Broad appeal for wide-screen fans

A few years back, at the Widescreen Film Festival at Cal State Long Beach, founder and artistic director Gary Prebula screened the 1978 Oscar-winning Vietnam War epic “The Deer Hunter.”

It was one of the worst evenings of his life. “We had gotten a 70mm print from the Universal library, and because they have such high standards we assumed that it was fine,” he recalls. “But what happened was that someone in the past went in and clipped out all the great moments from the film. They had taken out 30 minutes. So I had to stand up in front of 1,100 people, because [director] Mike Cimino asked me to, and say I screwed up and apologize.”

Prebula is atoning for that debacle at this year’s festival, in which “The Deer Hunter” is making another appearance. This time, he’s getting a print from the film’s Oscar-winning cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond, 75, who is the artist in residence at this year’s festival.

From 1995 to 2001, the Widescreen Film Festival honored the work of filmmakers who embraced the large-screen format. But since 2002, the festival has become an artist-in-residence event that invites a film artist to screen and discuss his or her work as well as the movies that influenced it. The invited artists -- Steven Spielberg, Wes Craven and cinematographer John Bailey have participated in recent years -- also teach a master class in their craft to Cal State Long Beach students.

Presented by the university’s Film and Electronic Arts Department, the festival features 10 films in five days, with movies screening at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center and the Warner Grand Theater.

“I love to photograph on the wide-screen format,” says Zsigmond, who fled his native Hungary in 1956. “With wide screen, you don’t have to shoot separate shots for the scenery and then cut into the actors’ faces. You can incorporate it in one shot. You can incorporate a close-up, and in the background you can see where you are. It is the most filmic medium.”

Among the Zsigmond films being screened at the festival are “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Deliverance,” “Obsession,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter.” On his list of films that have influenced him as a cinematographer are “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” photographed by Conrad Hall; “Bound for Glory,” by Haskell Wexler; “Days of Heaven,” by Nestor Almendros; “The Grapes of Wrath,” by the legendary Gregg Toland; and “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” by Hal Mohr.

Zsigmond’s master class will focus on lighting. “Basically, lighting is the most important thing in cinematography,” he says. “Of course, other things are very important -- the camera moves, the composition -- but I think lighting is the most important.

“The cinematographer helps to tell the story in a visual way,” he adds. “I don’t really depend on dialogue. I consider film a visual art, and for me, telling the story visually is more important then telling the story with words and dialogue.”

The festival opens with Robert Altman’s 1971 western, “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.”

Zsigmond says he wasn’t able to see a lot of other cinematographers’ work until after he left Hungary and moved to New York. “The only films we could see were ‘Potemkin,’ ‘Mother,’ ‘The Great Dictator’ and ‘Citizen Kane,’ ” he explains. “When I was in New York and then came to California, those were the days I could see ‘La Strada,’ ‘Umberto D’ and later ‘Grapes of Wrath.’

“These are the movies we grew up on in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. I learned a lot from these movies. That’s why I wanted the festival to show some of these movies that influenced me. They should also influence the future generation of filmmakers.”

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Widescreen Film Festival

Where: Carpenter Performing Arts Center and University Theater, Cal State Long Beach; Warner Grand Theater, 478 6th St., San Pedro

When: Wednesday through Sunday

Price: $6 to $8 per event; $20 to $40 for pass to entire festival

Contact: (562) 985-7000 or www.widescreenfilmfestival.org

Schedule

Wednesday: “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” and discussion with Vilmos Zsigmond, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday: “Obession,” 8 p.m.

Friday: “Days of Heaven,” 6 p.m.; “Deliverance,” 8 p.m.

Saturday: “The Grapes of Wrath,” 11 a.m.; “Bound for Glory,” 2 p.m.; “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” 5 p.m.; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” 8 p.m.

Next Sunday: “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1 p.m.; “The Deer Hunter,” 4:30 p.m.