Group 5: Stephen Gong Interview

Stephen Gong, CAAM Executive Director

In our search for further insight on the history of the Grandview, our group tried to contact potential people who would have either been connected to or studied the Grandview Theater and its founder Joseph Sunn Jue in the past. Our first lead began when McKenzie uncovered an interview with Jue’s son, Frank Mon Jue, who spoke fondly of his childhood neighborhood and father. Unfortunately, further research promptly informed us that Frank had passed away in July of 2015. Next on our list was filmmaker and author Arthur Dong whose upcoming work Grandview Films: Cinematic Crossings with Joseph Sunn Jue would have been the perfect source for our project. We reached out for an interview, but he ended up kindly declining, expressing that it was too early in the writing process for an interview. Instead, he directed us to a published work of his (Hollywood Chinese: The Chinese in American Feature Films) that contained sections on Joseph Sunn Jue and several others who worked with the Grandview: Marianne Quon and Esther Eng. Excited by the introduction of new potential points of contact, we looked into the two individuals only to discover that Marianne Quon— who turned out to be Joseph Sunn Jue’s wife— died in 1991, and Esther Eng— a Cantonese-American film director— died in 1970. Though a little disheartened by these literal dead ends, we pressed onward, taking our next outreach effort to CAMM Executive Director Stephen Gong. Saddened by the lack of tangible information left of the Grandview when touring the San Francisco theaters, Christine had asked tour guide David Lei for insight, and he had recommended Stephen Gong. Therefore, with bated breath, we sent out our interview plea once more, and after a couple exchanges regarding timing, we successfully secured an interview! Stephen graciously agreed to set aside an hour of his time for us to conduct a Zoom Q&A. 

     The Grandview Theatre with a brief description of its history.

    Gong during our interview on April 8th.

During our Zoom session, Stephen confirmed much of our previous research about the Grandview’s connection to the Grandview Film Company and distribution. With Joseph’s father having many trade connections, the company was able to distribute their films in San Francisco, New York, and possibly as far as Cuba. One of the newer insights that Stephen gave us was that “there’s even a short animated film that he’s done that’s at the San Francisco Media Archive. [They] have a short animated piece, I think he was a self taught animator with Claymation.” Stephen and McKenzie then discussed the issue of preservation, given how most films were destroyed from this time period. It’s interesting to note that the Hong Kong Film archive holds most of Joseph Sunn Jue’s original films in San Francisco, since most of his films were targeted towards a Cantonese speaking audience. Stephen also noted that Joseph Sunn Jue’s perspective on film was that “motion pictures had an obligation to uplift society, so for [Joseph], films needed to have a good moral at the end of the day, even if they were a comedy or a drama.” Stephen also mentioned Esther Eng during our interview, one of our previous potential points of contact, discussing her hidden sexuality as a lesbian director and how her works of life were influenced. With the context set, we began to ask about the Chinese Educational Film Company, bringing Chinese film to Hollywood. However, there was no market for the Grandview films, with Hollywood at best wanting to distribute their films overseas. As a result, Post World War II Hong Kong then became the place of focus for Joseph Sunn Jue and the Grandview Film Company. 

A 1954 advertisement for the Grandview featuring Opera actress Lai Yee.

Grandview and the Diaspora 

“What we’re seeing in the Grandview Pictures part, in San Francisco, is the very earliest attempts for them to try out this idea of an International Cantonese Motion Picture Studio.” - Stephen Gong

Early in our research, we came across a 2017 San Francisco Chronicle article which detailed Joseph Sunn Jue and the Grandview Motion Pictures wide range of productions, spanning many genres. It noted, however, that the most popular were Jue’s original productions. We discussed with Gong how these productions in particular would have wide reaching appeal, confirming their distribution to Cantonese speaking diaspora in Cuba, Mexico, Panama, South America, Hawaii, the Philippines, Australia, and Madagascar were attributed for his international success (SF Chronicle, 2017).

These two unique factors seemed to repeatedly present themselves during our research: the enclave expat communities - content with remaining within their own cultural borders- and Grandview’s distribution network during the height of WWII import restrictions. With the primary channel for Cantonese-language content restricted from importation, it appeared that Grandview was able to capitalize these diaspora’s demand for content. We referred Gong for his insight on why this might be and why San Francisco Grandview was so successful.

“San Francisco Chinatown is remarkable in the sense that it still remains…. it is unique in that it is an enclave - a community by choice, and a ghetto. They weren’t allowed to live elsewhere, and needed to live there in order to work. So when you think about it under those terms, you do have a self-separated, language-identity community.” -Stephen Gong 

Gong’s insights on how the Chinese exclusion act and the migrant worker community shaped the San Francisco Chinatown were thought provoking and lent context to the diaspora communities’ strong demand for Cantonese-language content.

Shared Language and Spectatorship

It seemed the shared language nature of theater and its community contributed largely to its popularity; however, we saw that decline with the cultural expansion of each generation. Gong spoke personally to this concept, explaining how his parents' generation viewed themselves as Chinese through and through.

“It was when I went to Cal that I formed an Asian-American identity.” -Stephen Gong 

 As the political barriers eased internationally, the cultural barriers followed and the subsequent generations “began to view that [enclave entrenchment] as a barrier to being successful..”  (Gong). Ultimately, as younger generations began to seek American content, Gong acknowledges that Grandview Theater most likely wouldn’t have been able to survive had Sunn Jue not returned to Hong Kong. 

A lot is said about the introduction of Streamers in regards to decline of traditional spectatorship. Gong emphasizes its potential of a “full-circle” possibility. While collective viewing in a theater has been the traditional idea of spectatorship, there existed an online parallel. Here, cinephiles created collections of  “niche” communities via message boards and the like. Gong cites Comic Con and film festivals such as CAAM  as examples of where he see people building a new sense of community: the new spectatorship.

It would seem, with the death of the theater, we’ve found our new traditional. Spectatorship has become less about the place and experience a theater can offer, but rather  the community a piece of content builds in its wake.