UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema 2001 features an appealing selection of engaging, touching and funny films from the past—films that we loved on first viewing and that amply reward a second or third look. These durable classics include wryly humorous European films like The Dinner Game and When the Cat’s Away as well as Hollywood classics like Some Like It Hot and a special 40th anniversary presentation of the great musical collaboration West Side Story. Arts & Lectures will also screen the entire Apu Trilogy by the great Indian humanist filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Screenings are at 7:30 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall. Tickets may be purchased in advance and at the door.

The series begins on Tuesday, June 26 with Carmen, Spanish director Carlos Saura’s passionate flamenco version of Bizet’s popular opera. As evidenced by Otto Preminger’s all-black cast Carmen Jones and Jean-Luc Godard’s Code Name: Carmen, this story has beckoned to filmmakers with its tale of obsessive love. Saura’s treatment, set in a 1980s Spanish rehearsal hall, manages to replay the informing drama through dazzling dance performances by flamenco artists Laura del Sol, Christina Hoyos and Antonio Gades. Guitarist Paco de Lucia is also on hand with magic and fire of his own. Presented with the Flamenco Arts Festival. (1983, 95 minutes)

The first of two cinematic explorations of the natural world and human cultural diversity, Powaqqatsi (Life in Transformation) screens on Thursday, June 28. Director Godfrey Reggio’s sequel to the phenomenally popular Koyaanisqatsi features an intriguing combination of big screen imagery enhanced by Phillip Glass’ musical score. Powaqqatsi focuses on the exertions of laborers in places like India, Egypt, Nepal and Brazil. (1988, 99 minutes)

Then comes a treat for fans of movie musicals, a 40th anniversary showing of West Side Story on Sunday, July 1. Few films have such a strong pedigree. Arising from composer Leonard Bernstein’s idea to update Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to a 1960s New York City setting where rival gangs fight over turf and romance, West Side Story boasts lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins. All that was needed was a genius to pull it together cinematically. And that would be Robert Wise, one of Hollywood’s most versatile directors. It’s a perfect web of brilliant strands. Or, think of the songs: “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way/ From your first cigarette to your last dying day,” “Maria” and “I Feel Pretty.” (1961, 152 minutes)

Playing on Thursday, July 5 is Spanish director Pedro Almódovar’s most accessible farce, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown featuring Carmen Maura as an actress who’s been jilted by her stodgy self-regarding lover. Best of all, perhaps, is the opportunity to encounter a young and very funny Antonio Banderas before he became an action film figure in America. (1988, 88 minutes)

Lighthearted farce with a dark undercurrent or a morality play with a heart of gold? You decide when The Dinner Game plays on Sunday, July 8. Director Francis Veber has a seemingly unstoppable ability to create comic situations that play equally well in Paris and Santa Barbara. (La Cage Aux Folles and The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe are two of his other hits.) This one begins on a seemingly cruel premise, drawn from real life, in which Parisian sophisticates invite unsuspecting “jerks” to dinner for callow amusement. Our protagonist, a swanky editor, finds his match in the guileless Pignon, a tax lawyer with a very literate mind and a talent for toothpick architecture. Can you say comeuppance in French? (1998, 78 minutes)

Then it’s back to the joys of classic Hollywood with Some Like It Hot on Thursday, July 12. Billy Wilder made great buddy pictures and this one, starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, was even better because its heroes spend a lot of the film in drag. Two out-of-work musicians in Chicago accidentally witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and decide to flee to Miami. Mishaps on their southbound train conspire to force Lemmon and Curtis to share a compartment with Marilyn Monroe and her all-girl band. (1959, 121 minutes)

Arts & Lectures offers another French study of the flipside of hipness when Cedric Klapisch’s sweet and funny film When the Cat’s Away plays on Sunday, July 15. The story begins when Chloé loses her black cat Gris-Gris and ends when she finds the promise of romance in her own back yard. Klapisch’s stylistic combination of contemporary artifice and a timeless peek at Paris neighborhoods adds up to a captivating investigation of the overlooked familiar. (1997, 95 minutes)

American cult filmmaking has no more stalwart practitioner than Jim Jarmusch; his Down By Law plays on Thursday, July 19. The film combines the talents of Tom Waits, John Lurie and a very funny Roberto Benigni in his U.S. film debut. Described by Jarmusch as a “neo-bête-noir comedy, part nightmare and part fairytale,” the film takes place in a Louisiana jail and, following a prison breakout, in a backcountry bayou. Songs by Waits and music by Lurie. (1986, 107 minutes)

Screening on Sunday, July 22, Baraka, a film from the producers of Koyaanisqatsi and Chronos, has deep ecological concerns. To create this wordless global tour, the filmmakers spent over a year filming locales such as Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Temples of Karnak and Luxor in Egypt, the Varanasi Ghats on the Ganges River in India, and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. With music by Michael Stearns, Baraka was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. (1993, 96 minutes)

On Thursday, July 26, return to the film that attracted millions of viewers to art movie houses, Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore. Cinema Paradiso is unquestionably one of the most beloved movies about the movies of all time. Projectionist Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) befriends young filmgoer Salvatore, and together they explore the life-changing magic of cinema in a quaint Italian village rattling toward modernity. The movie house becomes a metaphor for community, illusions and dreams. (1989, 123 minutes)

On Sunday, July 29, seize a rare chance to view the complete Apu Trilogy by famed director Satyajit Ray on recently restored 35mm prints. Begin at 2 p.m. with Pather Panchali (1955, 115 minutes), a film that shook the world of moviemaking, quickly affording an unknown Indian filmmaker stature equal to that of the great European humanist directors. This sprawling film of daily life is both poignant and profound. Then, at 4:15 p.m., it’s Aparajito, (1956, 113 minutes), the continuing adventures of Ray’s hero, as he leaves home and makes his way to another village and eventually to marriage. We pause for dinner at 6 p.m. and return at 7:30 p.m. to enjoy the stirring conclusion of the trilogy, aptly-titled The World of Apu (1959, 106 minutes). It’s great cinema, akin only to classics like Grand Illusion or The Bicycle Thief. Although The Apu Trilogy leads us through childhood, education, marriage and tragedy in richly detailed Indian villages, most viewers recall the universality of Apu’s adventure. The trilogy features music by a young Ravi Shankar.

The series concludes on Thursday, August 2 with Horse Thief. Filmed by the Chinese director Tian Zhuangzhuang, it inspired Martin Scorsese’s Kundun. Horse Thief tells of a Tibetan man forced to steal to survive. This Chinese film earned censorship for the evocative ways it depicts the ceremonies of a culturally usurped people. A rare experience, and a must-see in CinemaScope on the big screen. (1986, 88 minutes)

All film screenings begin at 7:30 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall, except for The Apu Trilogy event, which begins at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 29. Tickets for all films are available in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office (893-3535) and may be purchased in person or charged by phone. Tickets can also be bought at the door, if available, beginning at 6:30 pm.

Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and UCSB Summer Sessions, these films are sponsored by The Santa Barbara Independent, The Daily Nexus, KDB Radio, Blue Agave Cafe, Santa Barbara Video Productions, the Isla Vista Food Co-op, KCSB Radio and the Mercury Lounge.

For more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2078.