Introducing tonight's program is Stephen Gong, Media Specialist, National Endowment for the Arts, who is an expert on the career of Sessue Hayakawa and on images of Asians in American film.
The Dragon Painter is presented with accompaniment by Walter Lew, who performs benshi in the Japanese silent film tradition. Benshi combines reading (both in English and in Japanese) with music played on a kayagum, a Korean 12-stringed instrument. The score is a contemporary piece written by Mr. Lew for this classical format. Accompanying Mr. Lew will be Don Sosin on piano, who will also play for The Cheat and The Tong Man.
A reception hosted by NAATA follows the 9:45 program.

The Cheat
One of the most visually elegant silent films ever made, The Cheat was initially banned in several states and was not particularly successful in the U.S., but was the object of no little adoration in Paris due to its shocking subject matter. (Hayakawa also starred in Marcel L'Herbier's 1937 French remake of The Cheat, Forfaiture.) A society lady (Fanny Ward) gambles away Red Cross funds and borrows from a wealthy Japanese man (Hayakawa) on the implied promise of becoming his mistress. This she refuses, and he brands her with a red-hot iron from his collection. He is killed by the woman's husband, who then faces trial for murder. The husband is acquitted only when his wife bares her brand in court.
The Cheat set standards of acting, decor, frame composition and lighting which were not surpassed for years, not even by De Mille (one memorable scene is played out almost entirely behind a screen, evoking an Asian shadow dance). But it is above all the first modern film in terms of its sexually-charged content. To this end, the character of the Asian became itself a “brand"--a source of sexual menace at once feared and desired--and it is to Hayakawa's credit that his later efforts as a producer worked to counter the stereotyped roles he was given as an actor.