RENEWING OUR AFFAIR WITH FOREIGN FILMS.

Byline: Stephen Whitty Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Whatever happened to foreign films?

I'm not talking about Hong Kong action pictures for a change, or even quirky little English comedies - there will always be a home for them. Instead, I'm thinking of the movies that used to fill art houses in the '70s and early '80s - and used to fill out the diet of hungry movie fans.

Some of those films were from accomplished directors - rueful romances from Francois Truffaut, surreal treats from Federico Fellini. Most were frivolous French comedies, lusty Italian dramas, Brazilian bedroom farces.

And all of them seem to have disappeared.

Oh, occasionally one comes to America for a visit. There was ``Il Postino'' of course (although that was really a continental film made by a British director). And there was Bernardo Bertolucci's lightweight ``Stealing Beauty'' (although that was a multinational film made in English).

But the great days of the subtitled '70s seem to be gone.

The foreign-film audience is graying, it appears. Unfortunately, Variety reports, there are fewer young film buffs to replace them. With VCRs ubiquitous, college film societies no longer have that urge to proselytize; with school budgets cut, student program boards often book proven money-makers over risky unknowns.

Some of the classics still sneak through; probably any town with a latte joint can support an occasional Ingmar Bergman festival. But the pleasant, undemanding foreign entertainments get lost entirely, and oddly, they're the ones I miss most - the Sonia Braga marital dramas, the Laura Antonelli sex comedies, the gritty Philippe Noiret crime stories.

They weren't ``The Conformist,'' of course, but they were fun, and they often provided crash courses in culture that I didn't get from Hollywood. Even a romantic roundelay like Antonelli's ``Till Marriage Do Us Part'' sneaked some history lessons between its couplings; movie fans who saw the sexy films of Bruno Barreto got a sense of the rhythms of life in Brazil.

But now those films - and their more prestigious cousins - may be ones the average film buff never sees.

I don't blame the art theaters and program boards for that. They may be willing to settle for small profits, but they can't afford to lose money. They're in the business to respond to audiences, not create them.

But perhaps that's a job for us, for filmmakers and for schools.

Arts education has been cut, but a video rental costs less than a box of ballpoints. Even if there's no staff for cinema courses, foreign films could be incorporated into existing classes. A screening of ``The Garden of the Finzi-Continis'' might fit into a world-history course; a Luis Bunuel film could be shown in Spanish class with the subtitles masked, and the students asked to translate.

The outreach could go on outside the classroom, too. Distributors could offer discounted videos; parents could, the next time their child asked for an American action film, rent ``Diva'' or ``La Femme Nikita,'' instead.

Those are all small things, true. But the rewards can be huge - and wonderful.