The limitations of language
An interview with Wayne Wang
By John Esther
Named after his father’s favorite actor, John Wayne, Wayne Wang was born and raised in Hong Kong before moving to Los Altos, California in 1967.
Using grants from the National Endowment of Arts and the American Film Institute, in 1982 Wang made
Chan is Missing, a film which captured San Francisco’s Chinatown by focusing on its internal politics rather than give viewers the typical bleak look of Asian-American life through the milieu of an Asian-American underworld via disputes amongst various Asian triads.
Chan is Missing was followed by other Chinese and Chinese-American films such as
Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Hear (1985),
Dim Sum Take Out (1998),
East a Bowl of Tea (1989) and
Life is Cheap…But Toilet Paper is Expensive (1989) before hitting international success with the film adaptation of Amy Tan’s novel,
The Joy Luck Club (1993).
Rather than capitalize on that success, Wang returned to smaller filmmaking in 1995 with
Smoke and
Blue in the Face, two films penned by the noted American novelist Paul Auster (
New York Trilogy; The Music of Chance).
Henceforth, moving to and fro big Hollywood films and small independent films has been Wang’s way. The small
Chinese Box (1997) was followed by
Anywhere But Here (1999) starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman. After the independent film,
The Center of the World (2001), Wang dipped deep into Hollywood drudgery with
Maid in Manhattan (2002) starring the vile Jennifer Lopez; the little
Because of Winn-Dixie (2005) was followed by
Last Holiday (2006) starring Queen Latifah.
Accordingly, Wang needed to do a small film this time around. He did two. The bigger of the two is
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. Written by Granta winner Yiyun Li’s prize winning collection with the same title, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers tells the story of an elderly Chinese man, Mr. Shi (Henry O) who comes to visit his daughter, Yilan (Faye Yu), a modern Chinese-American women living in an American suburb.
A hypocritical patriarch who wants his daughter to do as he professes rather than how he really behaves, Mr. Shi badgers his daughter to do the “respectable” thing. And he does not understand her reluctance. A stranger in a America who speaks very little English, Mr. Shi’s only comrade is Madam (Vida Ghahremani) an Iranian woman living with her son’s family in the States. Life is not going well for Madam either.
Released at the same time on the Internet as
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers hit theaters,
The Princess of Nebraska tells the story of Sasha (Ling Li) a foreign exchange student who travels from Nebraska to San Francisco for an abortion. Unlike the more traditional mechanics and narrative of
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,
The Princess of Nebraska uses various new technological mediums to reflect the ever-changing identity of the film’s protagonist.
We caught up with Wayne Wang in late August to get his thoughts on film, politics and the power of language.
JEsther Entertainment: Why did you want to make this film?Wayne Wang: I had nothing better to do [Laughs]. I just came off of three studio films. I had a break, all of a sudden, because
Last Holiday didn’t do that great. I was craving to do something very personal and have more control.
JE: Which of the two primary characters do you identify with the most?WW: I pretty much indentify with the daughter. Chinese is a very formal, difficult language. It’s not exactly an expressive language. Lots of times you’re avoiding saying things directly. I learned English in school and came to America and, finally, really spoke English. It freed me. And the American culture here in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s was very free, too. I could literally do anything: drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll. I identify with Yilan’s newfound freedom very strongly. The father comes over and tries to figure her out. My dad did the same thing with me.
JE: You mention how the Chinese language is restrictive.WW: It’s a very old language. To begin with, it’s almost always spoken in proverbs. A lot of times you’re saying these four-word proverbs to express something that’s so complicated that often they’re like little haiku poems. The culture itself doesn’t like confrontation. There are different ways of saying no to someone.
JE: Which must come in handy in Hollywood?WW: [Laughs]. Well, I don’t want to say no. When a culture and a language has a lot of history and a lot of sophistication that’s what it gets.
JE:You must be talking about Chinese not Hollywood?WW: [Laughs]. Again….
JE: Speaking of foreign language-speaking people in Hollywood movies, most of the time when foreigners come to America everybody speaks English -- in the name of commercial interests. Your film says no to that dominant trope. WW: In a novel or short story you can write their dialogue in English, but in a film it’s the reality that this father and daughter would never speak English to each other. The father doesn’t speak English. They speak Mandarin to each other because that’s the only way to make the film. In addition, I was very adamant about these two actors speaking very accurate Beijing-accented Mandarin. This made casting extremely difficult. It immediately knocked out 99 percent of actors.
JE: Please elaborate. WW: When the Chinese Americans speak Chinese they sound like Americans. It’s like Americans trying to speak French. They all have this American-French accent. It’s very specific. You basically have to be born in Beijing to know that kind of Mandarin. On top of that, Yiyun has to speak American English. Anybody who speaks American English doesn’t have that Chinese accent. I saw actors from everywhere. When Faye was in Joy Luck Club, she didn’t speak a word of English; then I heard she had lived in Los Angeles for four years and studied English so I called her. She spoke fluent English; I said, “You got the part.”
JE: Another layer to that is how the father speaks to Madam, who speaks Farsi, while he speaks Chinese. During those Chinese-Farsi conversations there are no subtitles. WW: I didn’t want subtitles because the audience should experience what those two are experiencing and not have any more information. Yet you could still understand. Sometimes the specifics of a language are not as important as the music of the language and the body language of the language.
JE: Unless one speaks both Chinese and Farsi one wonders if they are really communicating or just talking for the sake of expressing themselves out loud, to vent. WW: There’s some of that. In the venting and in the process of just talking, even saying gibberish, there’s a common experience that something horrible happened in their past and the common experience of dealing with their kids. It may not be as specific as you want.
JE: Then there is a communication affiliation along generational lines. WW: In those two cultures you take care of your parent. You never have parents live alone or send them to a home. I went through that myself. My father passed away. My mother is in her 80s. I kept her in the apartment they lived in, but she was literally dying in front of me because she was so isolated. I had so much guilt about sending her to a home because that’s just not done. I sent her to a Chinese-run home and she’s so happy because she has activities, other people. But the culture says, “You don’t leave your parents.”
JE: Mr. Shi and Madam also come from countries with very restrictive governments. They embraced those regimes more than their children who have fled those countries and to which the parents have now followed the children. The parents have followed in the footsteps of their children. WW: Yes, although I hadn’t thought of it like that. There is a lot of weight and regret from what happened during Iran and China’s cultural revolutions. It affects you and your family big time.
JE: Perhaps because a lot of people like to lump Asian filmmakers together, people mention Yasujiro Ozu when reviewing this film, but I see a lot more Ingmar Bergman. The father has alienated his child to such a psychological point the two can barely communicate. WW: Bergman? Well, yes. Someone also said, “Chekhovian,” which is possible. Yiyun Li is a fan of Chekhov. I am a fan of Ozu because he’s the most Asian in his aesthetics and I really like some of that. For example, taking the time, using two shots, using the environment a lot, things like that. I would say Bergman is very much in there, too. It’s quite psychological. I like that reference.
JE: The Princess of Nebraska will be released on the Internet at the same time as A Thousand Years of Good Prayers hits theaters. WW:
The Princess of Nebraska uses a lot of mediums. Some of it is shot on a cell phone. It’s very contemporary. It’s about a girl who’s very much of the Internet age. It’s about another generation of Chinese women. She grew up during the economic boom. She doesn’t really have much of a past. She’s searching for her identity. It’s very appropriate these two be shown together. In France they show them in the same theater, but here it’s not feasible to do it.
JE: Would it have to do with anything about the subject matter of abortion?WW: It’s a more difficult film to put in a theatrical release. It’s quite experimental.
JE: Were there any political intentions regarding that subject matter and it being released election year?WW: [Laughs]. Election year? In the end it’s not about abortion but her being free in her sexuality. If it is political it’s not conscious. If people pick that up and deal with it that’s great. It’s an issue that needs to be discussed.
JE: You grew up her in the late 1960s and early 1970s, lived on a radical Quaker farm yet your films are not overtly political.WW: Yeah, they’ve never been that overtly political, but they’re always political. I believe the political exists in everything you do, especially in the family, which is a microcosm of society. In the case of
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the father is very paternal, which is very much the Chinese government. I don’t like making overtly political films because I find myself looking at both sides all the time. What is right and wrong always has many different sides. My films are about responsibility, understanding and communication.
JE: Which shows through in the form of language, especially here, where there is the very restrictive patriarchal language of Chinese playing against a postmodern plethora of competing languages and idioms--less patriarchal but in no sense radically anti-patriarchal--in the “new world order.”WW: Yes, language is political.
The Princess of Nebraska looks at this Chinese woman who’s experienced an economic boom and the language it creates.
JE Using different filmmaking mediums, such as a cell phone, is also a form of language/narrative which dilutes the once omnipresent narrative of the Chinese government or screening a 35mm film on the big theater screen. WW: Right. Also the film on the Internet will be shown for free. That’s very political.
JE: No illegal piracy in China. WW: [Laughs]. That’s right. Exactly.
JE: Speaking of language, power, piracy and dominance, why do you like to move back and forth between Hollywood movies and more personalized filmmaking?WW: When I made
Maid in Manhattan there was sort of an economic necessity. But I like the challenge of both. I love to make a studio commercial film that’s very powerful or funny that doesn’t have to be a complete sell out. Once in a while you get films like that.
Michael Clayton [2007] was a suspense thriller that actually had something to say. I’m trying to find a balance to make a great commercial film and that’s not easy. Back in the early 1970s Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese did it. Now it’s very, very hard. Now you have to make
Batman.
JE: Lastly, what do you think about these interviews where you discuss your work? Does it serve the work? Should the work speak for itself?WW: The work should speak for itself. A lot of times I wonder why I have to explain anything. In this case, if it helps a little people understand it a little more or people will go see it, I’ll talk about it. They’re very difficult films to throw out there.
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