Dragon Painter DVD
August 24th, 2008 | Published in Silent Film Project
A wonderful movie experience! Mark Izu works magic with his new score for The Dragon Painter. He takes this forgotten artifact from another time, injects it with warmth, whimsy and passion, and brings it back to life for us.”
Steven Okazaki, Academy Award-winning filmmaker
Dragon Painter, Jazz Quartet with Silent film 2005
2005 DVD release from Milestones Film & Video
Live performance aired May 2005 on PBS station KTEH.
Performed at:
- Asia Society, NYC
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
- Painted Bride, Philadelphia
- Castro Theater, San Francisco
DRAGON PAINTER (1919)
Directed by Sessue Hayakawa
Original Music by Mark Izu (Bass, Sho, Sheng)
Ensemble Members: Shoko Hikage (koto), Melecio Magdaluyo (winds & percussion), Val Mih (keyboard & percussion)
Sessue Hayakawa was the first Asian actor to become a matinee idol in the U.S. He was also a powerful producer during Hollywood’s early years. In the “Dragon Painter,” filmed in Yosemite, he plays a mad artist in search of his beloved who has been transformed into a dragon. This film marks Hayakawa’s attempt to introduce Buddhism to Americans.
The film will be infused with the incomparable sound of San Francisco’s own Mark Izu, and his Asian Jazz ensemble. Izu’s score has been performed with the “Dragon Painter” at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Asia Society (New York), San Francisco Silent film Festival, the Pacific Film Archives and was released on DVD in 2005.
Sessue Hayakawa is best known to contemporary audiences for his role in “The Bridge Over River Kwai,” for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Hayakawa formed his own production company to make films that would appeal to Japanese-American audiences, among them The Dragon Painter (which was partially filmed in Yosemite Valley). Composer-jazz bassist Mark Izu has created an original score for The Dragon Painter that incorporates elements of traditional Japanese, classical European, and jazz music. Mark Izu’s live performance with his ensemble sets a powerful mood for the story of a mad genius living in the mountains who paints only dragons while searching for a lost lover.
Mark Izu’s music is characterized by its unique integration of smooth jazz and ancient Asian aesthetics (he studied classical, Korean and Japanese court music). Mark Izu has gained international recognition for pioneering Asian jazz by serving as Director of the Asian American Jazz Festival for over 18 years. He is also a founding member of the Asian American Jazz Orchestra, whose recording received a Grammy nomination in 2000. Izu’s film scores include Steven Okazaki’s Academy Award-winning, “Days of Waiting” and Wayne Wang’s “Dim Sum Take Out.” His theater scores include Lawrence Yep’s “Dragon Wings,” which was performed at the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and Sundance Festival. He recently scored the Emmy nominated PBS television documentary Return to the Valley.
Mark Izu’s score for “The Dragon Painter” is inspired by the film’s attempt to introduce Zen concepts to American cinema in the early 1900s. He remarks, ” All things happening were very subtle, very internal. So the music had to be subtle, not too grandiose. Once I grasped this Buddhist concept, the writing went very fast. I scored the lead character, the dragon painter, basically with the koto. The film was really intriguing because silent films are either slapstick or melodramatic. This was neither.”
“Dragon Painter” is the prototype for a silent films project by Mark Izu, featuring live performance with an original score to films.
