A Sweeping Look at TNT’s ‘International Film Festival’

The May ratings sweeps are over; your favorite network shows are in reruns until fall. What are you going to watch now? In the first of five articles, Times TV writers offer suggestions on alternative viewing that has been there all along but that you may not have had time to check out before.

Looking for summer television fare with a distinct international flavor?

“ Mais oui ,” you say?

Then look no further than TNT’s “International Film Festival,” which airs Sundays at 7 p.m. Since it premiered last February with Akira Kurosawa’s samurai comedy “Yojimbo,” the series has served up such diverse offerings as Ingmar Bergman’s “The Virgin Spring,” Jacques Tati’s “Mon Oncle” and Franco Brusati’s “To Forget Venice.” The prints have been pristine and the subtitles readable.

The festival, hosted by actor Roddy McDowall, features well-known directors discussing how the various films influenced their own work. Martin Ritt, for example, talked about “Rashomon,” Volker Schlondorff about “Alexander Nevsky” and Roger Corman about “Cries and Whispers.”

Sprinkled amid the commercials is trivia about the films. Did you know, for example, that Jean Cocteau made a cameo appearance as a woman in his classic “Orphee”?

Terry Segal, vice president and general manager of TNT, admits that the “International Film Festival” was a gamble for the basic cable network, which has become a movie buff’s heaven since its inception less than two years ago. TNT airs more than 250 films per month from its rich MGM, RKO and pre-1948 Warner Bros. archives.

“We don’t expect these movies to achieve the same ratings as our regular movies,” he explained. “We decided to expose people who watch TNT and love movies to some of the world’s best international films. A lot of American films are influenced or were directly derived from international films. We are not after ratings; we are trying to create an overall programming environment.”

Segal reports that the festival is doing as well as expected in the ratings, but won’t give any figures. “The Virgin Spring” scored highest, with “Yojimbo” and Kurosawa’s masterwork “Rashomon” not far behind.

Films are chosen for their availability as well as for their familiarity with TV viewers.

“There are a lot of venues where foreign films run--other cable channels, public broadcasting,” explained Lisa Mateas, director of scheduling and acquisitions. “We had a wish list of stuff we wanted to get, but we didn’t want to go from an elitist point of view at all. We wanted to get titles that would sell themselves, because it wasn’t something we were going to spend an enormous amount of promotion time on.”

“When some people run an international film franchise, they load it up with some British films and French films,” Segal said. “We wanted to go a little beyond that. To establish this series we had to be practical. I think once it matures, we can get experimental and perhaps run titles that people may not be familiar with.”

Segal and Mateas strive to get first-rate subtitled prints. “One of the compliments we get on TNT is the quality of the movies in terms of print quality,” Segal said. “We want the distributor to make certain we get top quality or we won’t accept it.”

On Sunday, TNT will air the first complete print of the noted Japanese horror film “Kwaidan.” Masaki Kobayashi’s four-part film will air in letter-box format, allowing viewers the opportunity to see the original wide-screen version, and will include the fourth tale that was originally edited out of its 1965 American release.

The only fly in the ointment--besides those pesky commercials--is the fact that TNT will not air the more explicit international films. Don’t expect to see an unedited, uncensored version of “Last Tango in Paris” or “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!”

“We’ll have a private screening of ‘Last Tango’ in the office,” Segal said, laughing.

Still, he added, “you obviously have to walk a real fine line with some of these titles. With our regular movies we’ll avoid editing at all costs, but as far as the international titles go, we will edit out frontal nudity.”

TNT is a bit more lax on language; when it aired Betrand Tavernier’s “Coup de Torchon,” the network didn’t edit the black comedy’s R-rated language.

“We are a basic cable service,” Segal said. “If (viewers) are paying for you, they can accept violence, nudity and language. But we have a responsibility to the fact that anybody can tune us in. At times we have to pass on certain movies we would like to run, because if we didn’t, we would be forced to do some editing. People who watch these movies don’t want to see them edited.”

The “International Film Festival” begins repeats in August and will introduce a new season of films in the fall.

Here is the schedule for June and July:

June 3: Masaki Kobayashi’s “Kwaidan.”

June 10: Jeanne Moreau’s “Lumiere.”

June 17: Philippe De Broca’s “Cartouche.”

June 24: Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night.”

July 1: Rene Clair’s “Le Quartorze Juillet.”

July 8: Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Ugetsu.”

July 15: Rene Clair’s “Le Million.”

July 22: Ingmar Bergman’s “Through a Glass Darkly.”

July 29: Rene Clair’s “A Nous la Liberte.”