Film academy hosts some European guests

International cinema has always held special significance for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and along with the several Oscar nominations last week of foreign filmmakers, writers and directors, two exhibitions from Europe bring that appreciation into sharp relief at the organization’s Beverly Hills headquarters.

The lobby is home to the colorful “Czech Film Posters of the 20th Century”; “F.W. Murnau: Film Pioneer” is simultaneously holding court in the fourth-floor Academy Gallery. Both shows continue through April 18.

The Murnau exhibition, presented in association with the Goethe Institut-Los Angeles, originated at the Berlin Film Museum last year and was presented as part of a Berlin Film Festival tribute. The academy is the only American stop for the traveling exhibition spotlighting the career of the landmark German director, who came to fame in his native country in the 1920s for such Expressionistic films as “Nosferatu,” “The Last Laugh” and “Faust.”

Murnau also scored a major triumph in Hollywood with his first American film, 1927’s “Sunrise.” The drama about adultery went on to win three Oscars, including the only one given for “Unique and Artistic Picture.” Murnau made a few more films in Hollywood before his death in a car accident in 1931.

Arranged according to six chronological chapters in Murnau’s life, the exhibition “has numerous costume designs, scene sketches, film posters, script excerpts, letters, documents, several set construction models and numerous film clips,” says Ellen Harrington, the academy’s exhibitions curator and special events programmer.

The Murnau exhibition is particularly strong on two levels, Harrington notes, because “it does have these original documents and models. There are a lot of biographical things as well that flesh out the creative individual who was Murnau, his real pioneer approach to filmmaking and the unique visual elements he incorporated. The exhibition shows the creative approach that Murnau took. We have light boxes and video projections and even built some projection cubes that echo the sets of his films. The design concept of the show carries forward the aesthetic of Murnau.”

Though his films were made nearly a century ago, Harrington says, they still seem modern and “psychologically” ring true. “They continue to be contemporary because he didn’t shy away or whitewash the extremes of emotions.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, the academy will be presenting a restored print of “Sunrise” on March 25 at its Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will also screen several films in late March and April.

Murnau also is represented in the Czech exhibition. One of the 70 posters on display is of his seminal 1922 vampire movie, “Nosferatu.”

The posters are on loan primarily from the Moravian Gallery in Brno in the Czech Republic as well as the Museum of Decorative Arts, Exlibris Prague and several private collectors.

“The Moravian Gallery has an incredible graphic arts collection going back to the very first poster that was ever created in the Czech Republic for an exhibition film,” says Harrington. That poster, dating from 1910, is part of the exhibition.

Presented in association with the consulate general of the Czech Republic in Los Angeles and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the exhibition includes posters from Jiri Menzel’s Oscar-winning 1967 Czech classic “Closely Watched Trains”; 1966’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”; the 1940 Chaplin war satire “The Great Dictator,” which wasn’t released in that country until 1977; and 1984’s “The Terminator.”

“The Czech graphic tradition is strong,” Harrington says. “It is a visual arts-oriented culture.”

Movie posters have always attracted the country’s best artists, who have employed unique styles, colors and collages. The poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” for example, looks like it came out of Greek mythology with its two nude women, one with a bird-like head and wings.

Harrington looked at thousands of posters for consideration in the exhibition.

“We wanted a representation of all the different decades, a mix of Czech film production and international film production,” she says. “There is a mix of important titles and important graphic styles. There is not a single thing in this group I wouldn’t want to own personally.”

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Academy exhibitions

What: “Czech Film Posters of the 20th Century,” “F.W. Murnau: Film Pioneer”

Where: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills

When: Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; weekends from noon to 6 p.m.

Ends: April 18

Price: Free

Contact: (310) 247-3600