A ‘Room’ With a Viewpoint

Don’t mistake Satyajit Ray for an ethnographic realist. The great Indian filmmaker may have written that the best inspiration for a popular medium such as film “should derive from life and have its roots in it.” But Ray, who died at 70 in 1992, was above all a human artist who ultimately saw everything as spiritual.

“The Music Room” (1958), one of his masterpieces, follows the decline of an impoverished nobleman as he clutches his great passion: conducting long, elaborate recitals of classical Indian music in his stately, decaying estate.

Actor Chabi Biswas plays the lead character “as a tragic figure, a victim of his own overweening pride and the inevitable crumbling of his princely way of life in a time of change,” The Times’ Kevin Thomas wrote two years ago.

Added Thomas: “So sensitive an actor was Biswas that he was able to make this arrogant, selfish nobleman’s obsession for music seem a grand folly and not mere frivolity, thus gaining compassion rather than contempt for him.”

* “The Music Room” screens Friday at 7 and 9 p.m. at the UC Irvine Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium. Not rated. Running time: 100 minutes. $2.50-$4.50. (949) 824-5588.

‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ in Jewish Film Fest

The 1999 Orange County Jewish Film Festival continues Sunday with Aner Preminger’s quietly powerful “Blind Man’s Bluff.” Based on Lilly Perry Amitai’s book, the engrossing 1993 film recounts the story of a young Israeli pianist (Hagit Dasberg) who strikes out for independence from her domineering, manipulative mother (Nicole Casel) by leaving her family home as an important recital nears.

Preminger, a distant relative of late Hollywood director Otto Preminger, adroitly yet gracefully portrays the pianist as life opens up for her.

The Jewish Film Festival is co-sponsored by Irvine’s University Synagogue and UC Irvine’s Teller Family Chair in Jewish History.

* “Blind Man’s Bluff” screens Sunday at 7 p.m. at UC Irvine’s Film and Video Center, Humanities Instructional Building 214, Room 100, near the corner of West Peltason and Pereira drives, Irvine. Preceded by dessert at 6:30 p.m. $20, includes refreshments. Not rated. Running time: 95 minutes. $5 for UCI students, faculty and staff. (949) 553-3535.

A ‘Midnight’ Masquerade

As a penniless Parisian singer in “Midnight” (1939), Claudette Colbert is hired by an aristocrat to masquerade as a Hungarian countess to seduce the gigolo paying unwanted attention to the aristocrat’s wife.

Colbert’s illustrious co-stars in the breezy romance are Don Ameche, as a cab driver who falls hopelessly for her, and John Barrymore, a riot as the wealthy, cuckolded husband. Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, the sparkling comedy rarely flags, and all its talents are in top form.

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Trivia quiz: Where and when did Claudette Colbert die? See below for answer.

* “Midnight” screens tonight at 8 at Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Not rated. Running time: 94 minutes. Free. (714) 997-6607.

Quiz answer: French-born Claudette Colbert died at age 90 in July 1996, in Bridgetown, Barbados.