Great movies usually come out in small doses. But free
screenings of great movies come in large doses at Melnitz 1409,
known as the James Bridges Theater.
Take this week for example. Monday features “Roger &
Me,” Michael Moore’s documentary. Wednesday features
“The Deer Hunter,” Best Picture Oscar-winner. Thursday
features “Chinatown,” a film noir classic with Jack
Nicholson in a role he was born to play. Friday features “The
Shop Around the Corner,” the classic film on which
“You’ve Got Mail” is based. Just one look at this
list and you realize, “UCLA’s got movies!”
OK, so maybe you don’t know all those movies I just
mentioned and you don’t care to see them. You think old
movies are old for a reason; they allow new movies to take their
place.
Wrong. If anything, old movies continue to define American
cultural life. Just because Charlie Chaplin films are silent
doesn’t mean that they aren’t funny anymore. In fact,
new films tend to look like they’re trying to keep up with
1939’s “Citizen Kane” (Nov. 4) and 1972’s
“The Godfather” (Nov. 27) even as those films are
brilliant without breaking a sweat.
How could you disagree with the aging film diva, who says
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” in
1950’s “Sunset Boulevard”?
You South Campus folk, however, fear Melnitz, the northernmost
part of North Campus. Admittedly, the trek from the Life Sciences
building to Melnitz will have you breaking a sweat, but come on,
there are free movies.
The films come from film classes that screen them so students
can experience them as they were meant to be seen. Let’s face
it, DVD quality sucks because the digitized pixels square away an
image in bytes. The big widescreen 35 mm experience shows the
analog detail and beauty no DVD can capture.
In Melnitz, almost any seat in the house gives you a great view.
I’ve sat in the front row and near the back row and they both
worked. The theater is silent, popcorn free and dark, and the
audience is respectful, which provides the ideal space for getting
into a worthwhile film.
The only obstacle between you and your free movie is the
professor who is actually teaching the class. Granted the Melnitz
theater can hold around 275 people, but Jonathan Kuntz’s
“History of the American Motion Picture” class already
enrolls 193 people. Space is limited but according to Kuntz, he
doesn’t mind if you stop by for a flick or two.
Professor Robert Rosen, dean of the School of Theater, Film and
Television says that the 5 p.m. screenings of films, such as
Fellini’s “8 1/2″ (Nov. 6), Robert Altman’s
“Nashville” (Nov. 20), Tom Tykwer’s “Run
Lola Run” (Nov. 27), and Billy Wilder’s “Some
Like It Hot” (Dec. 4) are open to guests. To be safe, just be
polite and ask the professor for permission.
Unfortunately, the forces against free movies are constantly at
work. Semi-homeless people who haunt the film classes and make
strange sounds as they sleep threaten to take away auditing
privileges from the rest of us. Undoubtedly, Hollywood studios
could get a bit irked by the idea that their donation of films for
class screenings are being seen by unpaying eyes. It’ll be
hard to conceal your excitement at seeing free movies but try to
keep it on the down-low.
South Campus may have the Planetarium to provide free sights and
sounds, but this only happens once a week with limited variation in
what will be showed. Melnitz varies its films like Don Juan varied
his lovers. It will expose you to filmmaking that you never knew
could exist.
Hey, you may even end up wanting to pay money to see these
movies.