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Costa-Gavras

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Costa-Gavras
Κώστας Γαβράς
Costa-Gavras in 2017
Born
Konstantinos Gavras (Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς)

(1933-02-12) 12 February 1933 (age 91)
Loutra Iraias, Greece
Alma materInstitute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies
OccupationFilmmaker
WorksFull list
SpouseMichèle Ray
Children
AwardsFull list

Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; Greek: Κωνσταντίνος "Κώστας" Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for political films, such as the political thriller Z (1969), which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Missing (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French, but six of them were made in English.

Early life

Costa-Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias, Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of the Pro-Soviet branch of the Greek Resistance, and was imprisoned during the Greek Civil War. His father's Communist Party membership made it impossible for Costa-Gavras to attend university in Greece or to be granted a visa to the United States, so after high school he settled in France, where he began studying literature at the Sorbonne in 1951.[1]

Early career

In 1956, he left his university studies to study film at the French national film school, IDHEC. After film school, he apprenticed under Yves Allégret, and became an assistant director for Jean Giono and René Clair. After several further positions as first assistant director, he directed his first feature film, Compartiment Tueurs, in 1965.[2]

Selected films

His 1967 film Shock Troops (Un homme de trop) was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival.[3]

In Z (1969), an investigating judge, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, tries to uncover the truth about the murder of a prominent leftist politician, played by Yves Montand, while government officials and the military attempt to cover up their roles. The film is a fictionalised account of the events surrounding the assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. It had additional resonance because, at the time of its release, Greece had been ruled for two years by the "Regime of the Colonels". Z won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.[4] Costa-Gavras and co-writer Jorge Semprún won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Film Screenplay.

L'Aveu (The Confession, 1970) follows the path of Artur London, a Czechoslovakian communist minister falsely arrested and tried for treason and espionage in the Slánský 'show trial' in 1952.

State of Siege (1972) takes place in Uruguay under the civic-military dictatorship of Uruguay in the early 1970s. In a plot loosely based on the case of US police official and alleged torture expert Dan Mitrione, an American embassy official (played by Yves Montand) is kidnapped by the Tupamaros, a radical leftist urban guerilla group, which interrogates him in order to reveal the details of secret American support for repressive regimes in Latin America.

Missing, originally released in 1982 and based on the book The Execution Of Charles Horman, concerns an American journalist, Charles Horman (played by John Shea in the film), who disappeared in the 1973 coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Horman's father, played by Jack Lemmon, and wife, played by Sissy Spacek, search in vain to determine his fate. Nathaniel Davis, US ambassador to Chile from 1971 to 1973, a version of whose character had been portrayed in the movie (under a different name), filed a US$150 million libel suit, Davis v. Costa-Gavras, 619 F. Supp. 1372 (1985), against the studio and the director, which was eventually dismissed. The film won an Oscar for Best Screenplay Adaptation and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Betrayed (1988) is roughly based upon the terrorist activities of American neo-Nazi and white supremacist Robert Mathews and his group The Order.

In Music Box (1989), a respected Hungarian immigrant (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is accused of having commanded an Anti-Semitic death squad during World War II. His daughter, a Chicago defence attorney played by Jessica Lange, agrees to defend him at his denaturalization hearing. The film is inspired by the arrest and trial of Ukrainian immigrant John Demjanjuk and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas' realisation that his father had been a member of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party. The film won the Golden Bear at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival.[5]

La Petite Apocalypse (1993) was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.[6] Amen. (2003), was based in part on the highly controversial 1963 play, Der Stellvertreter. Ein christliches Trauerspiel (The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy), by Rolf Hochhuth. The film plot alleges that Pope Pius XII was aware of the plight of the Jews in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, but failed to take public action to publicise or condemn the Holocaust. Gavras won César Award for Best Writing for this film.

He was president of the Cinémathèque Française from 1982 to 1987, and again since 2007.

Political-commercial film

Costa-Gavras is known for merging controversial political issues with the entertainment value of commercial cinema. Law and justice, oppression, legal/illegal violence, and torture are common subjects in his work, especially relevant to his earlier films. Costa-Gavras is an expert of the "statement" picture. In most cases, the targets of Costa-Gavras's work have been right wing or far right movements and regimes, including the Greek military in Z, and right-wing dictatorships that ruled much of Latin America during the height of the Cold War, as in State of Siege and Missing.[citation needed]

In a broader sense, this emphasis continues with Amen. given its focus on the conservative leadership of the Catholic Church during the 1940s. In this political context, L'Aveu (The Confession) provides the exception, dealing as it does with oppression on the part of a Communist regime during the Stalinist period.[citation needed]

Issues and style

Costa-Gavras has brought attention to international issues, some urgent, others merely problematic, and he has done this in the tradition of cinematic story-telling. Z (1969), one of his most well-known works, is an account of the undermining in the 1960s of democratic government in Greece, his homeland and place of birth. The format, however, is a mystery-thriller combination that transforms an uncomfortable history into a fast-paced story. This is a clear example of how he pours politics into plot, "bringing epic conflicts into the sort of personal conflicts we are accustomed to seeing on screen."[citation needed]

His accounts of corruption propagated, in their essence, by European and American powers (Z, State of Siege and Missing) highlight problems buried deep in the structures of these societies, problems which he deems not everyone is comfortable addressing. The approach he adopted in L'Aveu also "subtly invited the audience to a critical look focused on structural issues, delving this time into the opposite Communist bloc."[citation needed]

Until 2019's Adults in the Room, Costa-Gavras had never worked in Greece or made a film in the Greek language.[citation needed]

Influences

When Costa-Gavras asked about some of his biggest cinematic influences, he replied:

The first movie I saw at the Cinematheque was Erich von Stroheim's Greed, and I was astonished to see you could do long movies with no happy ending. Kurosawa, no doubt, was a big influence. Movies sometimes more than directors have influenced me: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Ford, was an extraordinary discovery. Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar] Bergman.[7]

He also listed René Clément,[8] Jacques Demy,[8] and Gillo Pontecorvo's film The Battle of Algiers as an influence on his filmmaking.[9]

According to his son Romain Gavras, Costa-Gavras used to show all of Tarkovsky's films to him at a young age.[10]

Legacy and influence

Costa-Gavras films have been a significant influence on political cinema. Wade Major of the Directors Guild of America mentioned that, "With films like Z and Missing, Costa-Gavras almost single-handedly created the modern political thriller".[11] When German Director Wim Wenders paid tribute to him in 2018 at the 31st European Film Awards in Seville, Spain, Wenders called him "One of the greatest filmmakers of our time."[12]

He has influenced directors such as Oliver Stone, William Friedkin, Steven Soderbergh, Rachid Bouchareb, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Ben Affleck.

Stone mentioned that Costa-Gavras "was certainly one of my earliest role models, ... I was a film student at NYU when Z came out, which we studied. Costa actually came over with Yves Montand for a screening and was such a hero to us. He was in the tradition of Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers and was the man in that moment ... it was a European moment."[13]

The American filmmaker William Friedkin listed Z as one of his favorite films and mentioned the film's influence on him when directing his film The French Connection: "After I saw Z, I realized how I could shoot The French Connection. Because he [Costa-Gavras] shot 'Z' like a documentary. It was a fiction film but it was made like it was actually happening. Like the camera didn't know what was gonna happen next. And that is an induced technique. It looks like he happened upon the scene and captured what was going on as you do in a documentary. My first films were documentaries too. So I understood what he was doing but I never thought you could do that in a feature at that time until I saw Z."[14]

The American filmmaker Steven Soderbergh listed Z as an inspiration on his film Traffic and even stated that he "wanted to make it like [Costa-Gavras's] Z".[15][16][17][18] In 2020, Costa Gavras wrote the preface to the book Opération Condor, by French writer and journalist Pablo Daniel Magee.

The French filmmaker Mathieu Kassovitz listed Costa-Gavras films (such as Z and The Confession) as influential to his work.[19]

The French filmmaker Rachid Bouchareb listed Z as an influence on his film Outside the Law.[20]

The American actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck listed Costa-Gavras's films as influences for his film Argo.[21]

Accolades

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Costa-Gavras

Costa-Gavras's debut film, Compartiment Tueurs, won National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Screenplay in 1967.

The film Z was the first film to be nominated for both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film.[22] It won the latter, as well as the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film. Z was also the first foreign-language film to win the Best Film award from the New York Film Critics Circle. Gavras won the Best Director award as well.[23]

Costa-Gavras has received an honorary doctorate from the Film School of the Aristotle University in 2013.

He was interviewed extensively by The Times cultural correspondent Melinda Camber Porter and was featured prominently in her book Through Parisian Eyes: Reflections on Contemporary French Arts and Culture (1993, Da Capo Press).

Costa-Gavras received the Magritte Honorary Award in 2013.[24] He was the first filmmaker to receive the Catalonia International Prize (2017).[25]

Personal life

His daughter Julie Gavras and his sons Romain Gavras and Alexandre Gavras are also directors. He is the first cousin of Penelope Spheeris, Jimmie Spheeris and Chris Spheeris.[26]

In 2009, Costa-Gavras signed a petition in support of film director Roman Polanski, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.[27]

Filmography

Main article: Costa-Gavras filmography

Films

Year English title Director Writer Producer Original title
1965 The Sleeping Car Murders Yes Yes No Compartiment tueurs
1967 Shock Troops Yes Yes Yes Un homme de trop
1969 Z Yes Yes No Z
1970 The Confession Yes No No L'Aveu
1972 State of Siege Yes Yes No État de siège
1975 Special Section Yes Yes Yes Section spéciale
1979 Womanlight Yes Yes No Clair de femme
1982 Missing Yes Yes No Missing.
1983 Hanna K. Yes Yes No Hanna K.
1986 Family Business Yes Yes No Conseil de famille
1988 Betrayed Yes No No Betrayed
1989 Music Box Yes No No Music Box
1993 The Little Apocalypse Yes Yes No La Petite Apocalypse
1997 Mad City Yes No No Mad City
2002 Amen. Yes Yes No Amen.
2005 The Axe Yes Yes No Le Couperet
2006 The Colonel No Yes Yes Mon colonel
2009 Eden Is West Yes Yes Yes Eden à l'ouest
2012 Capital Yes Yes No Le Capital
2019 Adults in the Room Yes Yes No Ενήλικοι στην Αίθουσα

References

  1. ^ "COSTA-GAVRAS | maquette-kg-nov2014". Archived from the original on 28 July 2020. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Biographie et Filmographie de COSTA-GAVRAS - Ciné Passion". Cinemapassion.com. Archived from the original on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
  3. ^ "5th Moscow International Film Festival (1967)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
  4. ^ "The 42nd Academy Awards (1970) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
  5. ^ "Berlinale: 1990 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved 20 March 2011.
  6. ^ "Berlinale: 1993 Programme". berlinale.de. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
  7. ^ Ed Rampell (29 August 2013). "Costa-Gavras". The Progressive Magazine. The Progressive Inc. Retrieved 5 March 2023. Q: "Who are some of your biggest cinematic influences?" Costa-Gavras: "The first movie I saw at the Cinematheque was [Erich von Stroheim's] Greed, and I was astonished to see you could do long movies with no happy ending. Kurosawa, no doubt, was a big influence. Movies sometimes more than directors have influenced me: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Ford, was an extraordinary discovery. Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar] Bergman."
  8. ^ a b John J. Michalczyk (1984). Costa-Gavras, the Political Fiction Film. Art Alliance Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780879820299. In light of his international fame stemming from Z, Costa-Gavras was questioned as to which of the directors for whom he worked as assistant had the most influence on him. He replied: For me it was surely René Clément and Jacques Demy.
  9. ^ LaCinetek. "Costa-Gavras à propos de "La Bataille d'Alger" de Gillo Pontecorvo". YouTube. LaCinetek. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  10. ^ Xan Brooks (16 September 2022). "Romain Gavras: 'My Dad fed me Tarkovsky from the age of seven'". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  11. ^ Wade Major (Fall 2009). "World Class". DGA. Directors Guild of America. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  12. ^ European Film Academy. "Costa-Gavras - Honorary Award of the EFA President and Board". YouTube. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  13. ^ Major, Wade (Fall 2009). "World Class". DGA. Directors Guild of America. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  14. ^ "William Friedkin's Favorite Films of all Time". YouTube. Fade In Magazine. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  15. ^ Steven Soderbergh (2002). "Ed Kelleher/1998". In Kaufman, Anthony (ed.). Steven Soderbergh - Interviews. University Press of Mississippi. p. 107. ISBN 9781578064298. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  16. ^ Kaufman, Anthony, ed. (2015). Steven Soderbergh - Interviews, Revised and Updated. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781626745407. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  17. ^ Palmer, R. Barton; Sanders, Steven M., eds. (28 January 2011). The Philosophy of Steven Soderbergh. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 9780813139890. Retrieved 12 July 2021. Soderbergh called Traffic his "$47 million Dogme film" and used hand-held camera, available light, and (ostensibly) improvistational performance in an attempt to present a realistic story about illegal drugs. He prepared by analyzing two political films made in a realist style: Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) and Z (Constantin Costa-Gavras, 1969), both of which he described as having "that great feeling of things that are caught, instead of staged, which is what we were after."
  18. ^ Mark Gallagher (4 April 2013). "Hollywood Authorship and Transhistorical Taste Cultures". Another Steven Soderbergh Experience - Authorship and Contemporary Hollywood. University of Texas Press. p. 55. ISBN 9780292748811. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  19. ^ Will Higbee (2006). Mathieu Kassovitz. Manchester University Press. p. 11. ISBN 9780719071461. One final and important influence from 1970s French Cinema is Costa-Gavras. A regular visitor to the apartment block where Kassovitz grew up – his son lived in the same building – Costa-Gavras was another of the filmmakers Kassovitz discovered through his parents: 'Môme, mon père m'a montré ses films et ce que j'ai fait a été influencé par des films comme Z ou L'Aveu. Des films forts, profonds, où l'on touch à des sujets importants, primordiaux' (Kassovitz 1998).
  20. ^ Michael Gott; Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp (21 September 2020). ReFocus: The Films of Rachid Bouchareb. Edinburgh University Press. p. 107. ISBN 9781474466530. When Bouchareb was asked specifically about the titles that influenced his controversial film Outside the Law (2010), he said: "It was a mix. A lot of political movies like Z by Costa-Gavras and Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers."
  21. ^ Jennifer Vineyard (10 October 2012). "Ben Affleck on Why He Got to Look Hot in Argo". Vulture. Vox Media, LLC. Retrieved 11 April 2023. Affleck: "I haven't done a movie that I haven't ripped off from another one! [Laughs.] This movie, we ripped off All the President's Men, for the CIA stuff, a John Cassavetes movie called The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, which we really used as a reference for the California stuff, and then there was kind of a Battle of Algiers, Z/Missing/Costa-Gavras soup of movies, that we used for the rest of it."
  22. ^ Galuppo, Mia (13 January 2020). "Oscars: 'Parasite' Becomes Sixth Movie to Be Nominated for Both Best Picture, International Feature". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  23. ^ White, Armond (10 December 2009). "Z and the New York Film Critics Circle". The Criterion Collection. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  24. ^ Crousse, Nicolas (10 January 2013). "Les Magritte fêteront Yolande Moreau et Costa-Gavras". Le Soir (in French). Retrieved 10 January 2013.
  25. ^ "Costa-Gavras, primer cineasta que gana el Premio Internacional Catalunya". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 5 July 2017. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
  26. ^ "Costa Gavras". Biographicon.com. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  27. ^ "Le cinéma soutient Roman Polanski / Petition for Roman Polanski". Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (in French). 28 September 2009. Archived from the original on 4 June 2012. Retrieved 29 August 2021.

Further reading

  • Costa-Gavras (2018). Va où il est impossible d'aller: Mémoires (in French). Paris: Éditions du Seuil. ISBN 978-2-02-139389-7.
  • Michalczyk, John J. (1984). Costa-Gavras: The Political Fiction Film. Philadelphia: Art Alliance Press. ISBN 0-87982-029-2.
  • Riambau, Esteve (2003). De traidores y héroes: El cine de Costa-Gavras (in Spanish). Valladolid: 48 Semana Internacional de Cine. ISBN 84-87737-49-8.
  • Rizza, Gabriele; Rossi, Giovanni Maria; Tassone, Aldo, eds. (2002). Il cinema di Costa-Gavras: Processo alla storia (in Italian). Firenze: Aida Edizioni. ISBN 88-8329-097-6.
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