Readings on Cinema: Daisuke Miyao on Sessue Hayakawa

2/9/08 to 2/10/08

As renowned in his day as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, the Japanese American actor Sessue Hayakawa has nonetheless been an elusive figure in the history of silent cinema. We present three key Hayakawa films, with author Daisuke Miyao joining us to examine the cultural context of Hayakawa's career.

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Forbidden Paths, February 10

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Forbidden Paths
- Sunday, February 10 2:00 pm
Lecture and Booksigning by Daisuke Miyao. Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Hayakawa struggles with the contradictions of love and loyalty in this off-kilter male melodrama. With The Devil's Claim, featuring Hayakawa as a novelist of Indian extraction caught up in a tale of devil worship.
The Cheat
- Saturday, February 9 6:30 pm
Introduced by Daisuke Miyao. Judith Rosenberg on Piano. Cecil B. DeMille's sensational drama established Hayakawa as an international star, a figure of sexual menace and fascination.

Readings on Cinema: Daisuke Miyao on Sessue Hayakawa

2/9/08 to 2/10/08

Sessue Hayakawa (1886–1973) has long been an elusive figure in the history of silent film, despite being as renowned in his day as Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. Following his phenomenal success in Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat (1915), the Jesse L. Lasky Company sought to shape Hayakawa's image by emphasizing the actor's “Japanese” traits while portraying him as safely assimilated into U.S. culture. Hayakawa himself was dissatisfied with his stereotyped roles, and established his own production company, Haworth Pictures, in 1918. Not only a Hollywood phenomenon, Hayakawa won popularity and praise abroad, from filmmakers including Sergei Eisenstein and from French intellectuals, who responded to his acting with a new theory of photogenie. Addressing the complex cultural contexts of Hayakawa's career, Daisuke Miyao, assistant professor of Japanese film at the University of Oregon and the author of Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom, will introduce screenings of three key works, two of which have not been shown previously at PFA.

Of related interest: Border Crossings: Rethinking Silent Cinema, February 9 and 10 in the Nestrick Room, 142 Dwinelle Hall, UC Berkeley. Daisuke Miyao will be among the speakers at this conference that considers how early cinema moves across national boundaries, initiating cultural traffic that re-envisions race, gender, nation, empire, and cinema itself. For information, visit http://filmstudies.berkeley.edu/bordercrossings/.

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We wish to thank Mike Mashon, Library of Congress, and Caroline Yeager, George Eastman House. Co-sponsored by the Film Studies Program and Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley.

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Readings on Cinema: Daisuke Miyao on Sessue Hayakawa

2/9/08 to 2/10/08

Past Films

Forbidden Paths

The Cheat