A treat for the senses

By Kenneth Turan

Aug. 8, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Los Angeles may be the nominal movie capitol of the world, but it doesn’t always feel that way, especially during the frequent days when more interesting repertory programming can be found in Paris and even New York.

However, L.A. moviegoers will be the envy of cinema buffs worldwide, as International Preservation, showing an astonishing variety of recently restored films from archives in 10 countries, makes its presence felt at the Hammer Museum’s Billy Wilder Theater under the auspices of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

One of the rarest treats is Italy’s legendary 1914 “Cabiria,” director Giovanni Pastrone’s look at a personal story played out against the bitter rivalry between Carthage and Rome, which screens tonight. The first film to be more than three hours long, the first film to use a moving camera (it was mounted on a cart), the first film to cost 1 million lira (20 times the average cost of a film at the time), this is a visionary motion picture in all senses of the word. An influence on American directors including D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, “Cabiria” is a work of enormous physical detail that set the standard for epic filmmaking few silent films would match and none exceed.

The archive, of course, doesn’t need to be importing preserved films. The institution has restored so many of its own that to date it has hosted 13 Festivals of Preservation to showcase what it has accomplished. It is during the years in between these biannual festivals that UCLA has decided to go international and demonstrate what has been accomplished by archives in places as diverse as the Netherlands, Italy, Finland and Hong Kong. The films in the current series range in time from 1914 to 1981 and are united by excellent print quality and involving subject matter.

Britain’s 1939 “The Spy in Black,” a nifty espionage tale released in the United States as “U-Boat 29,” is celebrated as the first collaboration between director Michael Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger. That team, which created landmarks like “Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes,” here turns out a brisk thriller set during World War I and starring a charismatic Conrad Veidt as a German submarine captain on a secret mission in Britain. Made with Powell and Pressburger’s trademark intelligence and atmosphere, this is a surprisingly dark and moody film that plays not at all like the gung-ho film you might expect.

A treat of a different order is a pair of rarely seen 65-minute films made in 1975 by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray. “The Holy Man” is a savage satire on bogus gurus, while “The Coward” is an exceptional study in character that details what happens when a screenwriter unintentionally spends the night in the home of his former lover, now married to a middle-brow plantation owner.

Two of the festival’s most memorable programs are a series of travelogues that are particular to the country where they were made. “The Open Road,” made in 1926 by Claude Friese-Greene, is a multi-part series that took the viewer on a motor trip across the British Isles from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland. Filmed in a delicate two-color process, it is a true trip back in time that reminds us, in its own words, that “new days have not abolished old ways.”

More vibrant is a series of 10 short docs, filmed in wide screen color in Italy between 1954 and 1958 by director Vittorio De Seta, best known for “Bandits of Orgosolo.” These surprisingly compelling films, on vivid traditions including traditional methods of fishing and Easter pageants, are small gems that fully justify Martin Scorcese’s comment that “it was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet.” And like almost everything else at the UCLA festival, if you don’t see them now you won’t get a second chance.

kenneth.turan@latimes.com

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Eclectic menu

All screenings at 7:30 p.m. except as noted.

Aug. 8: “Cabiria”

Aug. 10: “Films of Stan Brakhage”

Aug. 11: “The Spy Iin Black;,” “The Search.”

Aug. 15: “On Tthe Bowery;,” Vittorio De Seta documentaries.

Aug. 17: “The Big Parade;,” “Born Tto Be Bad”

Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.: “The Coward;,” “The Holy Man”

Aug. 22: “The Open Road;,” “Symphony of Aa City”

Aug. 25: fFilms from Anthology Film Archives.