The Dragon Painter (1919) is an interesting silent movie, starring Japanese-American heart-throb Sessue Hayakawa. He produced it with the aim of more accurately representing Japanese culture.
Hakakawa-san plays a mad artist. He lives outdoors in the mountains, drawing landscapes and throwing them to the wind. He believes that he loved a princess who was turned into a dragon a thousand years ago. Since her face is denied to him, he draws her features, which is what he perceives the mountains, rivers and waterfalls to be. These scenes are lovely, but obviously not Japan, but Yosemite. You'll recognize it even if you have only seen postcards.
A passing surveyor finds one of his pictures and is impressed. He is friends with a famous dragon painter, played by Edward Peil, Sr. Peil has no male heir to take as an apprentice, only a daughter, Tsuru Aoki. The surveyor convinces Hayakawa-san to meet him by telling him he knows where his princess is. Hayakawa-san arrives and angrily insults all the guests and the the fancy food and drink. But they show him Aoki-san doing a traditional dance, and tell him she is the incarnation of his dragon princess. At this, he is entranced and tamed.
So they are married, and he is happy. His wild hair is now decently cut and he trades his rags for a fine kimono. But it turns out that he no longer can paint dragons. Since he has his princess, he no longer needs to paint her. In despair, Aoki-san goes away, leaving a note, and they find her sandal by a cliff above the (Merced?) river.
Once more, Hayakawa-san is maddened with anguish and begins to paint masterpiece after masterpiece. Finally, in his darkest hour, Aoki-san returns. She had merely hidden herself away to teach him that love must serve art. And they live happily ever after.
A few minor issues with this movie. I guess I can forgive Yosemite standing in for Japan, because it is beautiful, but it really doesn't look Japanese. I was more annoyed that we don't get to see more of the dragon paintings. The one picture we see from Hayakawa-san's mad period is a simple charcoal sketch (evn though we see him painiting it with an ink brush). I'm sure they could have found someone to do some ink sketches.
But the Japanese interiors and costumes were great. And I loved the plot - love turning a man into a mad genius, the search for the lost lover in nature, happiness destroying genius, and the happy ending. I'd like to see it remade, maybe in a sci-fi universe, or something.
Since this silent was so short, we watched the other feature included on the Criterion disc, The Wrath of the Gods. Hayakawa-san plays an impoverished nobleman, whose family has been cursed for the impiety of an ancestor. His daughter, Aoki-san, is told that if she marries, the volcano in the town will erupt, killing everyone. Western sailor Frank Borzage, is shipwrecked and falls in love with Aoki-san. He tells her of Jesus, who would not be so cruel as to destroy a village of some impiety. This convinces her to marry him, and convinces Hayakawa-san to defile the local Buddhist shrine, replacing it with a cross.
Of course, this causes the volcano to erupt, killing everyone, except Borzage and Aoki-san, who escape on a Western ship. See, Jesus saves - if you're Christian. I can't really see this as a happy ending.
In conclusion, the score on these Criterion releases is exceptional - Japanese influenced, but not Japanese. For example, the koto part is played on a regular harp.
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