70MM ‘ORPHEUS’ TO BOW

Marcel Camus’ “Black Orpheus” wasn’t among the most influential or innovative films of France’s New Wave, but it surely was among the most popular, becoming a repertory theater staple. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded a 1959 best foreign-language film Oscar to this vivid, romantic reworking of the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set against Rio de Janeiro’s raucous carnival season. Now the academy is presenting the premiere of a new 70-millimeter version with stereophonic sound at 8 tonight.

While “Black Orpheus” holds up amazingly well, its rich color and incessant samba beat as intoxicating as ever, it pays the usual price for its wider image in occasional lopped-off heads. Fresh, restored prints of old films always are welcome, but this change to a larger format seems hardly necessary and is therefore more a minus than a plus. (The stereophonic sound does enhance the Antonio Carlos Jobim score.)

Still, it’s certainly worth a look, especially if you have never seen it, or not for a long time. Marpessa Dawn, as beautiful as her name, is Eurydice, the country girl who’s come to Rio to escape a man seemingly intent on killing her. Breno Mello is Orpheus, a handsome young streetcar motorman, whose attraction to Dawn is as immediate as it is dangerous, and not only because of Dawn’s mysterious stalker but also because of Mello’s fiery, jealous fiancee (Lourdes de Oliveira).

What makes “Black Orpheus” work is that it has so abundant and spontaneous a life of its own; indeed, in following the spirit rather than the letter of its source, it ends up quite faithful to the myth, thanks to the imaginativeness and originality of its adaptation. What’s more, the film is so vital and earthy as well as beautiful that it avoids the arty and the condescending in its folkloric setting of picturesque poverty and primitive ritual. In all aspects--except its new ratio--”Black Orpheus” remains an enduring pleasure. Information: (213) 278-8990, Ext. 287.

It’s a great week for Japanese double features. Wednesday and Thursday the Beverly Cinema will present two of Shohei Imamura’s finest, “Vengeance Is Mine” and “The Ballad of Narayama,” while the Nuart’s Thursday-evening offering in its Kurosawa series is “Yojimbo” and “The Bad Sleep Well.”

Arguably the finest Japanese film of the ‘70s, “Vengeance Is Mine” tells the true story of a rampaging murderer and thief (Ken Ogata, in a splendid and terrifying portrayal) who managed to elude the police for 78 days starting in the fall of 1963. The film reveals in flashback why the killer’s life took its destructive course, centering on the catastrophic breakdown of the parent-child relationship. To Imamura, life seems to brutalize everyone, reducing us to beasts in a Darwinian struggle that hardly seems worth the effort. But he brings his characteristic respect for nature and its immutable laws and capacity to ennoble as well as degrade to “The Ballad of Narayama,” his retelling of a legend about a remote village people who abandon their elderly on a sacred mountain. Ken Ogata, seen most recently as “Mishima,” again stars. Beverly: (213) 938-4038.

While the samurai adventure-comedy “Yojimbo” (1961) is one of Kurosawa’s most popular pictures, his “The Bad Sleep Well” is one of his most unjustly neglected. In this 1960 film he perceives that the modern world of high finance and corporate intrigue is material for classic tragedy acted in the grand manner. Behind spectacles and a diffident manner, Toshiro Mifune (also the star of “Yojimbo”) is a dynamic samurai in a gray flannel suit who plots revenge for his father’s death by marrying the daughter of the man responsible. This is an instance of style and technique transforming a lurid expose of corruption in high places into timeless social criticism. Nuart: (213) 478-6379, 479-5269.

Note: LACMA’s Directors Guild Golden Jubilee Tribute continues with Martin Ritt presenting his “Hud” and “Sounder” on Friday and Taylor Hackford offering his “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “The Idolmaker” on Saturday. Information: (213) 857-6201.