A list of puns related to "Costa Gavras"
Many of them are listed as out of print or unavailable on the Criterion site (not sure if those mean anything different from one another). I'm dying to get copies of Missing, Z, and The Confession added to my collection but it's not even just Criterion no longer owning the rights. I'm searching Amazon and it's bringing up almost no options, or only an old release or two from another region or that are only used copies.
Just curious if anyone knows why his filmography seems so hard to track down compared to other directors with far less acclaim... Is it some kind of mess like Other Side of the Wind where there are shady parties holding the rights? Or is it similar to the Fosse/All That Jazz situation for any reason??
With the awards buzz around ‘Parasite’ this year and ‘Roma’ last year I was thinking about this very film which made such a huge sensation over 50 years ago, and was the first film nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language film (it won the latter). And it was released in a year with lots of truly amazing motion pictures. It also got deserving nods for its direction, screenplay and editing which is among the tautest in film history, the film moves along so well and is constantly engaging in its presentation.
As for what it’s about? Well on the surface it’s about a political assassination but really it’s more about the political buildup and the social fallout of the events. Jean Louis-Trintignant won Best Actor at Cannes for his role here and he’s wonderful!
Any other fans of the film here?
I don’t know if a lot of people care, but some people were asking about it. The Confession is available on Amazon. DVD here
A) Constantin Costa-Gavras (Iraia, Grecia, 1933), conocido por su militancia de izquierdas y sus filmes de denuncia social, le viene a la mente una película de Charles Chaplin para describir lo que está sucediendo en los últimos años en Grecia: la maravillosa 'Tiempos modernos', donde Charlot interpreta a un operario de una cadena de montaje que es seleccionado para experimentar un nuevo artilugio que permitirá a los obreros trabajar sin interrumpir su jornada. Un película, en definitiva, sobre la deshumanización, sobre la miseria y sobre las indiferencia de los ricos antes el sufrimiento de los pobres...
B) Residente en París desde hace 60 años, tiene también en su haber numerosas películas de fuerte calado social. Convertido en un mito de la izquierda, su larga filmografía incluye títulos como 'Z' (un grito contra la dictadura de los coroneles en Grecia, galardonada con dos premios Oscar) o 'Desaparecido', basada en hechos reales y que narra la desaparición de un joven periodista estadounidense durante el golpe de Estado contra Salvador Allende en 1973.
C) Estas son algunas de sus reflexiones sobre la situación actual en Grecia:
1º) La situación de Grecia es sencillamente terrible. Aunque debo precisar que no para todos. Hay gente en Grecia que vive muy bien, que acumula una enorme riqueza y a la que los sucesivos gobiernos han permitido evadir impuestos sistemáticamente y aumentar sus fortunas. Pero, frente a ellos, hay una juventud con una situación catastrófica, que no encuentra trabajo, que se ve obligada a abandonar su país en busca de un empleo y un futuro, y unos jubilados que viven en situación de miseria.
2º) La culpa es en primer lugar de los políticos griegos, de la izquierda y de la derecha, de PASOK y Nueva Democracia, que durante años han permitido y alentado un sistema de corrupción y privilegios.
3º) Pero la responsabilidad también es de Europa, que sabía todo eso y decidió mirar hacia otro lado, permitió a esos políticos hacer lo que hicieron. Y cuando llegaron Tsipras y Varoufakis, gente nueva con ideas nuevas, les hicieron la vida imposible por ser precisamente gente joven y gente de izquierdas....Han querido dar una lección a España, a Italia, a Francia, a Portugal... a todos. Los políticos de Bruselas están al servicio de los mercados y les espanta cualquier cosa que huela a izquierda.
4º) Es cierto que, dentro de la propia izquierda griega hay muchos que consideran a Tsipras como un traidor por haber aceptado firmar un acuerd
... keep reading on reddit ➡To anyone who hasn't seen this film, i highly recommend it. I think it deserves to be in the collection as it's a very underrated thriller. It's a spanish-french film released on 2005, and it has a DVD release, but i think it would benefit from a Criterion Blu ray upgrade. What do you think? Have you seen this movie? Would you like to see it in the collection?
The Director: COSTA-GAVRAS (1933 - )
> "Any reference to real events and persons living or dead is not accidental. It is deliberate. --Costa-Gavras and Jorge Semprun's introductory title to Z
> "The film "Z" is about...the assassination, six years ago, of a leader of the political opposition in Greece. It is also about all the rest of them. For Americans, it is about the My Lai massacre, the killing of Fred Hampton, the Bay of Pigs. It is no more about Greece than The Battle of Algiers was about Algeria. It is a film of our time. It is about how even moral victories are corrupted. It will make you weep and will make you angry. It will tear your guts out."--Roger Ebert, 4-star review of Z, 1969
Though Costa-Gavras is not, on first glance, an artistic radical in the vein of some of the other New Wave directors we've covered this month, he shares their passionate desire to uncover the truths about society in a way that shakes the political beliefs of all ideologies, of left and right. Nowhere is this more apparent than in what, in my view, is the best political thriller ever made: 1969's Z. It is a conspiracy picture, an allegory, a warning against fascism, a nuclear-disarmament statement, a Hitchcockian thriller, a New Wave masterpiece.
Costa-Gavras and his co-writer Jorge Semprun adapt Z from the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. In the novel, he retells the events before, during, and after the assassination of the democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis on May 22, 1963 (exactly six months before America's own president would be gunned down in his prime). On that day, Lambrakis delivered a speech denouncing Greece's use of nuclear armaments and argued for a move from the country's right-wing, pro-war stance to a more pacifist approach. A large crowd of both pro-leftists and pro-war activists gathered outside of the hall where Lambrakis delivered the speech. Following the speech, Lambrakis, as he made his way back to a motorcade which was to take him away from the increasingly restless crowd, was struck in the back of the head with a club by two men driving a three-wheeled truck. Despite occurring in plain sight of the crowd, no witnesses initially came forward, claiming that the police had blocked the sight of the closest spectators by clamoring around the dying Lambrakis. He was taken away in the back of a police car to a hospital; however, hospital staff claimed that the near-death Lambrakis arr
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