Shakespeare in Hanoi: Tom Weidlinger Looks Beyond the War
In his 25 years as a filmmaker, Tom Weidlinger has explored countless historical events and phenomenon, but rarely has he borne witness to history in the making. He was lucky enough to do so in the fall of 2000 when he traveled to Hanoi to document an unprecedented creative collaboration between the Central Dramatic Company of Vietnam and the Artists Repertory Theater of Portland, Oregon. Their bilingual, bicultural production of William Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream was sponsored by the Vietnam American Theater Exchange (VATE), the first reciprocal exchange project dedicated to expanding artistic contact between the two countries. Weidlinger is proud to point out that his new film, A Dream in Hanoi, which screens this month in Film Arts True Stories Series, is also a historical first: It is the first documentary about Vietnam made in the last quarter century that does not focus on the war or its aftermath.
Michael Sherman, General Manager of KTSF (Bay Area channel 26), was an executive producer of the film. He learned of the Shakespeare co-production from his college classmate and VATE founder, Lorelle Browning. Recognizing the cultural and historical significance of such an undertaking, Sherman contacted the Lillian Lincoln foundation, which then offered Weidlinger a budget of $200,000 to make a film about VATE. (The foundation also funded Weidlingers last documentary, Boys Will Be Men, about male development in American society). Two months later, Weidlinger was on his way to Hanoi with only a digital video camera and his son, Wes McLean, who acted as soundman.
The process happened so quickly that Weidlinger limited travel preparations to the delicate task of obtaining permission from the Communist Government to bring along his camera. Once there, however, he encountered little bureaucratic interference. I felt that because of the war people would look upon me as the enemy, but that was really not the case. Instead, he came to sense that the Vietnamese had moved on. In a strnge kind of way, the war is further in the past in Vietnam than it is in America.
Tension and Cultural Conflict
Weidlinger was on location nearly every day for the ten weeks of rehearsals leading up to opening night in Hanoi, a schedule that far exceeded the customary involvement of a Vietnamese documentarian. As he explains it, The fact that there was this guy basically hanging around for three months was completely outside [the Vietnamese] field of experience. Though Vietnamese culture discourages speaking critically of others, especially guests, Weidlingers diligence eventually allowed his Vietnamese subjects to open up and speak frankly about their American collaborators. At one point, the Vietnamese director, Doan Hoang Giang, admitted to Weidlinger that he was quickly losing patience with Browning, saying that if she was going to interfere with his direction then she might as well direct the production herself.
As rehearsals wore on and the actors felt increasingly comfortable in front of the camera, themes and conflicts began to emerge. Certain tensions were developing, Weidlinger recalls, between individuals, and also between ways of looking at the world, art, and Shakespeare. In order to retain some focus in his filming, he spent a great deal of time in his hotel room, watching tapes, making notes, and deciding which conflicts to follow. He ultimately choses clashes that illustrated deep cultural differences, such as the difficulties Kristen Martha Brown, the American female lead, encountered in trying to conform her character, Helena, to the Vietnamese model of femininity.
Fortunately (from a filmmaking perspective) Weidlinger found no shortage of conflicts. During the final weeks before the play was to open, things really began to fall apart. The cell phone would ring, and there would be these incredible crises, like God, get down here, we just lost the theater.
As both filmmaker and DP, Weidlinger had to overcome some difficulties of his ownlike severe heat that made the actors so sweaty their mics shorted outbut he remained detached from the stage production and its problems. Looking back, he says, I missed out sometimes. I wanted to be more a part of the process. Conversely, he acknowledges that his presence as a neutral observer was beneficial to his subjects and to the nature of the collaboration as a whole. The fact that the camera was there gave people a feeling that there would be some kind of legacy for what they were doing.
The Final Product
By the time that they returned to the States, the two-man crew had amassed over 125 hours of footage, which Weidlinger cut down to 20 hours before bringing in seasoned editor Maureen Gosling, director of BLOSSOMS OF FIRE (RP, May 2000). He describes himself as a glorified sous chef who prepared all the ingredients and then let Gosling run with it. Finally, Weidlinger called in a favor from former collaborator, the Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham (AMADEUS), who happily signed on as the films narrator.
Weidlinger is enthusiastic about the finished product, especially since he convinced the Lillian Lincoln Foundation to spring for a 35mm transfer, which cost an additional $375 per minute.
When asked about what he hopes the audience will take away from the film, Weidlinger is quick to emphasize that A DREAM IN HANOI is not a documentary about the political situation in Vietnam. What I would like the audience to feel is that, however different societies are, politically or culturally, there can always be opportunities for building bridges. Meryl Cohen
