Daisuke Miyao presents Sessue Hayakawa films at the PFA, 9-10 February + Border Crossings: Rethinking Silent Cinema

[Jonathan M. Hall]

Daisuke Miyao will present two films at the PFA this weekend.

On Saturday, 9 February, 2008 6:30-8:00 pm: The Cheat (1915)
On Sunday, 10 February, 2008 2-5 pm: Forbidden Paths (1917) and The  
Devil's Claim (1920)
http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Readings on Cinema: Daisuke Miyao on Sessue Hayakawa

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.

Saturday, February 9, 2008
6:30 p.m. The Cheat
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.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
2:00 p.m. Forbidden Paths
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.





A related conference, Border Crossings: Rethinking Silent Cinema,  
with Daisuke, Michael Baskett, and many others happens the same weekend.
http://filmstudies.berkeley.edu/bordercrossings/



A conference on silent cinema as a traveling technology that re- 
envisions race, gender, nation, and empire. A dialogue between the  
early film cultures of Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas

In conjunction with a series on Japanese-American silent film actor  
Sessue Hayakawa at the Pacific Film Archive.

Keynote by Jennifer Bean (University of Washington). Other  
participants include Lauren Rabinovitz (University of Iowa), Shelley  
Stamp (UCSC), Priya Jaikumar (USC) and Michael Baskett (University of  
Kansas).

Border Crossings Schedule

All events take place in the Nestrick Room, 142 Dwinelle Hall, except  
for the film screenings, which are at the Pacific Film Archive.
Pre-conference event:
Friday, February 8, 2008
5:00 - 6:30 pm
The Berkeley Film Seminar presents "Rethinking American Silent  
Cinema," Scott Simmon (University of California, Davis)

Saturday, February 9, 2008
8:15 am - 9:00 am
Breakfast (provided)
9:00 am - 9:15 am
Opening remarks
9:15 am - 11:00 am
Borders in Wartime
Priya Jaikumar (USC), Sheila Skaff (UT-El Paso), Paul Dobryden (UCB)
11:15 am - 1:00 pm
Going Places: Colonial Modernity and the Transnational Horizon
Lauren Rabinovitz (U Iowa), Neepa Mazumdar (U Pittsburgh), Manishita  
Dass (U Michigan), Michael Baskett (U Kansas)
1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
Lunch (provided)
2:15 pm - 4:00 pm
Nitrate Dreams: Film Material and its Afterlife
Kaveh Askari (Western Washington U.), Laura Isabel Serna (Rice), Josh  
Yumibe (Oakland U.), Daisuke Miyao (U Oregon)
4:15 pm - 5:30 pm
Keynote address: "'Movie-Land' and the Cosmopolitan Imagination,"  
Jennifer Bean (U Washington)
Author of The Play in the Machine: Gender, Genre, and the Cinema of  
Modernity (forthcoming Duke UP)
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
The Cheat (1915) at the Pacific Film Archive
Introduced by Daisuke Miyao (U Oregon) and accompanied by Judith  
Rosenberg. Admission $5.50 - $9.50.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
8:15 am - 9:00 am
Breakfast (provided)
9:00 am - 10:45 am
Letters of Transit: Film as Racial and Cultural Envoy
Allyson Nadia Field (Harvard), Arne Lunde (UCLA), Yiman Wang (UCSC)
11:00 am - 12:45 pm
Sex and Gender Crossings
Shelley Stamp (UCSC), Laura Horak (UCB), Anupama Kapse (UCB), Leigh  
Goldstein (UT-Austin)
12:45 pm - 1:00 pm
Closing remarks
2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Forbidden Paths (1917) & The Devil's Claim (1920) at the Pacific Film  
Archive
Introduced by Daisuke Miyao (U Oregon) and accompanied by Judith  
Rosenberg. Admission $5.50 - $9.50