Do look back

True or false, cinéma vérité still fascinates.

Cinematic movements, it seems, aren't named the same way movies are — with an eye to how the critics will mangle the title in the rush to dismiss them. Build a movie off a Titanic, and you are asking for it to be miniaturized and sunk. Call yourself "Dogme" and you just spur on the unbelievers. If the title "Direct Cinema" had stuck to the cinéma vérité movement, it wouldn't be as misunderstood as it is today.

But even though cinéma vérité has been labeled "false" about as often as Dogville got sent to the pound, the complaint that it isn't the same as capital-T Truth misses the power and charm of the movement completely. Cinéma vérité is a style of inquiry that, in the hands of the best inquirers, rarely fails to fascinate. (And, be honest: Weren't the Don't Look Back clips the most affecting moments in Martin Scorsese's new Dylan documentary?)

Tapping into this fascination, San Francisco State's new Documentary Film Institute will bless the Bay Area film scene with a weekend festival of some of the greatest cinéma vérité films ever made. "A Tribute to Two Masters: Leacock and Pennebaker" features two of the Drew Associates and their later collaborators, Valérie Lalonde and Chris Hegedus, in person for screenings at the swank new de Young and roomy Castro.

To look at the films of Leacock and Pennebaker — and there are a full 22 of them here — is to see subtle narratives constructed from pivotal performance moments. Whether they are political, musical, theatrical, or personal, these narratives trust the performers' authenticities as much as they trust the audience to breathe in the full scope of their unscripted essences. Soak up the aura of live, sometimes archival, sweat in a full roster of vérité pics, from the ancient (Daybreak Express, 1953; A Stravinsky Portrait, 1966) to the amazingly recent (A Visit with Ricky Leacock at His Normandy Farm, 2006) and just about everything in between (Town Bloody Hall, 1979; Don't Look Back, 1967; Jazz Dance, 1954 ...). The series is also linked to a Film Arts Foundation–cosponsored series of Oscar-nominated docs. (Susan Gerhard)

TRIBUTE TO TWO MASTERS: LEACOCK AND PENNEBAKER

Thurs/2–Sun/5

See Rep Clock for showtimes.

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

Koret Auditorium, de Young Museum

50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, SF

Free before 7:30 p.m; $10 after

(415) 338-1519

www.collegeofcreativearts.org/DFI

www.balboamovies.com