Tyrus: The Tyrus Wong Story dir. by Pamela Tom (review)

The artist's first words in this documentary are, "What drives me to painting is something I can't explain why, because [it's] something I just love to do, you know?" Chinese American filmmaker and director Pamela Tom takes this question to task in tracing the substantial life of Asian American artist Tyrus Wong. An artistic masterpiece in itself, the film begins by providing a glimpse into Wong's home studio, where he divulges his immense collection of personal works. The film unfolds with a continuous visual montage of Wong's vast life's work, in which he has explored and mastered multiple art mediums. From his doodles in junior high school before learning of his artistic talent to the kite-building projects he created in the latter part of his life, Tom delicately curates the beautifully expansive timeline of Wong's fascinating yet racially fraught art career as she displays his marvelous personal archive across the screen. Although Wong is best known for his instrumental role in the magnificent impressionist style of Walt Disney's Bambi (1942), Tom spends less than ten minutes of the nearly ninety-minute documentary on Wong's three years at Disney Animation Studios. Instead, she parallels two crucial timelines in the film: the rich story of Wong's marvelous art career and a backdrop of dark racial history and consequential political, economic, and social exclusionary practices in the United States.

The film presents Wong's life as a case study of Asian exclusion; walking alongside him as he revisits Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, we learn that at the age of nine, Wong endured a month-long detainment after being separated from his father upon his arrival in the United States. He explains how he lived through isolating and miserable living conditions, enduring countless interrogations aimed at deporting him and thousands of other Chinese immigrants. Wong recalls difficult economic realities of poverty that he, his father, and many other Chinese immigrants underwent after they were set free and reunited. Yet, with the help of friends, his father succeeded in sending Wong to art school, eventually propelling Wong into the Orientalist Art Movement of the 1930s. The documentary elaborates that, while the movement was infused with heightened exoticization of Chinese art, the continuation of Chinese exclusion––from citizenship and property ownership to stereotypical representations of race in American popular culture––persisted. But as the rest of Wong's art career unfolds, the audience learns that while his life was determined by racial circumscription, it neither defined his artistic vocation nor wavered his passion.

During America's declining economic conditions of the Great Depression, Wong's art survived through mural painting. Working as a waiter to support his family, Wong happened to meet Walt Disney and land a position at Disney Animation Studios. As he quickly rose through the ranks with his unique artistic style, Wong increasingly suffered racial hostility from his coworkers. He was eventually fired, and his undeniable foundational contributions to the film Bambi were discredited. He suffered similar racial prejudice during his time working at Warner Bros. Studios as a preproduction illustrator of large-scale concept paintings, and later at Republic Pictures while working on John Wayne movies. Throughout the documentary, two facts remain constant: he suffered various forms of racial discrimination––political (Exclusion), economic (impoverished conditions of Chinese immigrants), and social (workplace racial discrimination)—and despite hostile racial adversity, Wong pursued his unrelenting passion for art. Amid difficult racial realities, he nevertheless explored a diverse array of art mediums throughout his lifetime, from watercolor painting, landscape art, ceramic art, animation, live action illustration, and greeting cards to traditional kite making.

The documentary ends on a positive note in which Wong, by the age of ninety, began to receive much-deserved acclaim from various organizations, including Disney at the Legends Awards in 2011 for his immense contributions to Bambi. However, Wong leaves us with a subtle but chilling statement at the end of...