Birth of Cinema in Vietnam

From: Diane N. Fox <dnfox@u.washington.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Sent: Thursday, October 17, 2002 2:26 AM

Subject: Query: birth of cinema in Vietnam?

Dear List,

Claude Grunspan's "Gao Rang" ("Riz Grille", "Grilled Rice"--so called for the rice the cameramen used to protect their equipment against humidity) links the origins of Vietnamese cinema to combat cameramen who filmed during the fighting against the French, using French cameras.

Does anyone know if there was a 'civilian' cinema before that, or a school... or of other seeds out of which Vietnamese cinema grew?

Thanks for any ideas!

Diane

From kleinen@pscw.uva.nl Wed Oct 15 17:48:13 2003

Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 05:13:46 +0200

From: John Kleinen <kleinen@pscw.uva.nl>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: Query: birth of cinema in Vietnam?

Dear Diana,

Rice (in crude form, not just roasted) is the predecessor of the gel-kits that you can find in any box with electronic equipment today. Photography Manuals from the Dutch East Indies mention even special designed black boxes to store camera equipment. Tricks and tips for using and keeping cameras in the tropics go back to these old days.

The production of movie films in both parts of Vietnam was very limited because of organisational and budgetary constraints. Full length features distributed in the Republic of Vietnam came mostly from foreign countries like France, the United States, Hong Kong and India (with a legacy from German film makers who came to Bombay before 1940). In the DTV, equipment from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China was used to produce feature films and documentaries. The famous Russian cameraman Roman Karmen assisted director Nguyen Tien Loi in the production of his still valuable documentary on the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Karmen came from a "film school" of which also the Dutch filmer Joris Ivens was a member. They cherished the concept of "docu-drama" and staged documentaries in a way we now regard as sheer "re-enactments" (e.g. Borinage; and a movie about the founding of Magnitogorcz, if I well remember).

Regarding your question about the "origins of the Vietnamese cinema" I can refer you to the following literature which I used when I studied the topic:

Carlot, John 1994 Vietnamese Cinema. First Views. In Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema. Wimal Dissanayake (ed), ed. Pp. pp. 105-140. Bloomington and Indianapolis:: Indiana University Press.

Cahiers de la Cinematheque. Numéro Special : Revue Histoire du Cinema. June(483), 1992.

Rouse, S., South Vietnam's Film Legacy. In Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1986, pp.212-223.

Sadoul, Georges, Histoire du cinema mondial des origines à nos jours. Paris: Flammarion, 1963.

I know quite a few Vietnamese here in Hanoi, whose fathers worked in film studio's of the French (feature and documentary). Some of these early films are still kept here, others are in Paris.

Best regards,

John Kleinen

From judithh@u.washington.edu Wed Oct 15 17:48:21 2003

Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2002 22:35:08 -0700 (PDT)

From: Judith Henchy <judithh@u.washington.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: Query: birth of cinema in Vietnam?

Diane,

There was a civilian film industry. Nguyen Van Ky talks about it in La Societe Vietnamienne face a la modernite. His research dates it

from 1919 (see page 182.)

judith

From jhannah@u.washington.edu Wed Oct 15 17:48:30 2003

Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 08:53:25 -0700 (PDT)

From: joseph j hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: RE: Query: birth of cinema in Vietnam?

The nice thing about using Gao Rang as a dessicant is that when it gets too moist to absorb efficiently, you just throw it in a frying pan and

drive out the moisture (no oil!), then re-use it. A useful and environmentally friendly material.

Joe

On Thu, 17 Oct 2002, Nora Taylor wrote:

> Hi Diane:

>

> Just a correction to John's message. The first article he mentions in his very useful list of sources is by John Charlot (as in Charlie Chaplin in French) and not Carlot. Just in case you can't find it.

> I also used Gao Rang in boxes to keep my slides from molding away when I was in Hanoi.

>

> Good luck,

>

> Nora

>

From: Gilbert <MGilbert@ngcsu.edu>

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 5:10 PM

Subject: Re: The Quiet American film - where is it showing?

I am sure in John's book he includes Sam Fuller's "China Gate," (1957) in which Angie Dickenson plays the Dragon Lady. Between White Dragon Lady and "Quiet Vietnamese Woman" there is, as John and Jayne suggest, much to deconstruct.

Marc

Professor Marc Jason Gilbert

Department of History

North Georgia College and State University

Dahlonega, Georgia 30597

Phone: (706) 864-1911

Fax: (706) 864-1873

E-mail: mgilbert@ngcsu.edu

From kleinen@pscw.uva.nl Wed Oct 15 18:37:54 2003

Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 14:53:54 +0100

From: John Kleinen <kleinen@pscw.uva.nl>

Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu

To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Dear Gilbert,

Samuel Fuller, famous for his Korean War movies, signed for China Gate (1957), which was shot in a cartoon-like setting of a dangerous mission undertaken by soldiers of the French Foreign Legion to destroy a secret Vietminh munitions dump. The opening documentary footage with a picture of Ho Chi Minh is the only reference to Vietnam. The rest is a peculiar mix of an anti-Communist adventure and a covert appeal for racial tolerance. The opening song by Nat "King" Cole who plays the close ally and friend of the chief protagonist, Johnny Brock/Gene Barry, the warrior who fixes the job, refers to Fuller's attempt to combine a staunch anti-Communist movie with a plea for tolerance among the otherwise racially divided American public of the fifties. The main Asian characters are all played by white actors: Angie Dickinson who personifies the Eurasian saloon owner Lia alias Lucky Legs, the "dragon lady" in a slit (Chinese not Vietnamese) dress who leads the

legionnaires to the hidden camp in return for her son to be sent to the United States and the Viet Minh commander Major Chan (Lee Von Cleef) who is the secret lover of Lucky Legs. The interracial romance is peculiar and ambigious, because only Caucasians are involved into it.

But even an European audience, which unlike many Americans at the time was not ridden by a racial divide, was not yet deemed prepared for such a bond: In Marcel Camus' Mort en Fraude (1957) the Vietnamese heroine who hides a Frenchman on the run in the village house of her father to protect him -in vain - from the white Saigon mafia, is the French-Vietnamese actress Anh Méchard (Delmeulle 1992). "Métissage" becomes a marker for the representation of the "Other.The representation of Indochina or as one critic labeled it -the feminisation of the Other- will become the theme of movies like Indochine , The Lover and even Dien Bien Phu, all released around 1992 (see Norindr 1996: 131-155).

Best regards,

John

Mike et al,

You might also be interested to know that a Vietnamese filmmaker produced a

documentary (1998) on 'xam' singing and singers. The film records the

filmmaker's efforts to find "authentic" singing, which he finally traces

back to one last contemporary singer of the "true" style (who has since

died, I think). Bui Trong Hien was an adviser to the project.

Lisa

_____________________________________

Lisa Drummond

Division of Social Science, Ross S767

Faculty of Arts

York University

4700 Keele Street

Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3

Tel: +416-736-2100 x77792

Fax: +416-736-5615

Email: drummond@yorku.ca