Smithsonian Events - One Time

4K Digital Restoration!
Live piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura
Watch the trailer

For Silent Movie Day, we're screening a pioneering work of Asian American cinema. The Dragon Painter features an almost entirely Asian American cast, led by star and producer Sessue Hayakawa. The film avoids Orientalist stereotypes common at the time and instead presents Japanese culture with respect.

Hayakawa gives a ferocious, charismatic performance as Tetsu, a painter-turned-hermit who believes his princess fiancée has been captured by a dragon. His obsession fuels his work but also brings him into conflict with an older painter looking to pass on his legacy, and whose daughter reminds Tetsu of his lost love.

Scenes were filmed in American locales, such as Yosemite National Park and a Japanese tea garden in Coronado, California. The film is based on a novel by Mary McNeil Fenollosa. (Coincidentally, her husband, Ernest Fenollosa, developed a close friendship with our museum’s founder, Charles Lang Freer, and helped him develop his Asian art collection.)

(Dir.: William Worthington, United States, 1919, 61 min.)

Composer Makia Matsumura’s music has been heard on national television and in movies, as well as at the symphony halls, theaters, museums, and clubs. An avid pianist since an early age with performance credits ranging from the world’s most renowned concert halls to downtown bars in New York City, she has been also active as a silent film accompanist for the last fifteen years, garnering high praise at renowned film institutions and theaters in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Japan. She last performed at NMAA in the Art of the Benshi performances in April.