the open setting for Gray’s Inn, one of four Inns of Court – the enclosed legal societies from which, exclusively, barristers can practise in England. After the Great Fire of 1666, the lawyers secured this generous layout as protection for the Inn from rapid development around it. The gardens date from 1608 when Sir Francis Bacon was elected Treasurer of the Inn, and they express and enshrine his ideas about landscape. Simple but strong modelling, from terraced grass sides, marks both the north and west extremities. Fine trees, discreetly placed, set it all off. Towards the south the planting becomes more exuberant, especially in summer, with roses, hollyhocks and clematis scrambling over the railings and outer walls. In recent years, it’s all become more accessible to outsiders, rather than merely glimpsed through railings on Theobalds Road. The public can enter at lunchtime on weekdays and small children from the City Junior school, located within the Inn, now play on the area closest to Theobalds Road, the sound of their cheerful chirruping a salutary background to proceedings in the buildings alongside.
That is now. But in the late 1980s the Walks were under threat. The Benchers of Gray’s Inn had decided to seek planning consent for a pair of office blocks, all but blocking the views into the gardens, essentially walling the Inn off, and all to boost their rental income. They had commissioned a blue-chip firm of architects, Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall, but the bland result suggested that the distinguished practice may have been uncomfortable about their commission, essentially an exercise in top-class heritage vandalism. The continuous street view from Mecklenburgh Square, running up Doughty and John Streets to meet Theobalds Road, across which stands Gray’s Inn, is a masterpiece of Georgian landscape planning and has remained an engrained feature in the city fabric, respected by the various estates as they set about development. The Benchers’ scheme would have destroyed that homogeneity, ‘a carefully articulated necklace of green spaces and built-up areas’, as I wrote in the Financial Times at the time.
A view of The Walks from a second-floor window at Gray’s Inn. Photo: James Petts via Flickr
As so often in central London, where every inch is weighed in gold, there was nothing new in the avid scramble for profit in the face of sustained objection. Scroll back to the late 17th century and an episode involving the very same body of men, the Benchers of Gray’s Inn, inverted the situation. Then, in 1680, the lawyers found themselves fighting off a developer, one Sir Nicholas Barbon. His sights were set on the rich pickings around Red Lion Square in Holborn, nearby, but he hadn’t reckoned with a concerted and physical opposition. He found 100 men of the law rolling up their fine lawn sleeves, the better to hurl bricks at the labourers he’d employed. To reinforce the point, the barristers seized a couple of the brickies as hostages. Barbon, an economist who found his metier as a fleet-footed speculator and a figure of great influence in London at the time, wisely withdrew.
The Benchers of Gray’s Inn did likewise, almost three centuries later. People noticed that their Royal Bencher was the Prince of Wales, then at the height of his architectural and conservationist interests. Perhaps strings were pulled, or soundings were taken (as lawyers like to happen), but the prospective office blocks, of no architectural distinction, were easily wiped from the record.
The statue of Francis Bacon (1908) by Frederick Pomeroy at Gray’s Inn, commissioned to mark the tercentenary of Bacon’s election as Treasurer of the Inn. Photo: Steve James via Flickr
Like the staff at Apollo now, I had my eye on the site. Hearing of the dastardly plans I quickly wrote my piece for the FT pointing out the amusing irony offered by the late 17th-century fighting Benchers, set against their speculating modern counterparts (and not forgetting to point out their Royal Bencher’s well-known tendency to oppose publicly schemes with which he found himself in disagreement).
I entered the piece for the BP Arts Journalism prize that year and was awarded the runner-up’s prize. With the handsome sum of £250, I bought myself the best office chair on the market. And it is on my Hille chair that I sit writing this at home, not so many metres from that once contested site.
Art Market Trends in Response to COVID-19
There is no industry that has gone untouched by the widespread disruption of the coronavirus. The art world, like all other sectors, is quickly grappling with rapidly evolving challenges.
Although there is no clear roadmap on how to move forward, the team at Huntington T. Block has seen a few trends among galleries, art dealers, collectors, artists, art fairs, and more that are smart to have on your radar.
The Evolving Gallery Scene
The prolonged closure of galleries across the country has forced art galleries and dealers to develop strategies for different ways to stay relevant, promote artists and run their business. For example:
- Online viewing rooms – Many art dealers have embraced digital technologies to stay connected with key cliental and artists during the pandemic. Although a majority of galleries already had established virtual platforms in place, online viewing rooms are being relied on even more now as an effective way to showcase artwork and engage collectors—whether it’s a major art fair like Art Basel Hong Kong or a small to mid-size gallery. In fact, viewing sites have almost become the norm as a replacement for art fairs that could not proceed. Obviously, these digital platforms do not allow potential buyers to experience art physically, but many collectors feel comfortable buying their works through reputable galleries from familiar artists.
- Financial support – Many small businesses in the art industry may potentially qualify for financial assistance through the federal government. The rapid and evolving changes around what help is available can be intimidating and overwhelming. Art dealers should feel empowered to seek out guidance from financial professionals to navigate any confusion or uncertainty about how to access, benefit, or qualify for government sponsored loans and grants or assistance.
- Employee relations – Art museums and galleries around the world have been faced with tough decisions—layoffs and furloughs—in response to the financial fallout. For example, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, recently furloughed about 300 staff members, more than 40 percent of its workforce. If possible, galleries should consider hiring freezes and salary cuts to help retain workers. The altruistic goal here being to help ensure that staff can weather this crisis as-best-as possible so, when the time comes, they may return to work on their feet.
Reactionary Selling
As the state of the economy worsens, art collectors may feel that it’s wise to sell their pieces. Financial professionals typically caution against reactionary selling during a financial crisis. My team and I, just like all fine art lovers, have a strong passion for art and fear the dangers of any type of commoditization. Fine art insurance aims to protect rare and historic objects to help guarantee their survival, in good condition, from one generation to the next—and over many centuries in some cases.
However, the general consensus among art dealers and art advisors, from my perspective, is that there is no mass desire to sell artwork at this time. Most collectors take a more conservative approach to the sale of artwork, which requires time and skill in order to optimize value for both the buyer and seller. Additionally, the high-end collector segment of the marketplace is somewhat insulated from immediate effect of the economic downturn.
Auction Market
Several of the recently concluded auctions, particularly last fall, resulted in lower than expected sale totals. The sales were lower not due to a decrease in unit price per se. Rather, the decrease was tied to a lack of supply of high-quality pieces available for sale. It’s too soon to speculate what the art market conditions will be in one month, one quarter, or even one year from now, and beyond. However, it can be assumed that any current reactionary selling will not have a substantial impact on overall pricing in the future.
The current challenge with buying art is not financial, but rather logistical. As lockdowns continue, physical inspections of artwork and movement of pieces cannot occur—a critical aspect of the sale process. For the time being, many collectors are developing “wish lists” in the hope of investing in the artwork of established artists—this could be the result of the recognition of artwork as an asset class and confidence in the value of good artwork.
Managing estimates at auction will be the key to bringing in potential buyers. There are a lot of people who still have a lot of money. If there is good work available, I can see where the auction houses may work to appeal to the collectors’ desire for good value and be able to build interest and sales.
Looking Ahead
Overall, we must remember during these delicate times that this is not the first downturn in the economy that the art world will have lived through. Galleries, art dealers, collectors, artists, art fairs, and the industry as a whole need to support one another as we navigate these challenges.
Turning Dust into Masterpieces: How Artists Are Transforming Dirty Vans into Street Art Wonders (+20 Photos)
Discover how artists are turning dirty vans into mobile canvases with incredible dust art.
All photos from the Facebook Page Dirty Van Art and Pro Boy Nick.
This blogpost features a collection of Dirty Van Art, where artists create temporary artworks on the dust-covered surfaces of vans. These creative street art pieces turn something as mundane as dirt into an artistic canvas, showcasing intricate drawings and clever designs.
I love how art can turnup in unexpected places, transforming everyday vehicles into captivating street art.
What started as casual doodling on dusty vans has evolved into intricate, detailed artwork that captivates passersby. In this collection, we explore 22 examples of how grime and dirt can be transformed into impressive artworks, proving that art can truly emerge from anywhere.
On the war in Ukraine:
What do you think about dirty van art? Do you have a favorite?
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Family Photo archive, a new addition to the Library at the Bishopsgate Institute
Lucy feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square in 1981
There is to be a place in London where old family photos will be collected for researchers to view. News in from Spitalfields Life the wonderful daily blog by the Gentle Author (check it out!) tells us that Stefan Dickers, Archivist at the Bishopsgate Institute is offering a home to unwanted albums and family photographs, where they will be safely stored as an archive. It is to be called the London Family Photo Archive . He is happy to take receipt of digital copies of photographs if you wish to keep the prints.
“We are looking for family and personal photos of everyday life, no matter if you have lived in London since birth or are a recent arrival to the city,” Stefan explained to me, “We are also looking for photos that depict Londoners on day trips and holidays outside of the city.”
If you might wish to contribute albums or pictures and would like to know more please contact library@bishopsgate.org.uk
This sounds like a wonderful resource in the making….and look at what else they have!
Since opening in 1895, Bishopsgate Library has built up through its collecting policy a record of the development of photography in the capital, alongside it’s ever growing collections of books, maps, directories and press cuttings. The emphasis is on the everyday life of London and the Library has specialised in collecting street photography and social and cultural images of London, rather than portraiture or people. The collections are also not limited to famous photographers.
Library Collections cover London History, Labour and Socialist History, Freethought and Humanism, Co-opertaion, Protest and Campaigning, Parliamentary profiles and they hold the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia archive
The ten best films of … 1933
Dragnet Girl (1933).
Kristin here –
Due to health problems, we have been reposting older entries lately and will continue to do so. Still, I could not skip this year’s contribution to the inexplicably popular series of ten-best lists for ninety years ago. Previous lists can be found here: 1917, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931,and 1932.
Last year’s list was easy to fill with marvelous films. Surprisingly, 1933 proved to be a thin year for masterpieces. The major auteurs of Hollywood and France created relatively minor films and German filmmakers were busy finding safe places to live and work. In short, there were some obvious films to head the list, but there are some titles here that I would include in a stronger year.
Fortunately one of the greatest filmmakers hit his stride in 1933. Yasujiro Ozu made three films that could be among the top ten. I usually don’t put two films by the same director on these lists, but I’m including two of his (sorry, Woman of Tokyo). Earlier Ozu films that featured on these lists can be found in the 1930, 1931, and 1932.
Dragnet Girl
2023 has been the 120th anniversary of Ozu’s birth and the 60th anniversary of his death. Retrospectives and exhibitions internationally have no doubt widened fans’ awareness of his earlier films. For decades almost none of his films made before Late Spring (1949) were much known outside Japan. Ozu’s gentle family dramas were so familiar that few would have believed that he began with genre films: student comedies, family comedies, salaryman comedies, and even gangster films. Now, fortunately, his entire surviving output is available on DVDs and Blu-rays, though sometimes not in versions with English subtitles.
The Criterion Collection’s Eclipse series brought the best of the very early films to DVD, including the two Ozu films on this list.
Film buffs familiar only with Ozu’s late films might well ask, could Ozu make a good gangster film? Actually, he could make a great one. Dragnet Girl is one of his early masterpieces.
Ex-boxer Joji is a small-time thug, living of his mistress, Tokiko. An aspiring young boxer and wannabe gangster, Hiroshi, idolizes Joji and spurns his sister Kazuko’s pleas to stay in school. Joji falls for Kazuko, and Tokiko finds that she likes the girl and wants to emulate her by persuading Joji that they should leave their lives of crime. But there’s one last job …
The style is quite noir, and Ozu has fun playing with the various Nipper figures and decals in the music shop where Kazuko works (see top). And Kinuyo Tanaka, best known in the West for tragic roles in Mizoguchi films, does quite well as a gangster’s moll (above).
Dragnet Girl is available on DVD in the Criterion Collection’s “Silent Ozu–Three Crime Dramas” and streams on The Criterion Channel.
Passing Fancy
As part of the slow discovery of Ozu’s work outside Japan, Western audiences finally got a glimpse of his early work when I Was Born, But … became available. As wrote last year, it “may be the one where he achieved the perfect balance of humor and poignancy that characterizes so many of his best films.” Or maybe it was Passing Fancy that struck that balance perfectly.
In a way, Passing Fancy reverses the premise of I Was Born, But …. In the earlier film, two boys become petulant and rebellious when they realize that their respected father is a mediocre salaryman taking orders from a wealthy boss and even playing the clown to entertain party guests for the boss. The parents realize the sadness of their situation but manage to handle the boys with understanding.
In Passing Fancy, the father, Kihachi, is an illiterature, carefree worker who approaches his duties as a single father to his bright son Tomio. Tomio acts as the parent, dragging his father out of bed, dressing him, and seeing him off to work. Tomio strives for an education, insisting on doing his homework when Kihachi tells him to go out and play. The two get into a serious argument, and their reconciliation (above) is one of Ozu’s most poignant of many poignant scenes.
As David says in his book on Ozu, Passing Fancy is more focused around complex characterization than his other early films. The secondary characters include Harue, an unemployed young woman, whom Kihachi briefly believes he can woo despite being considerably older (the “passing fancy” of the title). There is Kihachi’s cynical friend Jiro, who accuses Harue of being a gold-digger and rejects her growing love for him. The plot focuses on the characters and their changing attitudes, especially Kihachi’s alternation between fits of fatherly responsibility and selfishly neglectful behavior.
Passing Fancy is available on DVD in the Criterion Collection’s “Silent Ozu-Three Family Comedies” and streams on The Criterion Channel. The same link leads to David’s discussion on editing in Passing Fancy in our “Observations on Film Art” series. A PDF of his book, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema, is available for free here.
Design for Living
Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise (1932) is generally considered one of his very best films. It tends to put Design for Living in its shadow. Still, this Ben Hecht adaptation of a Noel Coward romantic comedy is nearly as good, with three marvelous stars–Gary Cooper, Frederic March, and Miriam Hopkins–and enough witty dialogue for three features.
It’s also as risqué as anything Lubitsch did, narrowly missing the introduction of the Code in 1934. The three leads, Tom Chambers, a painter (Cooper), George Curtis, a playwright (March), and Gilda Farrell, a commercial artist (Hopkins) meet on a train in France and soon move in together. They swear a gentlemen’s agreement that there will be, as Gilda forthrightly says, “No sex.” This doesn’t work out, as Gilda has affairs with both, one after the other. Eventually they reunite and swear another gentlemen’s agreement–which clearly is leading to a menage à trois.
Design for Living is interesting to contemplate in relation to the Code’s dictates that characters who transgress moral or legal strictures must be punished by the film’s end. Most obviously here the three characters end up settling into a comfy romantic trio. Beyond that, though, Gilda’s desire to become a mother of the arts by guiding the pair’s unsuccessful careers has paid off spectacularly by the end. Her pitiless criticisms of their work (“Rotten!”) goad both of them to fame and fortune. The only one punished by the end is the wealthy advertising executive Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton), whose brief, straitlaced marriage to Gilda ends disastrously. The Lubitsch Touch indeed.
Design for Living is available on DVD or Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection and streams on the Channel.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
As is well known, Fritz Lang, despite not being Jewish, left Germany for France and ultimately Hollywood in 1933 when Hitler came to power. His last German film until he returned in the late 1950s was The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. The film was banned immediately, with the German version having its premiere in Budapest. A French version, also directed by Lang but with different actors, circulated in Europe and the US, and various recut versions were circulated thereafter.
A sequel to the two-part serial Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (which was on my top-ten list for 1922), Testament took a very different approach to its titular villain. Now Mabuse has become insane and is incarcerated in a mental institution. There he obsessively scribbles down plans for a universal reign of crime. To escape the institution, his spirit enters the body of Dr. Baum, his psychiatrist (above), who becomes his surrogate in leading the gangsters who carry out Mabuse’s plans.
The sequel is not quite up to the original, in large part because the menacing Rudolph Klein-Rogge, who played Mabuse in that film, is barely present here. We see him briefly in his cell and occasional in some sort of spirit form, but Dr. Baum is not nearly as fascinating as a surrogate Mabuse.
Stylistically, however, Testament is pure Lang, with high long shots along dark, deserted streets, art-deco interiors, and a spectacular fire at a gas factory. There’s also a justly famous scene of an assassination from one car to another on a crowded street. Lang also seems to bid good-bye to Expressionism, with a subjective shot from the point of view of an asylum patient (see bottom).
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse is available on DVD from The Criterion Collection and streams on the Channel. The DVD set includes the French version and a restoration of the German version missing three minutes of the original running time.
Zero for Conduct
Zero for Conduct has been another victim of censorship. Jean Vigo’s depiction of the miseries in a school for mainly working-class boys and especially the rebellion that some of the foment was too much for the authorities. It was only discovered after World War II, being released in the USA in 1947 and being taken up by cinephiles and the New Wave filmmakers in France.
I first saw the film as a graduate student. It was a muddy, gray print that did not reveal to me what all the fuss was about. Modern restoration has revealed the details and the luminosity of the cinematography by Boris Kaufman, as in the nighttime dormitory rebellion (above).
Vigo is sometimes referred to as a surrealist director. There are moments in Zero for Conduct that could be described as surrealist, as when the one kind teacher Huguet, draws a carticature while doing a hand-stand or the life-sized dummies that represent the attendees at the school fête where the rebellion breaks out. On the whole, however, the odd touches seem more to represent the way the children see the world, for the film is told largely from their vantage points.
Zero for Conduct is available in its restored version on DVD or Blu-ray in the set “The Complete Jean Vigo” from The Criterion Collection and streams on the Criterion Channel.
A Night on Bald Mountain
It’s not often that a completely new animation technique is introduced, but it happened in 1933. Claire Parker and Alexander Alexeieff had invented the pin board or pin screen method. It involved a perforated board three by four feet, with hundreds of thousands of headless pins stuck through it. By pushing pins forward selectively and casting a raking light across the board, they could create images that resemble moving engravings.
A Night on Bald Mountain is set to Mussorgsky’s tone poem. There is no narrative, only a series of unconnected, disturbing images pass quickly across the screen, often morphing from one shape to the next. The result, as the above images suggests, is eerie indeed.
Given the labor-intensive work required on each film, the pair produced a small number of animated shorts across decades, supporting themselves by making many advertising shorts. The Wikipedia entry on Alexeieff has an excellent summary of the couple’s career and an extensive filmography.
Most prints of A Night on Bald Mountain are too dark. A restored version is included in Flicker Alley’s essential DVD/Blu-ray collection, “Early Women Filmmakers: An International Anthology.” It streams on The Criterion Channel.
Footlight Parade
1933 was a remarkable year for the series of Warner Bros. musicals famous for their numbers staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. No fewer than three major titles were released that year: 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade. I can’t put all three on the list, and I suspect the general opinion is that Footlight Parade is the best of the entire series.
It’s far livelier than the others, with the crazy premise that a company forms a service delivering live stage prologues to movie theaters. The result is a frantic race to get from one theater to the next. It has James Cagney, whose fast patter and unique, jittery dancing style injects an energy that offsets the bland Dick Powell. It has a string of big numbers, from “Honeymoon Hotel” to “By a Waterfall” to “Shanghai Lil,” all showing Berkeley at his flamboyant best.
Footlight Parade is available in Blu-ray and other formats from Warner Bros. The image above was taken from a DVD in “The Busby Berkeley Collection,” a bargain boxed setwith five films and a documentary.
Duck Soup
Speaking of surrealism, the Marx Brothers ended their five-film contract at Paramount with what is widely considered their best film, Duck Soup, directed by Leo McCarey.
At Paramount, the brothers were allowed to create messy scenarios without the logic and unity dictated for most Hollywood films–including those made at MGM under the dictates of Irving Thalberg. The result is a series of comic set pieces loosely held together by a plot involving the tensions between two Ruritanian countiries, Fredonia and Sylvania.
The most famous of these set pieces is the mirror scene, where Pinky (Harpo), dressed as Firefly (Groucho), struggles to hide the absence of a broken mirror by mimicking his actions perfectly. Rather than confronting Pinky, Firefly devises ever more elaborate movements to reveal the ruse, inevitably copied flawlessly by Pinky (above). Other comic highlights that have nothing to do with the plot involve Pinky and Chicolini (Chico) running a peanut stand and carrying on a feud with the neighboring lemonade stand run by the master of the slow-burn, Edgar Kennedy.
This feud foreshadows the battle scene at the climax of the film. Staged entirely in the Fredonia headquarters, the action becomes increasingly nonsensical, with Firefly’s military outfits changing at frequent intervals and madcap dispatches coming in from the front.
Duck Soup also has the advantage of not including either of the hitherto obligatory harp and piano solos by Harpo and Chico. There are no such “serious” interludes or subplots involving young lovers, as there would be in A Night at the Opera and other later films. It’s the Marxes’ only film with unadulterated crazy humor throughout.
Duck Soup is available on Blu-ray and other formats here. The same range of formats are available for “The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection,” which contains their five Paramount films.
King Kong
King Kong was released only a few years after Universal had seemingly identified ed the horror genre with vampires, sub-human monsters, and old dark haunted houses. Kong was different, a monster that could be sympathized with. Viewers could attribute human feelings to Kong as he saves Ann Darrow from a tyrannosaurus (above). As documentary filmmaker Carl Denham remarks, the giant gorilla’s affection for Ann turns the plot into a beauty-and-the-beast tale.
The film also added a touch of novelty by having Kong climb the Empire State Building, which had been opened to the public only two years earlier.
The impact of the film was no doubt enhanced by Max Steiner’s revolutionary musical track. It used leit motifs and a large orchestra, and the music played for a larger portion of the film than was usual in early sound films.
King Kong also expanded the methods of special effects available to filmmakers with its extensive use of Willis H. O’Brien’s puppet animation for Kong and the dinosaurs of Scull Island. (As I discussed in a previous post, O’Brien’s puppet animation was used extensively eight years earlier in the 1925 version of The Lost World.)
King Kong is available on Blu-ray from Warners. My image is from the out-of-print “Two-disc Special Edition” on DVD.
The Three Little Pigs
Despite being a major force in the American film industry by this point, Walt Disney has been little-represented in my lists. So far only The Skeleton Dance (1929), the first of the Silly Symphonies, has represented his output. The Three Little Pigs wasn’t a technical milestone in Hollywood animation. The first three-strip Technicolor short was Disney’s bland Flowers and Trees, which won the 1932 Oscar for an animated film (the first years this category was included). The Three Little Pigs won for 1933. In 1994 a large group of professional animators voted it number eleven on a list of the fifty greatest animated shorts. (An interesting list available here.)
Obviously people like the film a lot. It grossed ten times its production cost. It’s considered a classic. It has all the advantages of the best Disney shorts–beautiful color, fast action, and a catchy song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” It’s also quite funny. The framed pictures on the walls of the three pigs’ houses are easy to miss, but they characterize each pig cleverly.
The Three Little Pigs is available from multiple sources. My frame was taken from the “Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies” DVD set. The “Treasures” series, recognizable by its aluminum cases, is out of print and hard to find, though there are a few copies available on eBay. (The same version has been posted on YouTube, but beware, it is distinctly out of focus.)
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933).
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A Bay Area Home Merges Architecture, Art, and Outdoor Living
The Bay Area Home, designed by the Olson Kundig architecture firm with interiors by Nicole Hollis of NICOLEHOLLIS, stands as an elevated display of modern architecture and curated interiors, carefully crafted to promote the family’s active and art-filled life. Situated in an established San Francisco Bay Area neighborhood, the house is a relaxing haven amid city life, blending indoor and outdoor living with the help of mature oak trees, reflective water features, and expansive views of curated gardens.
Architect Tom Kundig’s design is a study in contrasts, balancing formal and casual spaces within a single structure. The home, which spans multiple zones, includes an area for entertaining guests and a more intimate section dedicated to family life. These distinct zones not only give the house a sense of openness but also foster a feeling of closeness and warmth. As Kundig explains, “This project organizes a pretty big home around two very different functions: formal spaces for hosting and entertaining, and much more casual family spaces.” This dual-purpose design is bolstered by the home’s close connection to nature, achieved through expansive glass walls and kinetic elements that blur the lines between the indoors and outdoors.
The entrance of the home begins with a dramatic statement: a black steel bridge suspended over a lightwell, leading to a bronze pivoting front door that opens onto an art-filled entryway. Large walls throughout the house showcase the family’s impressive art collection, featuring works from artists such as Oscar Murillo and Alma Allen, while oversized glass windows offer uninterrupted views of the lush surrounding landscape.
An Olympic-sized swimming pool lays along the axis of the hovering primary suite, an extension of the covered outdoor living space. On the opposite side of the pool is a cabana, which features a sauna, cold plunge, and outdoor gym.
Inside, the formal wing is punctuated by reflecting pools and framed with black steel columns. A pair of 13-foot pivoting glass doors anchor the space, allowing light to flow freely. Custom elements like a botanical bronze screen by artist David Wiseman add further layers of texture and artistry. As Nicole Hollis describes, “A screen by David Wiseman was a custom commission with the artist, and one of the most distinctive choices we made.”
In contrast to the formal living areas, the family zones are designed to feel casual yet luxurious. The kitchen, centered around a 28-foot-long Titiano marble island, opens onto a terrace, extending into the outdoors with dedicated spaces for cooking and dining under the shelter of the primary suite’s cantilevered volume. The outdoor kitchen, pool, and sports facilities encourage an active lifestyle, a design decision Kundig highlights: “The outdoor kitchen literally extends the energy from the main kitchen inside out into the landscape. The pool creates a link between the low-key activity of the house and the more intense recreational activity of the sauna, outdoor gym, and sport court beyond.”
A downstairs powder room houses a sculptural black marble sink surrounded by black wood walls embedded with veins of bronze inlay.
The home’s upper level is equally considered, featuring a serene primary suite that includes a marble bathtub, placed to create a peaceful connection with the surrounding tree canopy. A separate children’s wing adds functionality, providing privacy and play spaces, while at the basement level, a gym and recreation room open into the landscaped lightwell, ensuring natural light flows through even the most secluded parts of the home.
The interiors, masterminded by Nicole Hollis, create a serene and inviting atmosphere, contrasting soft furnishings with the bold architectural lines of the house. “Working with the architectural palette, we selected materials and finishes to contrast against the lush exterior landscape, creating a calming environment,” Hollis explains. The careful interplay between the rigorous architecture and playful interior details softens the space, making it both livable and refined.
For more information on Olson Kundig, visit olsonkundig.com, and for more information on NICOLEHOLLIS, visit nicolehollis.com.
Photography by Douglas Friedman.
On parliamentarians talented, vainglorious, entertaining and anarchic
Our Britain columnist considers the best and the worst of MPs in a lively week in the House of Commons and beyond
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