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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - Educational Media Reviews Online | "Invaluable" - Journal of Asian American Studies | SPECIAL JURY AWARD - Los Angeles Asian Pacific International Film Festival
Asian American Studies • Art History • Ethnic Studies • American History • Animation • Popular Culture StudiesDate of Completion: 2017 | Run Time: 77 minutes | Language: English | Captions: Available with Streaming | Includes: Transcript | Director: Pamela Tom
TYRUS is Pamela Tom's tour-de-force documentary about 105-year old Guangzhou-born, L.A. based visual artist, Tyrus Wong and his breathtaking scope of work across multiple artistic mediums and his personal and professional journey navigating racial bigotry in 20th century America. Tom's film makes meticulous use of Tyrus Wong's exquisite art, archival footage, illuminating interviews and commentary from Wong himself to document how his unique style, melding Chinese calligraphic and landscape influences with contemporary Western art, helped the Disney animated film, Bambi (1942) specifically, and early Hollywood in general establish their signature visual styles. The film makes a critical contribution to the documentary tradition and to American society in correcting a historical wrong by spotlighting this seminal, but heretofore under-credited figure.
SMITHSONIAN ARTICLE: How Tyrus Wong's Christmas Cards Captivated the American Public
Journal of Asian American Studies | Ann Thuy-Ling Tran, UC Irvine
"Wong’s story reminds us that one can be excluded from the national terrain of culture even while being the literal hand in its very production. As much of the emphasis in Asian American cultural studies is on more contemporary popular culture, scholars who are interested in early twentieth-century Asian American popular culture will find this film to be an invaluable contribution to fields related to historic Asian American visual cultures."
"A fascinating and well-made documentary of interest to artists, art and film history enthusiasts, and students of Asian American and popular culture studies."
Andy Horbal, University of Maryland Libraries
Second, by detailing the specific consequences of the institutional and personal racism that Wong faced throughout his career and life, Tyrus reveals just how far-reaching the costs of such behavior can be to an entire society. To again focus on Wong’s career in the movies, the film conclusively establishes that racism was responsible for his being fired from Disney with a year to go in the production of Bambi and subsequently improperly credited as being merely one of many “background artists” who worked on it. In addition to resulting in many decades passing before his true role was acknowledged (and therefore understood), this incident also presumably figured prominently in Wong’s decision to decline an invitation to work on the 1998 Disney production Mulan more than 50 years later. This story and others told by Wong, such as one about a Japanese-American contemporary who never painted again after being interned during World War II, helps the viewer realize how hard it is to measure what is lost when an entire group of people is denied the right to participate fully in the life of a country just because of what they look like or where they’re from. It’s not just the art that Wong or his contemporaries didn’t produce that you have to account for, it’s also the work of the countless other artists they never got a chance to inspire or mentor. [...]"
Candace Smith
Nancy Beiman, Professor of Animation
Dr. Amy Davis, Lecturer, Faculty of Arts, Cultures and Education and author of Good Girls & Wicked Witches: Women in Disney's Feature Animation
University of Maryland, Baltimore County | Corrie Francis Parks, Assistant Professor, Animation
"I think students would get a lot out of the film and it would make a great interdisciplinary event on campus."
"He is such a magnificent artist. I lack the vocabulary to capture how much Mr. Wong's work moves me. His art, all of it, even the Hallmark cards, are so beautiful and powerful and profound. I just see this powerful artist trained in the Chinese brush coming to see and draw the world through the eyes of numerous great artists and traditions and then synthesizing them all in new and magnetic ways that are true to his own individual vision, life experience and personal inspiration. The film is a visual delight."
Judith Trojan
"While Tyrus is a film that puts a human face to our nation of immigrants, it is also a love story about family and art, from his father’s early encouragement to Wong’s own paternal instinct."
Otis College of Art and Design | Joan Takayama-Ogawa, Professor
"Tyrus is a beautiful film about resilience over racism, working hard, pursuing a dream, learning that we can't fix all things but can learn to carry them with us. Pam Tom and everyone related to the film did a wonderful job. I was completely engaged and transported. I am reminded that I need to bring more Asian American role models to Otis, as my Chinese and Korean students were deeply touched."
Special Jury Award | Los Angeles Asian Pacific International Film Festival
Jury Award for Best Feature Documentary | DisOrient Asian American Film Festival of Oregon
Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature | Hawaii International Film Festival
Audience Award | Newport Beach Film Festival
Audience Award | San Diego Asian Film Festival
REQUEST A GOOD TALK WITH PAMEL TOM
Pamela Tom is a documentary and narrative director and producer. Her work explores themes of identity and the intersection of Asian aesthetics and American culture. After meeting the Chinese American artist and Disney legend Tyrus Wong 17 years ago, Pamela has worked tirelessly to make TYRUS, the award-winning documentary that delves into Tyrus’ life, art, and enduring impact. From his birthplace in Guangzhou, China, to the studios of old Hollywood, the film shows how Wong overcame a life of poverty and racism to become a successful artist, Hollywood motion picture illustrator, and concept artist on the classic animated film, Bambi. Not only does the film shed light on the dramatic and untold story of Chinese Americans in the 20th century, it also corrects a historical wrong by spotlighting this seminal, but heretofore under-credited figure. The film is premiering on PBS’ American Masters series. Pamela has been a featured speaker at both the Walt Disney & Pixar Animation Studios and numerous universities including Yale, Tufts University, Loyola Marymount University, and UMass Boston. Her past work includes Two Lies, an award-winning short about a Chinese American mother who undergoes plastic surgery to maker her eyes rounder. It debuted at Sundance and New Directors/New Films. She directed Sidney Poitier in a short to promote the Showtime film, Mandela and DeKlerk, and recently directed a feature-length documentary about his life. Tom is a recipient of a Walt Disney Writing Fellowship, Dorothy Arzner Award for Outstanding Woman Director, and Asian Pacific Women’s Network Award. Tom served as the Director of Diversity at Film Independent. She received her BA from Brown University and MFA from UCLA.