By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
The Tribune

One of the world's greatest film directors has been recruited to help one of the county's most unique theaters.

The Palm Theater, in conjunction with Cal Poly, will start a nine-part series Sept. 24 on the films of the legendary and influential Swedish writer-director Ingmar Bergman.

If the Thursday night series succeeds, said theater co-owner Jim Dees, The Palm may try a German film series this winter and offer a different series every few months.

Dees hopes the series will attract more Cal Poly students and a wider audience to his film house, which is threatened by a new, seven-theater planned for downtown San Luis Obispo.

The idea for the series, Dees said, originated with Cal Poly professor John Harrington, who was going to show the films at the university until they agreed the Palm would give the audience a greater chance of appreciating Bergman's vision.

Bergman's films are philosophical and personal, mixing allegory and mysticism with real life drama.

Most Bergman films feature the same team, an exceptionally talented cast--including Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow, the director's onscreen alter-ego--and crew, highlighted by Sven Nykvist's crisp, high-contrast cinematography.

Bergman films are so distinct that most filmgoers have seen them imitated by other filmmakers, especially Woody Allen in ''Interiors'' and ''A Midsummer's Night Dream."

Bergman's most frequently copied and best known film is ''The Seventh Seal'' (1957) in which a world-weary knight challenges Death to a game of chess.

Set in medieval Europe during the Black Plague, ''The Seventh Seal'' uses a traveling circus and an allegory about death to highlight man's search for the meaning of life.

Bergman uses dreams and memories in a similarly stunning way in ''Wild Strawberries'' (1960), a story about a day in the life of an emotionally distant university professor forced to re-examine his life while traveling to receive an honorary degree.

Self-examination is central in Bergman films. Characters are torn between spirit and flesh, questioning their faith in God, humanity and themselves in ''Persona''(1967), ''Shame'' (1969) ''Winter Light'' (1962), and ''The Virgin Spring'' (1960), a Best Foreign Film Academy Award winner.

''I have struggled all my life with a tormented and joyless relationship with God. Faith and lack of faith, punishment, grace, and rejection, all were real to me,'' Bergman has said.

Bergman has more recently focused on the often tumultuous relationships within families, including his own.

In ''Cries and Whispers'' (1972), he explores the agonies and fears of three sisters and their devoted housekeeper, while ''Autumn Sonata'' (1978) has Ingrid Bergman (no relation) confronting daughter Liv Ullman for the first time in years.

But the 74-year-old director's next to last film and most recent screenplay deal with his childhood in Uppsala, Sweden.

''Fanny and Alexander'' (1983) is a sweeping view of family life in turn-of-the-century Sweden seen through the eyes of a small boy. Announced as Bergman's last feature film, it sums up many themes from his earlier works. It won four Oscars, including cinematography and Best Foreign Film.

''The Best Intentions'' (1992), which captured the top prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is based on Bergman's screenplay and is directed by Billie August, whose ''Pelle the Conqueror'' (1988) won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

''Intentions'' tells of Bergman's parents' love affair and early marriage, from when they met in 1909 to his birth in 1918. The film exposes the conflicting forces that created one of the cinema's true artists.

Dees hopes that showing these Bergman films will expose more people to great cinema and to the quality of films he and his wife Patty show at The Palm.

While The Palm has a loyal clientele, the foreign, documentary, and esoteric films they usually show don't make enough money to stay in business.

According to Dees, the theatre on Palm Street has survived nearly four years by also booking popular films not carried locally by the regular theater chains. These include politically controversial movies like '' Spike Lee's ''Jungle Fever,'' and John Singleton's ''Boyz N the Hood'' and high-quality, low-budget independents like ''Rambling Rose'' and ''The Committments."

''We are making most of our money off seven to 10 films in a year,'' Dees said. ''Next year, we might not get something like 'Mediterraneo' (the 1991 Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film) or 'Howards End.' It's been doing big business for us. We've had a big August. That's usually a bad month for us.

''Next year, we could be outbid for them,'' if there are seven more screens for bigger companies to fill, he said. ''But we'll hang in."

They've already lasted 18 years. The Palm began in 1974 as the Cinema Zoo, before videocassette recorders and the Mission Theater in downtown San Luis Obispo.

''I started the Zoo for the love of film,'' he said. The film society rented an old labor hall once a month, charged 75 cents and showed classics and a few first run films that didn't reach rural San Luis Obispo.

In 1979, the Zoo turned into The Rainbow, a theater on Osos Street that lasted until 1989. By then, the Dees had already opened The Palm, but couldn't run two places.

He doesn't want to see the tradition end or the county lose the only theater offering really different films and coffee, tea and bakery goods as refeshments. ''We'll survive,'' he said. ''We'll just have to be more creative or create an audience for films like Bergman."

Showtimes are available at 541-5161. Admission is $5.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They can frequently be found in the darkness of the Palm Theater.