Every year the UCSB Arts & Lectures Summer Cinema series acts as a sort of mini film festival, screening films that many viewers would not otherwise have the opportunity to experience on the big screen in Santa Barbara.

In the first half of the 2007 summer series, UCSB’s Campbell Hall hosted the winner of the 2007 Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film, “The Lives of Others

In the first half of the 2007 summer series, UCSB’s Campbell Hall hosted the winner of the 2007 Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film, “The Lives of Others.” The second half of the series will host another foreign nominee, “Days of Glory,” a French war film that has never before been screened in Santa Barbara’s theaters.

“Often we try to bring things that haven’t been shown in town or that only showed once at the film festival. Then when we do bring things that have shown in town or locally, it’s because they’ve been in limited release,” said Meghan Henry, “so we just try to provide additional opportunities for people to see things they may not have gotten to see on a big screen.”

Providing yet another unique twist to the Campbell Hall experience, Henry said the series is shown using an old-fashioned, two-reel projector that requires the film operator to manually change from one reel to another as the film plays.

Ever noticed those little black dots at the bottom corner of the screen during a theater presentation of a film? That’s the operator’s cue that it’s time to overlay the second reel to continue the movie.

“What happens now with modern movie houses is they have digital projection or they have single-reel and we have the super old fashioned kind that people don’t use anymore, which makes it a little more unique.,” Henry said. “That’s kind of our point of pride for our film series because we’re not aware of anybody else that does it the old-school way.”

That old-school way will be employed during the screening of two old-school classics in the coming weeks with Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights” and Frederico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita,” or The Sweet Life.

“Days of Glory” and “An Unreasonable Man,” a documentary on political pioneer Ralph Nader, will also be shown.

Not sure what all these movies are? Let us explain.

 

‘An Unreasonable Man’

 

Is a legacy defined by a body of work that revolutionized the car safety standards in America, protected consumers “against unreasonable risks of injuries associated with consumer products” through the creation of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and protected America’s drinking water with the Safe Drinking Water Act? Or is a legacy defined by one’s most remembered moment in the spotlight, a spotlight that many argue robbed Al Gore of the presidency in 2000, striking a blow to liberal legislation, including Ralph Nader-inspired acts?

“How do you define a legacy?” That is the question presented in the tag line for this in-depth portrait of consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Nader.

That question and subsequent debate is the focal point of “An Unreasonable Man.” Giving balance to Nader’s early work and accomplishments as well as his bid for the 2000 presidency, the film explores the impact of both his consumer advocacy and the intense controversy surrounding the perceived liberal vote split in 2000.

With interviews from critics such as Eric Alterman and Todd Gitlin to advocates such as Nader’s Raiders alumni, the sympathetic portrait will no doubt incite debate over the nature of legacy, its meaning and implication as well as discussion over Nader’s impact both positive and negative on the direction of liberal politics on the American stage.

Is Nader an idealist that followed his hard-line liberal politics through to the ultimate ambition, a bid for the American presidency, or is he the spoiler that angered democrats are justified in blaming for George W. Bush’s ascent and the Iraq War?

At the very least, film makers Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan offer both sides of the legacy, though slanted toward the compassionate, and open the viewer to a better understanding of one unreasonable man and the accomplishments and events surrounding his impending legacy.

 

‘Days of Glory’

 

Some 60 years after the end of WWII, the world’s psyche is still acutely intrigued by the events and personal stories of the most devastating man-made violence the world will hopefully ever know.

Every year films peel away layers exposing new stories, new depths, new horrors and new hopes from the epic war. “Days of Glory,” a horribly inaccurate English title for Rachid Bouchareb’s Algerian film “Indigenes,” presents the story of the Algerian troops who helped France close out the faltering German forces in the latter years of the war.

Facing intense discrimination within the French forces, no upward mobility through the ranks and bloody battles where the Algerian regiments were consistently under armed and outnumbered, there was little glory for the African Arab soldiers of France.

Focusing on the personal stories of the characters and the socio-political complications of colonized Algerians fighting for the freedom of a “motherland” that most had never seen, “Days of Glory” is not a “Saving Private Ryan” war epic of gory battle sequences and suspenseful attacks. Instead, Bouchareb finesses the humanity of his soldiers, bringing into focus four archetypal reactions to the contradiction of colonized people fighting for the foreigners who decimated a third of their population just 40 years prior.

Bouchareb’s film follows five Arab soldiers, Said, Yassir, Messaoud and Abdelkader from Morocco, through Italy and into the motherland. Around every bend in the road the men face stark reminders of their second-class status.

Algerian squadron leader, Corporal Abdelkader, embodies the most politicized role, studying military handbooks and working to make a life for himself as a French soldier. In the most overtly insurgent scene of the film, Abdelkader demands that tomatoes be served to all soldiers, not just the whites, saying “We fight alongside our French brothers in arms, on the same terrain, against the same enemy. German bullets don’t pick and choose, sir.”

But as the injustices continue, Bouchareb paints a very different picture. While the French fight for their motherland and the protection of their homes and families, Algerian soldiers like Abdelkader fight for pride, respect and a deserved place alongside their French peers.

What the movie lacks in big-budget battle scenes, it strives to make up for with incisive social commentary. But with no tangible history present in any of the characters, they play as two-dimensional soldiers propped up to make a political point that the story never shows. Rather, Bouchareb tells the audience of the injustice in the credits. In 1959 the French government passed a law ending pension payments to the WWII infantrymen of Algeria.

Despite the film inspiring France to back-pay all pensions in full, its focus on the political and lack of character depth render it astounding historical instruction, but banal film viewing.

 

‘City Lights’

 

Widely considered Charlie Chaplin’s crowning achievement, “City Lights” blends Chaplin’s knack for comedy with a profound gravity that culminates in a heartwarming and often imitated Hollywood ending.

“City Lights” stars Chaplin in his iconic tramp role alongside Virginia Cherrill, a blind girl who mistakes Chaplin for a millionaire. In a classic case of serendipitous mistaken identity, Chaplin’s tramp clings to the fantasy and does everything in his power to play the role of millionaire intent on funding Cherrill’s eye surgery to restore her sight.

Befriended by a rich businessman with a penchant for spirits and a tendency to forget his actions under the influence of said spirits, the tramp tries everything to get the money for the girl’s operation. Complete with all the physical comedy one would expect from Chaplin, the results of the tramp’s efforts are often at once riotous and endearing.

Filmed after the advent of the “talkie,” or movies with spoken dialogue, “City Lights” stands as the last great silent film of cinema’s founding years.

Presented in the most pristine 35 millimeter print available, the UCSB Arts & Lectures screening of this classic silent film will be a delight for all ages.

 

‘La Dolce Vita’

 

Frederico Fellini’s first bona fide classic both shocked and captivated audiences in 1960 with its bare exposure of the sanctified and seedy sides of modern Rome.

“La Dolce Vita” opens with a majestic shot of a helicopter carrying an enormous Jesus statue to the Vatican. Following behind the suspended religious monument is another helicopter carrying a tabloid journalist, the film’s protagonist Marcello Mastroianni. As Jesus makes his way to the Vatican, Marcello stops to try to get the phone numbers of some ladies sunbathing atop an apartment complex.

The religious and the profane juxtaposed in a city rife with both. It was a powerful statement then and remains so now.

Marcello is an insatiable dreamer, always longing for the opportunity to do something meaningful, something profound. But the audience finds him trapped in the café and nightclub circuit of Rome, tracking the lives of a fading aristocracy and the indiscretions of second-rate actors. It’s the story of Rome encapsulated in a character. A city built on hope for the worship of Christ and the good life, filled with playboys and aristocrats determined to live “the sweet life.”

Marcello’s ambition is Rome’s purpose. The reality of both is something much less noble, something much more human – dichotomy.

It’s the eternal confounding element of human life. We are at once born with the aptitude for grace, humility and altruism, but faced with an appetite for ugliness, hubris and greed. As Marcello longs for something better, he falls further into the world he dreams of escaping. As Rome expanded to welcome more followers of the church, its streets flooded with urban blight.

Values are not to be dreamed of, but lived. A sweet life spent thinking about the good life yields nothing but temporary sugar that sours as it ferments. So too did Rome dream of the good life from behind the walls of the Vatican, while outside it seethed with human spoils.

Fellini masterfully blends these ideas into en ebb and flow of dusk to dawn that cycles from darkness to daylight, only to be swallowed by darkness again. One spectacular visual display leads to the next as Fellini crafts one of the all-time greats of cinema history.