Hayakawa Sesshu event at the University of Chicago

[mjraine@uchicago.edu]

For anyone in the area...

http://filmstudiescenter.uchicago.edu/events.html#event8

Professor Daisuke Miyao in person

SESSUE HAYAKAWA: TRANSNATIONAL STAR

with a screening of
FORBIDDEN PATHS and THE DEVIL'S CLAIM

Friday, October 26, 2007, 7pm
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Film Studies Center, The University of Chicago
5811 South Ellis Ave., Cobb Hall 307 (map


Sessue Hayakawa, remembered for his Oscar-nominated
performance as a frowning Japanese military officer in The
Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), was the only non-white
superstar of American silent cinema. How was it possible for
the Japanese actor to become a movie star in the United
States, especially when the anti-Japanese movement was rising?

In this talk, our guest speaker, Daisuke Miyao will discuss
the formation of the star persona of this Japanese actor, who
happens to be a University of Chicago graduate, in the
industrial mechanism of early Hollywood in relation to the
socio-political and cultural conditions in the U.S. in the
1910s to the 20s, including Japonisme and legal racialization
of Asian immigrants.


Two of Hayakawa's early films will be screened:

The Devils' Claim was produced at Hayakawa's own Haworth
Pictures. Hayakawa plays a Persian novelist in Greenwich
Village, who becomes involved in a tale of devil worship while
in a relationship with a very young Persian girl (Colleen
Moore, in her pre-flapper days).The film was restored by the
UCLA Film Archive, funded by AFI/The Film Foundation, in 2004.
(Charles Swickard, 1920, 65 min., silent, 35mm print courtesy
of The George Eastman House Archive)

Forbidden Paths In this Hayakawa star vehicle produced at the
Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company (future Paramount),
Hayakawa plays a sincere and honest Japanese-American
shopkeeper. He is in love with a white woman, but, in the end,
he nobly sacrifices his desire for her happiness.
(Robert Thornby, 1917, 65 min., silent, print courtesy of The
Library of Congress)


About the Speaker:

Daisuke Miyao is assistant professor of Japanese film at
University of Oregon. Miyao is author of SESSUE HAYAKAWA:
SILENT CINEMA AND TRANSNATIONAL STARDOM (Duke University
Press, 2007).


This event is co-sponsored by The Committee on Media Studies,
the Film Studies Center and the Japan Committee of the
Center for East Asian Studies.
 

Persons with a disability who need assistance should contact
the Film Studies Center at 773-702-8596.