Bettina Lockemann

If you are in Berlin in the coming weeks, I recommend that you check out Bettina Lockeman's exhibition of photographs that she took in Japan between April and July 2006. The exhibition is called Contact Zone and you can find a preview of the exhibition here and here. The photographs for the exhibition were all shot on black and white film, which she tells me is becoming a scarcer and scarcer commodity these days. While Bettina was in Japan, she also kept a blog of the digital photographs she took. Here's a link to her first blog entry.

Bettina's main project when she was in Japan was her research about European photographers in Japan. It was fascinating to read some of her material and see how, often without even realizing it, many photographers are unable to shed certain stereotypes about Japan. Somehow, a collection of photographs labeled 'Japan' just isn't complete without shots of torii and the cosplay kids in Harajuku.

It's pretty clear that in her black and white photographs, Bettina tried to steer clear of these pitfalls. Armed with a guidebook to architecture in Tokyo, she sought out urban landscapes to photograph. As always, I am impressed by her eye for perspective. Her photographs show us everyday cityscapes that we might otherwise consign to the background of our day, and asks us to look again at the details of the world around us.

Loris Gallery, Berlin, 23 February - 29 March 2008

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008

Miyoshi Umeki (ミヨシ・ウメキ)

Watching the Oscar highlights this morning, I was saddened to discover that Miyoshi Umeki (梅木御代志 or ミヨシ・ウメキ) passed away last summer at the age of 78. Although her career in Hollywood was brief, the highlight came early on when she and Red Buttons (1919-2006) both won Oscars for their supporting roles in the Marlon Brando vehicle Sayonara (Joshua Logan, 1957). Umeki was the first Asian actor to win an Oscar... which makes me wonder: has another Asian actor ever won again? Sessue Hayakawa made some of his finest work pre-Oscars (the 1910s) and his chance with Bridge on the River Kwai was nipped at the post by Red Buttons. Anna May Wong was never even nominated for an Oscar.

I have a soft spot for Umeki, not just because she was lovely and an extremely gifted singer, but because she is from one of my favourite places in the world: Hokkaido. It really is too bad that her career as a film actress could not blossom much further after Sayonara, due to the stunning lack of roles for Asian actors in Hollywood -- a shameful tradition that continues to this day. I find it difficult to watch Umeki stereotyped in Flower Drum Song (1961), though her beautiful singing means that it is not as painful an experience as when Mickey Rooney tries to act "Chinese" in Breakfast at Tiffany's. The American entertainment industry was clearly going through an Oriental Phase in the late 1950s / early 1960s.

In tribute to Umeki, a fan has posted this wonderful clip of her as a guest on the Gisele MacKenzie show on March 29, 1958, just days after winning her Oscar. Click here to watch it. As was standard practice at the time, the 'interview' seems heavily scripted. I have the impression that Umeki might be exaggerating a Hollywood 'Asian accent' during the interview with Gisele. Contrast her perfect intonation and pronunciation when she sings in English with the pigeon English she speaks in the interview. I think she's playing a role, not herself. I bet that in real life her English was much better than she's letting on - her perfect distinction between r's and l's gives her away.

Umeki was clearly smart enough to know her limitations in Hollywood, and she made a name for herself through cameos on talk shows and TV series including The Donna Reed Show, Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Mister Ed, and finally her successful stint as Mrs. Jefferson in The Courtship of Eddie's Father. From what little is known about her life after retirement, it sounds as though she enjoyed living the remainder of her life out of the spotlight. I really admire her fortitude in choosing her path in life.

SAYONARA [Limited Low-priced Edition]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008

Ducktators

I recently watched a Dutch documentary called Duckators (Guus von Wavern & Wolter Braamhorst, 1998) about animated propaganda done in Hollywood during the Second World War. I recall vividly some of the anti-German propaganda by Disney of swastikas crawling like spiders across Europe that I saw when I was a film student. I can’t recall the name of the film let alone the rest of the film, but that iconic image and its intended message branded itself in my memory. The animated propaganda from this period, in places like the States, Canada, and Japan, played a very important role in the home front war effort because they produced entertaining shorts that were extremely memorable.

This documentary, named after a famous propaganda film starring Donald Duck, looks at the output of Disney and Warner Brothers during the war. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, both companies threw themselves whole-heartedly into the war effort not just out of patriotism but, as one of the interviewees emphasizes, because it was profitable for them. By 1943, 94% of Disney’s output involved war-related material.



I really enjoyed the documentary because the filmmakers allow their material to speak for itself. The cartoons themselves are intercut with interviews with Sody Clampett (widow of Bob Clampett), Chuck Jones, Eric Smooden (film historian), Elfriede Fischinger (widow of Oskar Fishinger), Bob Clampett, Jr, and a number of other critics and historians. This lack of narrator really works in the film’s favour because it contrasts nicely with the heavy voice-of-god narration of the times (à la Lorne Greene).

The selection of propaganda footage in Ducktators demonstrates how effective animation, which at this time as TV critic Karl Cohen explains precedes the “ghetto-ization of cartoons to kids only”, was at ridiculing and de-humanizing the Axis forces. They poke fun at Hitler’s concept of himself as being a heroic, superhuman figure, and they deliberately make the Japanese as ugly and inhuman as possible. The Japanese are depicted as being small with buckteeth, glasses, and insect-like.

Here is Tokio Jokio, an example of Warner Brother's anti-Japanese propaganda:



I have read a great deal about the Japanese animation done as a part of their war effort, but have yet to see the films. Ducktators does contain a clip of an anime of the bombing of Pearl Harbor that certainly whets my appetite to search down more of these films.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008