‘Conscience of the cinema’

Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinematheque Francaise, was a long-haired, pale, giant Buddha of a man, adept at putting his poet’s expressiveness to good use in maintaining a perhaps necessary ambiguity about exactly how he operated.

In conversation he would repeatedly say “It’s very simple” in delightfully disarming broken English, only to leave his listener thoroughly perplexed. Yet he was, in the apt words of Jack Valenti as he presented Langlois an honorary Oscar in 1974, “the conscience of the cinema ... the man who stood guard when no one else was there.”

The American Cinematheque screens “Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinematheque” tonight at the Egyptian.

Valenti is one of dozens of people who participated in Jacques Richard’s 3 1/2 -hour documentary, which was seven years in the making.

Early on, Langlois, who founded the Cinematheque with director Georges Franju, came to the conclusion that everything was worth trying to save -- that it was impossible to judge a film without seeing it and that even bad films revealed something of the time and place in which they were made. It was this philosophy that would bring the Cinematheque its world-renowned glory.

And it was that approach that triggered the events of 1968, when minister of culture Andre Malraux dismissed Langlois as head of the Cinematheque. His removal precipitated riots that saw Langlois eventually reinstated. Unfortunately, neither Langlois, who died in 1977, nor the Cinematheque would ever be the same.

Nobody familiar with Langlois and the Cinematheque, including Richard, would ever have accused him of being a good bookkeeper, which made him vulnerable to government bureaucrats. L’affaire Langlois cuts to a contradiction in the French character, one part reveling in la gloire the Cinematheque symbolized for French culture and the other a mean-spirited, short-sighted, petty bureaucratic mentality. According to Richard, the government supported the archive only with pittances.

When Langlois started out he was tall and thin, while his soul mate, Mary Meerson, was a legendary beauty, but as their collection increased they grew fat, untidy and eccentric -- yet much beloved by their dedicated, underpaid staff. Langlois blazed the way for film preservation and presentation and became a key supporter of the New Wave generation. “Henri Langlois” is crammed with reminiscences and revelations from those who knew him, along with clips from the classics he saved, but at heart Langlois remains an enigma, which surely is the way he wanted it.

Runs in the family

By the end of his informative documentary “Dziga and His Brothers,” Yevgeni Tsymbal has made his case for his assertion that “perhaps they were the most talented brothers in the history of cinema.” They were the Kaufman brothers, born in Bialystock around the turn of the last century.

The eldest, David (a.k.a. Dziga Vertov), became a boldly innovative pioneer and theoretician of the Soviet cinema, intent on recording life as it happened and celebrating the poetry of machinery and labor, and a key influence on Sergei Eisenstein. His brother Mikhail (Moisey) originally was his photographer but became a director himself, noted for his elegant and lyrical style. Clips, most notably from “Man With the Camera,” attest to their dynamic, highly original talent.

Boris, the youngest, followed in his brothers’ path. After being sent to Paris in his early 20s to avoid the draft, Boris became cinematographer-collaborator to Jean Vigo, whose “Zero for Conduct” would become a key film for the French New Wave and an icon of the May 1968 student revolt. Boris fled France with the advent of World War II and, after many years of struggle in the U.S., was asked by Elia Kazan to shoot “On the Waterfront,” which won him an Oscar and launched an illustrious Hollywood career. Vigo’s third and final collaboration with Boris Kaufman, the supremely poetic “L’Atalante” (1934), will follow American Cinematheque’s Wednesday screening of “Dziga.”

Oh, horrors

The Cinematheque’s “Simply Irresistible: A Tribute to Debbie Reynolds” opens Friday with Curtis Harrington’s macabre gem, “What’s the Matter With Helen?” -- in which Reynolds and Shelley Winters try to escape a dark past by fleeing a small Iowa town to set up a dancing academy in Depression-era Hollywood. Harrington will discuss the film after its screening.

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Screenings

American Cinematheque special events

* “Henri Langlois: The Phantom of the Cinematheque,” 7:30 tonight. Also: 8 p.m. every Friday through Oct. 8.

* “Dziga and His Brothers,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, followed by “L’Atalante.”

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM or www.americancinematheque.com

“Simply Irresistible: An In-Person Tribute to Debbie Reynolds”

* “What’s the Matter With Helen?” 7 p.m. Friday. Tribute continues through Saturday.

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM or www.americancinematheque.com