VIDEO : RETURN TO CLASSIC FILMS ON DVD.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

One of the best things about being on the DVD beat is the re-release of classic films on the new format. Not only is it great to see them cleaned up in the digital format, but it also gives film buffs a chance to see how well they bear up as we hit the new millennium.

Two films that should be required viewing in 2000 and beyond are Arthur Penn's ``Bonnie and Clyde'' (1967) and Bob Fosse's ``Cabaret'' (1972), both available from Warner Bros.

``Bonnie and Clyde'' wasn't the first time Penn had made a film about a dysfunctional outlaw. His first film, ``The Left-Handed Gun'' (1958), starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid, was an interesting though stilted psychological study of the famed gunfighter. Part of this probably comes from Penn's background in directing, which until then was for stage and TV dramas, and ``Gun'' has that confined feel of '50s television.

One of Penn's other westerns, ``The Missouri Breaks'' (1976), veers in the opposite direction. It always seems out of control. That's due somewhat to his stars, who clearly were allowed to experiment with their characters, including Marlon Brando - who was playing a feared bounty hunter pursuing Jack Nicholson's character - wearing a dress and taking a bubble bath. But that was indicative of the whole movie. It's a fascinating mess, though.

Penn, however, hit his stride with ``Bonnie'' and ``Little Big Man'' (1970). ``Bonnie'' proved to be a landmark film. The story of the lives of 1930s outlaws Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) was told in very un-Hollywood fashion, owing more to the French New Wave with its abrupt shifts in mood - from humor to fury. The glossy, romantically nostalgic surface belies the film's undercurrents of sexual tension (specifically Clyde's impotence), the real tragedies of the Depression and the violence.

``Bonnie'' and a number of other films of the late '60s helped Hollywood move to a new level of sophistication in filmmaking. Considering the number of utterly stupid teen movies populating the screens these days, we have taken a lamentable step backward.

If Penn upped the stakes in Hollywood, Bob Fosse pushed the envelope. His most successful film - though not his best - was the Academy Award-winning ``Cabaret,'' the musical starring Liza Minnelli as the irrepressible and corruptible Sally Bowles. Set in the ``divine decadence'' of 1931 Berlin, ``Cabaret'' included promiscuous sexual activity, sadomasochism and the rise of Nazism. Fosse, who died in 1987, didn't flinch from these themes. There was a dark side to Fosse as evidenced by his subsequent films - ``Lenny,'' ``All That Jazz'' and ``Star 80.''

In ``Cabaret,'' Fosse keeps a detached distance from his subjects, as the gaiety of the seedy Kit Kat club does from the social turmoil outside. One of the most jarring scenes occurs when Bowles, Englishman and would-be novelist Brian Roberts (Michael York) and wealthy playboy Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) go on an outing in the country. There, sitting outside at an inn, a blond youth stands up and begins singing what seems a lovely folk melody. What begins as an idyllic moment becomes horrific as the camera pulls back to reveal the youth's Nazi armband, and the crowd joins in. Suddenly, the song - ``Tomorrow Belongs to Me'' - becomes a black omen of the Nazi terror to come.

Given the way Fosse's career drew on darker and darker subject matter, and given Sam Mendes' brilliant reimaging of the musical on stage, it would be fascinating to see how he would film ``Cabaret'' today. Unfortunately, that isn't possible, but the version of ``Cabaret'' he left us is a spectacular balancing act.

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Photo: Arthur Penn's ``Bonnie and Clyde'' (1967), starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, helped bring American filmmaking to a new level.