Zorba the Greek

Rating:
Summary: ZORBA LIVES IT UP....I'm jealous.
Review: "A man needs a little madness." - Alexis Zorba. And so is the tale of a seemingly crude and boorish man, or that may be the manner in which he is viewed by those very people Zorba would never want to be. Living with every emotion on his sleeve, Zorba watches a young struggling writer working restoring a mine with him open like a an emotional flower under his careful "tutelage" which revolves around dancing in joy and sorrow, living life every single minute and never fearing the inevitable ending of life. (How's that for a run on sentence? Ah, but it is the Greek way!). This film is simply wonderful and I am surprised it isn't shown more often in its entire form. I feel Zorba, like so many of our old favorites, should have a re-release on the big screen. We have forgotten how to live like this.

Rating:
Summary: ¿Will you teach me to dance?¿ .... plz
Review: Basil, a young English writer of Greek ancestry, meets an older, free-spirited Greek peasant named Zorba on the island of Crete. While Zorba pursues a relationship with Madame Hortense, an aging French courtesan, the inhibited Basil summons up the courage to court a young widow. When Hortense comes down with pneumonia, the impoverished locals descend upon her like vultures, as she lies dying in Zorba's arms. Later, Basil inherits a mine, and he and Zorba plan to reopen it and use their earnings to help alleviate some of the area's poverty.

Winning seven Academy Awards, this classic black and white film also starred Irene Pappas and Lila Kedrova and was based upon the Nikos Kazantzakis novel.

Must see movie.... Excellent cinematographie!

Rating:
Summary: One of the all-time greats!
Review: I just learned last night that Kazantzakis' novel was based on his own experience -- when he inherited some old mine and set off to operate it, and ran into Zorba along the way.

Zorba is such a powerful and fascinating character that he seems to embody the force of life itself. Certainly, we rarely see such vibrantly living characters on the big silver screen. This is a film that will live forever, so let's see it on DVD soon!! It would be a great item for the Criterion Collection (hint hint!)

This was certainly the part of a lifetime for Anthony Quinn. Superb story, fantasic characters, and music to make you want to get up and dance!

A surprising parallel story is the meeting of Jalaladdin Rumi with a 60-year-old dervish named Shams-e Tabrizi. Look into it if you find this movie interests you.

Rating:
Summary: Life is Trouble, Only Death is Not
Review: It seems that in every top actors career there is one role that will define their greatness and seal their place in flim history. George C. Scott as Patton, Al Pacino in 'The Godfather', Richard Dreyfuss in 'The Goodbye Girl', and so on. Anthony Quinn forever made his mark as 'Zorba' and Quinn, a half-Irish Mexican did more for the legend of Greek machismo than all the black suited men on the whole island of Crete.

In the film Alan Bates is a half-Greek Englishman and essayist suffering from writers block. To find himself and search for the spirit of his lost father he heads for Crete to open a dormant lignite mine left to him by his late dad. In the harbor before shipping out he meets Zorba and decides to take him along for the ride.

Soon however we realize that it is the other way around as the freewheeling Zorba teaches our man about love, life, and helps him mix with the people of the earth. The classic quotes that flow from Zorba's lips are far too numerous to mention and the enjoyment you'll get from watching Zorba look life in the eye and say, 'Come on, I dare you!' at every turn is too great to describe. The ups and downs of the human experience and the triumphs and travails of romance and friendship are perfectly preserved in this masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: I don't want any trouble. . .
Review: Says Basil as he declines the opportunity to persue a beuatiful woman who has thrown a meaningful glance at him. After all, she's a Greek who doesn't speak a word of English, he's in a foreign land and perhaps he's reading too much into her look and---

Whereupon Zorba cuts him off with the classic: " What do you mean you don't want trouble? What is life but to take of your belt and go looking for trouble! "

Besides, as Zorba further enlightens him, God, who is very merciful, will forgive many sins. But there is one sin He will not forgive: When a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not come . . .
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Anthony Quinn plays Zorba, a man who lives through tragedy by women, dance, music and madness. He has surrendered to all the beauty and horror of life and embraces whatever comes his way.

Alan Bates plays Basil, the bookish and reserved Brit who becomes both Zorba's boss and unwitting pupil after an accidental meeting brings them together during a storm on the way to Crete.

This is the simple premise which sets up one of the greatest novels and greatest films of the century, Nikos Kazantsakis's most popular work; "Zorba the Greek"

Quinn and Bates are phenomenal. Never better. The supporting cast is also superb. Perfect casting, subtle directing and a wonderful musical score.

The plot revolves around Bates trying to get an abandoned coal mine in the backwoods of Greece to produce. He's inherited it and if he can't make a go at it, then it's back to dreary old England and writing essays for a living.

Zorba, whose nickname is 'catastrophe' becomes his foreman. They interact with a young widow, an aging French hotel keeper--who was once a great beauty, and villagers that are straight out of the Dark Ages.

"Interact " is a weak word. Both heaven and hell breaks loose in this gripping tale.

It's a paean to lunacy. To the necessity to be 'a little mad' in order to find the courage to break the chains that bind us.

A forgotten gem. Told with savage humor and great compassion. Another sacrament of the cinema.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: A celebration of the human spirit, even if you are not Greek
Review: Since I am leaving today for a trip to Greece I figured I should watch "Zorba the Greek" since this 1964 film is considered the quintessential "Greek" film. I have to admit my first reaction was to be glad I was not going to Crete, because the way the locals treated the beautiful widow (Irene Papas) and Madame Hortense (Lila Kedrova), the old prostitute, were outright horrific. But this is why people like us and young Basil (Alan Bates) need to meet up with somebody with a zest for life like Alexis Zorba (Anthony Quinn).

Basil is an Englishman of Greek extraction who goes to Crete to check out a mine he has inherited. Zorba attaches himself to Basil, ostensibly as a cook but clearly as a guide to the joys and tragedies of life. In terms of Quinn's performance the only thing you can really say is that before there was Robert Begnigni there was Zorba the Greek when it comes to Mediterranean men who provided inspirational madness. As Zorba tells Basil: "Dammit, boss, I like you too much not to say it. You've got everything except one thing. Madness! A man needs a little madness, or else...he never dares cut the rope and be free." +

When they arrive on Crete it becomes clear the mine is not going to pan out for anybody. They move in with Madame Hortense, who is wooed by Zorba, who insists Basil go after the beautiful local widow. After these tragedies all that is left is Zorba's plan for bringing trees down from the top of the mountain, an endeavor obviously equally doomed to failure. This is why in the end there is only one thing a man can do, and it is in this cathartic conclusion that any and all sins of this film are absolved.

"Zorba the Greek" is written and directed by Michael Cacoyannis, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. The film won three Academy Awards: Lila Kedrova for Best Supporting Actress, Best Art/Set Direction, and Best Cinematography. Quinn did not win the Oscar for what is clearly his most memorable role in a long and distinguished film career, but that is usually the case with actors and their greatest roles. Marlon Brando did not win for Stanley Kowalski and Quinn did not win for Alexis Zorba. What is a man to do in the face of such a fate but dance?

Rating:
Summary: No DVD?
Review: Something is definitely wrong with this picture!! Where is Criterion, or some other company that is neglecting one of the greatest movies of the 20th C?

Cacoyannis assembled one of the most sublime international casts ever in this classic. Few movies can approach great literature as far as providing a microcosm of "the human condtition," to use an overworked, but apt phrase. This is one of the few that can. The plot, which is secondary to the theme, revolves around the wizened, but still vibrant Greek peasant Zorba (Quinn) teaching the young, uptight, sexually confused (OK, maybe that's not PC of me, but it's certainly the subtext) Brit mine-owner "boss" Basil (Alan Bates), about the facts of life.

Zorba is one of the great lovable rogues of cinema history, maybe even the most memorable. Wine, women, song and dance are his credo, and we come to learn that they are his defense against some personal tragedy in his background. This film is unmatched in terms of playing the comic against the tragic, the many facets of life that color actual existence, as opposed to the usual Hollywood, one dimensional perspectives. There are layers within layers to the message here, just as in great fiction or theater. What it boils down to, however, is about friendship. Zorba and Basil go through so much together, running the full gamut of human emotions, that by the perfectly realized ending (the best I can recall in recent or distant memory, outside of Fellini's La Strada maybe [another Quinn movie, incidentally]), this viewer was breaking down in sheer joy/release/catharsis. The Greeks have long had a knack for this, have you noticed?

As a footnote, the soundtrack is also legendary, thanks to Greece's most noted score composer, Mikis Theadorakis. I'm not going to gripe here, but how did Alan Bates pass on without an Oscar on his mantle? This was essentially Cacoyannis' and Quinn's project, however, and they should live on in every film buff's memory for ages to come for this masterpiece on both their parts. Irene Papas, as a widow who shoots some of the most unforgettable darting glances in film history, and Lila Kedrova as the sad, but ever hopeful Madame Hortense, are also highly memorable. And where did Cacoyannis find those old, withered, diminuitive, toothless harpies that hung about the bedside like vultures gathering for a feast?

Do what you can to re-view this true classic on VHS while we hope and pray that the eventual DVD treatment will be of worthy quality.

BEK

Rating:
Summary: Foxy scam!!!!!
Review: The note is for the studio who, not only doesn't show any respect for intellectual & artistic property, but, as well, is selling only half of this movie, since the original format is 2.35:1. The full screen being an added option is understandable; not proposing the original screen ratio is inexcusable, whatever the price.

Rating:
Summary: Full Screen Idiocy
Review: Why on earth are they releasing the DVD for this great film in Full Screen. Haven't people gotten used to wide screen yet? I don't want to see 65% of a film when the director meant me to see 100%. The company releasing this needs to have its head examined.