Yifen Beus, the David O. McKay lecturer, discusses a new approach to reading Pacific Island films in film studies
After giving her David O. McKay lecture on the ways film can help us see the world through different lenses, Yifen Beus said she was asked by a curious faculty member, “Do you think directors think of those things when making the film or is it film critics who tease out complexities?” Beus is the associate academic vice president for Faculty and a professor in the Faculty of Arts & Letters at BYU–Hawaii.
During the question-and-answer panel about her work, Beus said her colleagues' questions and comments in response to her work is similar to film critics’ comments; they help her tease out the complexity in her own research.
While framing her talk, Beus said, “We, as an audience, offer our willing suspension of disbelief when engaging a fictional world, and better yet a willing suppression of prejudice when engaging an unfamiliar or strange world with our eyes seeing and our ears listening.”
Filmmaking is usually seen as an invention of colonizers, she said, but Oceania filmmakers have modernized their storytelling by repositioning themselves in a cinematic space. She shared two clips from different films that illustrate Indigenous filmmaking.
One of the clips was from the movie “Seediq Bale,” set in Beus’ homeland of Taiwan. It is a dramatization of the 1930 Wushe Incident, an anti-colonial rebellion by one of Taiwan’s Indigenous groups, the Seediq, during Japanese rule. During the panel discussion, Dale Robertson, a retired political science professor, asked Beus how she would respond to someone who says that colonization is not their fault and they should not dwell on it because it causes feelings of guilt.
Beus said she would use herself as an example as someone who is Han Chinese, one of the groups that colonized Taiwan. “Self-referentiality is very important,” she said, “we need to recognize where we are coming from. We take the guilt and move it toward a positive direction together as a community because that is productive.”
“My hope is that she will inspire students and faculty to take film as a portal to seeing people in more caring and understanding ways,” said Mason Allred, an assistant professor in the Faculty of Arts & Letters.
Why Yifen Beus?
AnnaMarie Christiansen, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Letters, described Beus as “smart, thoughtful and fair,” noting her ability to be fair is admirable because it’s easy to get pulled in different directions in her job position.
Faculty members chosen for the lecture series highlight and share their expertise, said Christiansen. “I’m really excited that she’s focusing on film,” Christiansen shared. “I think she’s going to encourage us to look beneath the surface,” she added. Beus’ choice of films are not Hollywood blockbusters, said Christiansen, but are instead independent, non-western works that can open perspectives about the power of film.
“Growing up, my father had a friend who ran a movie theater,” said Beus. “I would go whenever I could, and [I] watched a lot of Hollywood films. That’s what planted the seeds for me.” Beus said she continued to love films in college, but film studies wasn’t an option during her undergraduate studies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from National Chengchi University, but she later earned a master’s degree in film and a doctorate in comparative literature.
The David O. McKay lecturer is nominated by faculty members and then chosen by a faculty advisory council a year in advance, Beus explained. She said she had no say in her nomination but felt overwhelmed and humbled by it.
Allred said he had Beus as a teacher when he was a student at BYUH and now is her colleague. “She wants people who care enough to think deeply and engage in a great conversation,” he said. “When you geek out on anything, it’s fun to engage with someone who knows a lot about that thing. And she knows so much.”
Movie critics
“We should always be careful and interrogate what we consume,” said Christiansen. She explained Beus does a good job at highlighting classics and conventions while showing what exists on the periphery, specifically by highlighting postcolonial films. It can be hard to reconcile watching movies for enjoyment with thinking about movies as a text, said Christiansen. “I think there’s value in enjoyment,” she said, “but there’s also value in thinking about things we usually take at face value.”
When people watch a film, there are expected conventions, said Christiansen. She said Beus is interested in ways films can challenge convention and teach people about the human condition.
Beus presented on Disney’s “Moana” in Canada at a prominent film conference, said Allred. “Because she’s so versed in the main theories of film studies, when she turns to other film traditions, she’s able to do it with so much depth,” he explained.
“If you are going to project your own ideas of authenticity onto a movie, there will always be issues,” said Allred. However, he explained it is still worthwhile to ask questions about culture and representation in a scholarly discourse that is open, informed and productive. Allred said the critics he sees on social media are usually reductive, and social media doesn’t lend itself to the needed depth of the conversation.
Christiansen said as teachers, BYUH’s film professors want to teach students so when they graduate, they have the ability to make conscious decisions about family and work. “Film studies is the vehicle to learning to think critically,” she explained.
Film suggestions from film teachers
Both Allred and Beus, two of the three professors who teach film classes at BYUH, said they don’t have a favorite film. However, after a minute of thinking, they both came up with multiple films they’d suggest watching. “I usually teach ‘The 400 Blows,’” said Beus, describing it as a French New Wave film. She said she also likes Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki because of his humanistic approach.
Allred said the movie that helped him decide to go into film was shown to him in Beus’ class. “‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,’” he said, “is an old expressionist German film.” Allred served his mission in Germany, he said, and when he learned about this movie he thought, “Wow, there’s so much more out there that I’d like to study. His dissertation ended up being about silent German films because of Dr. Beus’ class, he said.
A movie Allred said he loves and saw for the first time in Beus’ class was “In the Mood For Love,” a movie from Hong Kong. “It’s amazing, beautiful, crazy cinematography, [and the] best slow motions in the world,” he raved.