Also this issue: La Fiesta Continua What to see (and not) from the PFF’s second week. -Sam Adams New Continuing Repertory Film Showtimes

April 10-16, 2003

screen picks

by Sam Adams

“Buddhism and Japanese Film” (Thu., April 10, 5 p.m., Houston Hall, 34th and Spruce sts., University of Pennsylvania) Donald Richie, the celebrated historian of Japanese film, comes to town for a lecture before introducing the Philadelphia Film Festival screening of Aiki on Friday (see review at right).

Lost Film Festival 8.0 (April 10-13, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., free, www.lostfilmfest.com/lff8) Due to a pesky e-mail error, news about this weekend's Lost Film Fest didn't surface until late last week, so some last-minute schedule juggling is in order, especially if you've got your PFF schedule all planned out. Apart from Sam Green and Bill Siegel's The Weather Underground, which screens in both festivals (the PFF Friday and Sunday, the Lost Fest Saturday night at 8), there's little overlap in material or approach, so some tough choices -- or some serious venue-hopping -- are in store. Some highlights from the Lost Fest's four-day slate: End of the Century (Thu., 9 p.m.), a "documentary in progress" about The Ramones; Live from Shiva's Dancefloor (Fri., 9 p.m.), Richard Linklater's much-talked-about short film, starring (and introduced by) Timothy "Speed" Levitch, in which the spaced-out tour guide argues that the former site of the World Trade Center should be turned into a park for free-roaming bison; The Yes Men! (Sun., 8 p.m.) chronicles the antics of the anti-globalization pranksters, who managed to (briefly) convince the world press that the WTO had shut itself down, and who have delivered satirical lectures posing as WTO representatives (think the Weather Underground meets Andy Kauffman). Screenings run until midnight (and past it on Saturday); check the Fest's website for a complete rundown.

Beauty and the Beast (Thu., April 10, 4:30 p.m.; Sun., April 13, 2 p.m.; Mon., April 14, 7 p.m., County Theater, 20 E. State St., Doylestown, 215-345-6789, www.countytheater.org; Wed., April 16, 7 p.m., Ambler Theater, 108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, 215-345-7855, www.amblertheater.org, both $5.25-$7.75; also $39.95 DVD) In his introduction to La Belle et la Bête (1946), Jean Cocteau famously begged critics and audiences for a little "childlike credulity," but children aren't what they used to be: When I saw Cocteau's Orpheus in a theater full of French schoolchildren 10 years ago, they howled at the movie's theatrical special effects, their imaginations already in thrall to the tyranny of the real-seeming. Nowadays, submitting to Cocteau's visions requires a willful suspension of disbelief, a conscious and constant submission to the movie's trickery. The effort (which doesn't feel like much of one) is worth it: Conceived as "a fairy tale without fairies," Cocteau's adaptation of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont's story rejected the urgency of wartime newsreels for an allegorical tale of a royal house in disorder. (The parallels to occupation France have been oft remarked upon.) The film's dialogue is stilted, its performances silent-movie overwrought, but Cocteau's imagery is nothing short of magical. Though the Criterion Collection's new DVD shouldn't keep you from seeing the restored prints at the County (or its recently-opened twin in Ambler), it does provide ample opportunity for post-film education. In addition to two audio commentaries, the disc includes a 1995 documentary featuring interviews with Jean Marais (who actually seems to have styled his latter-day look after the Beast) and Mira Parély, a brief TV interview with cinematographer Henri Alekan, and, in what may be a DVD first, Philip Glass' opera of the same name, which was scored to the images in Cocteau's film.

West Side Story ($39.98 DVD) MGM's new West Side Story disc includes a booklet featuring Ernest Lehman's script in its entirety, though it's a mixed blessing at best since the cornball book (by Arthur Laurents) of the original stage musical has always been West Side's Achilles heel. (Being stuck with Laurents' dialogue probably cost Lehman the screenplay Oscar, the only one for which West Side was nominated and didn't win.) Otherwise, MGM's two-disc set keeps it simple, with a new transfer and 5.1 audio on the first disc (points off for not including the original mono soundtrack) and extras relegated to disc two. The main attraction there is West Side Memories, an hourlong, making-of documentary that candidly addresses such issues as the replacement of Natalie Wood's singing track (during filming, Wood was under the impression they'd keep her pre-recorded tracks in the finished film, meaning her voice double had to lip-synch to Wood's already-filmed mouth) and the barring of choreographer and co-director Jerome Robbins from the set (Robbins' choreography of West Side's stage version made him a sensation, but his detail-obsessed approach led to schedule overruns, and the studio had him removed in the middle of production).

Perhaps not surprisingly given its mixed parentage, West Side is a dramatically mixed bag, with uncontestably brilliant dance sequences smack alongside moments that positively drown in treacle. Wood and male lead Richard Beymer may be saddled with thankless roles, but their wide-eyed cooing seems awfully po-faced next to the street-smart swagger of Robbins'choreography. Co-director Robert Wise, whose fate was probably sealed when he recut The Magnificent Ambersons for RKO without Orson Welles' knowledge, was the kind of talented hack the studio could trust to deliver reliable product on schedule and not muck about with art, which might be why the movie never quite lives up to Robbins' sizzle or the rococo naturalism of Boris Leven's sets. As it is, West Side Story is an inconsistent whole, but it has minutes of masterpiece.