In 1963, Grigorios Lambrakis, MD, a popular leftist Member of the Greek Parliament, was assassinated in Thesssaloniki, Greece by goons employed by the extre
me Right. Eventually the right-wing establishment fell and a precarious democracy was established, only to lead to a coup on 21 April 1967, by a military junta. The colonels' dictatorship lasted for 7 years.
A Greek writer, Vassilis Vassilikos, recounted the events around the Lambrakis murder in a novel, Z, in 1966. The title comes from a combination of the sound of the Greek letter Z, which is pronounced approximately like "Long Live", and the English sound of Z, which means in Greek, " he lives, he is alive" . Such shouts were uttered by the record crowd which attended Lambrakis' funeral in Athens. (Some people think that Z symbolizes the end, but the last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega. ) A Greek exile when he made Z, set in the country of his birth, Costa-Gavras is most interested in the motivations and misuses of power.
When the movie came out, the Junta was already in place. The film was made with French money. It could not, of course, be shot in Greece, so Algeria was used as a substitute. So we revisit Algeria in a way given our previous screening of the Battle of Algiers.
me Right. Eventually the right-wing establishment fell and a precarious democracy was established, only to lead to a coup on 21 April 1967, by a military junta. The colonels' dictatorship lasted for 7 years.A Greek writer, Vassilis Vassilikos, recounted the events around the Lambrakis murder in a novel, Z, in 1966. The title comes from a combination of the sound of the Greek letter Z, which is pronounced approximately like "Long Live", and the English sound of Z, which means in Greek, " he lives, he is alive" . Such shouts were uttered by the record crowd which attended Lambrakis' funeral in Athens. (Some people think that Z symbolizes the end, but the last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega. ) A Greek exile when he made Z, set in the country of his birth, Costa-Gavras is most interested in the motivations and misuses of power.
When the movie came out, the Junta was already in place. The film was made with French money. It could not, of course, be shot in Greece, so Algeria was used as a substitute. So we revisit Algeria in a way given our previous screening of the Battle of Algiers.
In Z, Gavras used a simple trick, so to speak, but a revolutionary one. His innovation was to combine European political awareness and commitment with the vigorous, dynamic, well-paced style of Hollywood action movies. The combination was unique and uniquely effective. There had been political films in Europe but these were in the intellectual mold or--in the case of the more familiar ones--in the shape of propaganda movies, whether Eisenstein's classics on the Russia Revolution (The Battleship Potemkin, 10 Days That Shook The World, etc. ) or Leni Riefenstahl's paeans to Naziism ( The Triumph Of The Will, Olympia) .
Directed by Costa-Gavras (Constantine Gavras). Written by Gavras & Jorge Semprun from the eponymous novel by Vassilis Vassilikos. Photography: Raoul Coutard. Music: Mikis Theodorakis. Cast: Yves Montand, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jacques Perrin, Irene Papas, Charles Denner, Francois Perier, Marcel Bozzufi, Georges Geret et al. 127 minutes.
Z won an Oscar in 1970 for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Editing. Z is also the first of a loosely connected political trilogy which include The Consent (1971) and State of Siege (1973). Plans to show the State of Siege at a later date are already made.
You can read another introduction to the film as well as a recent interview with the director by Ian Christie (2004) here:
You can find an amateur copy of the script here:
You can watch a short clip with actual footage from the period of the Junta in Athens here:
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