{"id":59730,"date":"2020-06-15T01:47:31","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T01:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59730"},"modified":"2020-06-15T01:47:35","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T01:47:35","slug":"rebecca-hall-talks-complicated-notions-of-bi-racial-identity-in-directorial-debut-passing-tales-from-the-loop-more-deep-focus-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59730","title":{"rendered":"Rebecca Hall Talks Complicated Notions Of Bi-Racial Identity In Directorial Debut \u2018Passing,\u2019 \u2018Tales From The Loop\u2019 & More [Deep Focus Podcast]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Hall Talks Complicated Notions Of Bi-Racial Identity In Directorial Debut \u2018Passing,\u2019 \u2018Tales From The Loop\u2019 & More [Deep Focus Podcast]<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Playlist<\/a>
\n2020-06-10<\/p>\n

Rodrigo Perez<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Actor Rebecca Hall<\/a> comes from a unique and interesting pedigree and lineage. There\u2019s the surface element of that pedigree which could be seen as aristocratic privilege in the world of the arts. She is the daughter of the famous theatre director Sir Peter Hall<\/a> (who passed away in 2017) and her mother is the legendary opera singer and stage actress Maria Ewing<\/a>. Hall attended Cambridge University\u2019s constitute school, St Catharine\u2019s College, studied English, and eventually found her way back to acting after some time briefly spent as an actor during childhood.<\/p>\n

Known for an eclectic career that took off after an early breakthrough performance in Christopher Nolan\u2019s \u201cThe Prestige,\u201d Hall\u2019s also appeared in such movies as \u201cVicky Cristina Barcelona,\u201d \u201cFrost\/Nixon,\u201d Nicole Holofcener\u2019s \u201cPlease Give,\u201d Ben Affleck\u2019s \u201cThe Town,\u201d Joel Edgerton\u2019s \u201cThe Gift,\u201d and Antonio Campos\u2019 striking indie \u201cChristine\u201d which brought her much extra acclaim to an already celebrated career.<\/p>\n

But her personal identity, or at least the one of her parents, is much different. Hall\u2019s mother is from Detroit, Michigan<\/a>\u2014perhaps an unlikely place as any to birth an opera singer\u2014and bi-racial with African American and Dutch ancestry. Her grandfather was also bi-racial and to hear Hall tell it, both of them had a very complicated and complex struggle with their identity and how they appeared to others in the world.<\/p>\n

This struggle, this question of identity and who you pass as in the world is something Hall tries to reckon with in \u201cPassing,\u201d her upcoming directorial debut<\/a> which probably couldn\u2019t be more timely. An adaption written by Hall as well, and something she\u2019d been hoping to make for years, \u201cPassing\u201d is based on Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> 1920s Harlem Renaissance novel of the same name<\/a> that explores the practice of racial passing<\/a>, a term used for a person classified as a member of one racial group who seeks to be accepted by a different racial group. The film stars Tessa Thompson<\/a> and Oscar nominee Ruth Negga<\/a> as two reunited high school friends, whose renewed acquaintance ignites a mutual obsession that threatens both of their carefully constructed realities.<\/p>\n

In this latest episode of our Deep Focus Podcast, Hall discussed \u201cPassing\u201d at length, including the ideas of permission and permits needed to try and tell these kinds of stories and the charges of cultural appropriation that can be lobbied at one when making them. But her original statement of intent is perhaps most succinct and eloquent when she said: \u201cI came across [Passing] at a time when I was trying to reckon creatively with some of my personal family history, and the mystery surrounding my bi-racial grandfather on my American mother\u2019s side. In part, making this film is an exploration of that history, to which I\u2019ve never really had access.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, she described \u201cPassing<\/a>\u201d as an astonishing book \u201cabout two women struggling not just with what it meant to be Black in America<\/a> in 1929, but with gender conventions, the performance of femininity, the institution of marriage, the responsibilities of motherhood, and the ways in which all of those forces intersect.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article and listen to the podcast (01:04:15) here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

But her personal identity, or at least the one of her parents, is much different. Hall\u2019s mother is from Detroit, Michigan\u2014perhaps an unlikely place as any to birth an opera singer\u2014and bi-racial with African American and Dutch ancestry. Her grandfather was also bi-racial and to hear Hall tell it, both of them had a very complicated and complex struggle with their identity and how they appeared to others in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,2850,13743,8,6462,20],"tags":[87,28879,30893,827,19672,30892],"class_list":["post-59730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-audio","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-nella-larsen","tag-rebecca-hall","tag-rodrigo-perez","tag-ruth-negga","tag-tessa-thompson","tag-the-playlist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59730"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59731,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59730\/revisions\/59731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}