SYMPOSIUM : FOREIGN DIRECTORS HONORED

Over the years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has devoted the Saturday preceding its tense Monday night moment-of-truth Oscars presentation ceremony to a relaxed honoring of the makers of the five pictures nominated for best foreign film.

This year, a Saturday morning symposium gave way to a Hollywood directors’ luncheon at Le Dome with the five foreign directors, which was capped by an evening reception at the Academy honoring them and their colleagues.

Moderated by director George Schaefer and held for the first time at the Academy instead of a Beverly Hilton ballroom--a move which allowed for 20 minutes of clips from the nominated films--the symposium was one of the best ever. This was not merely because for the first time all five directors of the nominated films were on hand: No matter how banal the question, directors Denys Arcand (“The Decline of the American Empire”), Jean-Jacques Beineix (“Betty Blue”), Wolfgang Gluck (“38”), Jiri Menzel (“My Sweet Little Village”) and Fons Rademakers (“The Assault”) came up with witty and illuminating answers.

Schaefer set a candid tone by declaring that with the possible exception of France’s “Betty Blue,” a very sexy love story, he couldn’t imagine how any of the others would have a chance of being made in today’s Hollywood. Of the French Canadian “Decline,” set amid a group of randy, amusing middle-aged Montreal academics, Schaefer said a studio could reject it, saying “all they talk about is sex.” (Paramount, in fact, has in the works an American version, but Arcand reports that writer David Giler is having a struggle in adapting it.)

To Schaefer, the Austrian “38,” a star-crossed love story set at the time of the Anschluss, would all too easily be dismissed in Hollywood as “ ‘To Be or Not to Be’ with a sad ending.” Holland’s “The Assault,” a tragedy of the Nazi Occupation, he said, could be seen merely as a story about a man “who has spent his whole life trying to figure out what it was he didn’t see as a child.” And that Czechoslovakia’s “‘How Sweet My Little Village,” a celebration of communal compassion and solidarity in the face of bureaucratic mentality, would be discarded as just a tale about “a dimwit who loses his job.”

None of the five directors was eager to work in Hollywood. “Who needs the hassle?” asked Arcand. “If the script for the American version of ‘Decline’ is any good, and they offer me a huge sum of money to direct it, I’d say yes,” he said. “But I’m not dying to do it.” Beinex admitted he could be tempted--if the conditions met with his approval. “I would not like to make films in English,” said the droll Menzel, a 1967 best foreign film Oscar winner for “Closely Watched Trains,” through his interpreter Erna Segal, “It’s hard enough in Czech.”

The five directors came to films in a different way. Rademakers began as an assistant to Vittorio De Sica, Jean Renoir and Britain’s Charles Crichton, and Beineix spent 12 years assisting such diverse film makers as Rene Clement, Claude Berri, Moishe Mizrahi and Jerry Lewis. “I had the false impression I could do better than they,” he said. “Now I know I am no better or worse.” Gluck assisted the late veteran Austrian director Josef von Baky, whereas Arcand moved up from documentaries and Menzel from a state film school.

“That was a coincidence,” said Menzel. “I was rejected for drama school; only after I succeeded as a director did they let me act again.”

When the inevitable who-influenced-you? question was asked, Arcand replied, first declaring that it was too big a question, stating that “every director is so egomaniacal . . . we all think we have a statement to make that even Luis Bunuel hadn’t thought of!”

“Trying to reflect passion is my only goal--passion is my only sovereign,” said Beineix by way of reply. “I like to leave the audience feeling a little less ashamed of being a human being.” “It’s important to know one’s roots,” said Menzel, adding that Renoir and Chaplin were his big influences. “They loved the people, and they worked for them. A film for me is a declaration of love.”

It’s not often that Billy Wilder, the dean of Hollywood wits, can be persuaded to attend the directors’ lunch. This year, he was joined by George Sidney, Irvin Kershner, Martin Ritt, Robert Ellis Miller and Arthur Hiller. Wilder told of a preview card elicited by “Ninotchka,” the Garbo comedy classic he co-wrote for Lubitsch, the contents of which were as hilarious as they were unprintable in a family newspaper. As a parting shot, Wilder, who had arrived late and had to leave early, said all he was doing was following Hitler’s advice: “Come late and all the people will see you, leave early so they can say how wonderful you are.”