‘HOMAGE’ TO FRENCH FILMS CONTINUES

The UCLA Film Archives’ “Homage to the Cinematheque Francaise” continues Thursday in Melnitz Theater at 5:30 p.m. with a repeat of the delightful “Swallow and the Titmouse” (1920) and at 7:30 p.m. with “Les Films de Lumiere: 1895-1898.”

By 1895, pioneer inventor-producer-director-exhibitor Louis Lumiere (1864-1948) and his brother Auguste (1862-1954) had dispatched agents all over the world to sell their Cinematographe, a combination camera-projector, to exhibit their films and to shoot newsworthy footage. This program, which is like a set of quaint Stereoptican slides come alive, suggests that, on native soil, the Lumieres and their staff assiduously recorded the daily life of their countrymen, whether rich of poor, urban or rural.

But if this footage anticipates the documentary, their foreign footage has perhaps inevitably more of a travelogue flavor. In any event, the cumulative effect is a remarkable global portrait, the first of its kind, of the world’s capitals as the 19th Century drew to a close.

At first, “Les Films de Lumiere” consists mainly of street scenes, but gradually it takes on a more newsreel quality as the Lumieres commenced photographing events--for example, the incredibly elaborate coronation procession of the ill-fated Czar Nicholas II. Most glorious, however, is their record of a Belle Epoque Paris whose boulevards teemed with sleek carriages and men and women dressed with an elegance never surpassed; clearly, the Paris of “Gigi” really existed.

“Les Films de Lumiere” concludes with the brothers’ first attempts at a fiction film, starting with sight gags of the utmost simplicity and progressing to the filming of scenes from such classics as “Faust.” Information: (213) 206-8013.

Saturday, the UCLA Archives launches “Transitions: 1987 Asian Pacific American Film Festival” (at 7:30 p.m. in Melnitz Theater) with Supachai Surongsain’s “Pak Bueng on Fire,” a brief but eloquent film on two young Thai men’s struggle to survive in Los Angeles.

A film student at UCLA, Surongsain offers a fresh perspective on how precarious yet seductive life here can be, especially for those who are illegal immigrants or who risk losing their student visas in accepting part-time jobs.

“Pak Bueng on Fire” will be followed by controversial Filipino film maker Lino Brocka’s “My Country: In Desperate Straits” (1984), which was not available for preview.

John Takashi Esaki’s splendid “Yuki Shimoda: Asian American Actor” (1985), which screens Sunday at 7:30 p.m., is not only a heartfelt tribute to the late actor but also a commentary on the special challenge the minority performer faces in developing and sustaining his craft despite a chronic lack of opportunities. Despite these obstacles, Shimoda managed to progress from Broadway chorus boy to distinguished character actor.

This film will be followed by an Asian American actors symposium and a screening of Sam Fuller’s “Crimson Kimono” (1959), a crime melodrama set partly in Little Tokyo and still one of the few Hollywood films to deal with racism directed at Japanese-Americans. Information: (213) 206-8013, 680-4462.

Best bet in Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Judy Garland retrospective, which begins Friday in Bing Theater, is “Babes in Arms” (1939), which screens at 1 and 8 p.m. Saturday. The talent of Garland and Mickey Rooney leaps off the screen, here as elsewhere. But the crucial difference between this film and other early Garland movies lies in Busby Berkeley’s lively, graceful direction and his imaginative segueing into musical sequences, which are far more sophisticated than the campy Art Deco geometrics of his Warners period. An archetypal let’s-put-on-a-show tale based on the Rodgers and Hart musical, “Babes in Arms” reveals Garland and Rooney as show business youngsters poignantly mature beyond their years. Second feature: “Everybody Sing” (1938). Information: (213) 857-6010.

Composer/musician Kraig Grady and cinematographer Keith Barefoot’s 50-minute “Long Gunn (But Not Forgotten),” which shows at LACE, 1804 Industrial St., Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., is a witty, multi-image western fantasy that has fun with the conventions of the silent melodrama. It will be presented with a shimmering score performed live by Grady and Brad Laner on modified and handmade instruments. Refreshing--and different. Information: (213) 624-5650.