Costa-Gavras | |
|---|---|
| Κώστας Γαβράς | |
 Costa-Gavras in 2017 | |
| Born | Konstantinos Gavras (Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς) (1933-02-12)12 February 1933 (age 92) Loutra Iraias, Greece |
| Alma mater | Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies |
| Occupation | Filmmaker |
| Works | Full list |
| Spouse | Michèle Ray |
| Children | |
| Awards | Full list |
Konstantinos "Kostas"Gavras (Greek:Κωνσταντίνος "Κώστας" Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933), known professionally asCosta-Gavras, 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 thrillerZ (1969), which won anAcademy Award forBest Foreign Language Film, andMissing (1982), for which he won thePalme d'Or and anAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French, but six have been in English, includingHanna K..
Costa-Gavras was born inLoutra Iraias,Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in thePeloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of thePro-Soviet branch of theGreek Resistance, and was imprisoned during theGreek Civil War. His father'sCommunist 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 theSorbonne in 1951.[1]
In 1956, he abandoned his university studies to study film at the French national film school,IDHEC. After film school, he apprenticed underYves Allégret, and became an assistant director forJean Giono andRené Clair. After several further appointments as first assistant director, he directed his first feature film,Compartiment Tueurs, in 1965.[2]
His 1967 filmShock Troops (Un homme de trop) was entered into the5th Moscow International Film Festival.[3]
InZ (1969), an investigating judge, played byJean-Louis Trintignant, tries to uncover the truth about the murder of a prominent leftist politician, played byYves 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 politicianGrigoris Lambrakis in 1963. It had additional resonance because, at the time of its release, Greece had been ruled for two years bythe "Regime of the Colonels".Z won theOscar forBest Foreign Language Film.[4] Costa-Gavras and co-writerJorge Semprún won anEdgar Award from theMystery Writers of America for Best Film Screenplay.
L'Aveu (The Confession, 1970) follows the path ofArtur London, a Czechoslovakian communist minister falsely arrested and tried for treason and espionage in theSlánský 'show trial' in 1952.
State of Siege (1972) takes place inUruguay under thecivic-military dictatorship of Uruguay in the early 1970s. In a plot loosely based on the case of US police official and alleged torture expertDan Mitrione, an American embassy official (played byYves Montand) is kidnapped by theTupamaros, a radical leftist urban guerilla group, which interrogates him in order to reveal the details of secret American support for repressive regimes inLatin America.
Missing, originally released in 1982 and based on the bookThe Execution Of Charles Horman, concerns an American journalist,Charles Horman (played byJohn Shea in the film), who disappeared in the1973 coup d'état led by GeneralAugusto Pinochet inChile. Horman's father, played byJack Lemmon, and wife, played bySissy 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 millionlibel 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 forBest Screenplay Adaptation and thePalme d'Or at theCannes Film Festival (withYılmaz Güney's movieYol).
Betrayed (1988) is roughly based upon the terrorist activities of Americanneo-Nazi andwhite supremacistRobert Mathews and his groupThe Order.
InMusic Box (1989), a respectedHungarian immigrant (Armin Mueller-Stahl) is accused of having commanded anAnti-Semiticdeath squad duringWorld War II. His daughter, a Chicago defence attorney played byJessica Lange, agrees to defend him at hisdenaturalization hearing. The film is inspired by the arrest and trial of Ukrainian immigrantJohn Demjanjuk and screenwriterJoe Eszterhas' realisation that his father had been a member of the HungarianArrow Cross Party. The film won theGolden Bear at the40th Berlin International Film Festival.[5]
La Petite Apocalypse (1993) was entered into the43rd 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), byRolf Hochhuth. The film plot alleges thatPope Pius XII was aware of the plight of theJews in Naziconcentration camps duringWorld War II, but failed to take public action to publicise or condemn the Holocaust. Gavras wonCésar Award for Best Original Screenplay or Adaptation for this film.
He was president of theCinémathèque Française from 1982 to 1987, and again since 2007.
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 inZ, and right-wing dictatorships that ruled much of Latin America during the height of the Cold War, as inState of Siege andMissing.[citation needed]
In a broader sense, this emphasis continues withAmen. 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]
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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 andMissing) highlight problems buried deep in the structures of these societies, problems which he deems not everyone is comfortable addressing. The approach he adopted inL'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'sAdults in the Room, Costa-Gavras had never worked in Greece or made a film in the Greek language.[citation needed]
When Costa-Gavras asked about some of his biggest cinematic influences, he replied:
The first movie I saw at the Cinematheque wasErich von Stroheim'sGreed, 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, byJohn Ford, was an extraordinary discovery.Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar]Bergman.[7]
He also listedRené Clément,[8]Jacques Demy,[8] andGillo Pontecorvo's filmThe Battle of Algiers as an influence on his filmmaking.[9]
Costa-Gavras films have been a significant influence onpolitical cinema. Wade Major of theDirectors Guild of America mentioned that, "With films like Z and Missing, Costa-Gavras almost single-handedly created the modern political thriller".[10] When German DirectorWim Wenders paid tribute to him in 2018 at the 31stEuropean Film Awards in Seville, Spain, Wenders called him "One of the greatest filmmakers of our time."[11]
He has influenced directors such asOliver Stone,William Friedkin,Steven Soderbergh,Rachid Bouchareb,Mathieu Kassovitz, andBen Affleck.
Stone mentioned that Costa-Gavras "was certainly one of my earliest role models, ... I was a film student at NYU whenZ 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 ofGillo Pontecorvo'sThe Battle of Algiers and was the man in that moment ... it was a European moment."[12]
The American filmmakerWilliam Friedkin listedZ as one of his favorite films and mentioned the film's influence on him when directing his filmThe French Connection: "After I sawZ, I realized how I could shootThe 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 sawZ."[13]
The American filmmakerSteven Soderbergh listedZ as an inspiration on his filmTraffic and even stated that he "wanted to make it like [Costa-Gavras's]Z".[14][15][16][17] In 2020, Costa Gavras wrote the preface to the bookOpération Condor, by French writer and journalistPablo Daniel Magee.
The French filmmakerMathieu Kassovitz listed Costa-Gavras films (such asZ andThe Confession) as influential to his work.[18]
The French filmmakerRachid Bouchareb listedZ as an influence on his filmOutside the Law.[19]
The American actor and filmmakerBen Affleck listed Costa-Gavras's films as influences for his filmArgo.[20]
In the television show “Chuck”, season 3 episode 3 “Chuck Versus the Angel de la Muerte” featured the fictional leader Alejandro Goya who was looking to convert his nation of “Costa Gravis” from communism to democratic. Alejandro’s wife and one of his body guards attempt to undermine this effort, seemingly a reference to Costa-Gravis’ movie “Z”.
Costa-Gavras's debut film,Compartiment Tueurs, wonNational Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for theEdgar Award for Best Screenplay in 1967.
The filmZ was the first film to be nominated for both theBest Picture andBest Foreign Language Film.[21] It won the latter, as well as theJury Prize at theCannes Film Festival, and theGolden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film.Z was also the first foreign-language film to win theBest Film award from theNew York Film Critics Circle. Gavras won theBest Director award as well.[22]
Costa-Gavras has received an honorary doctorate from theFilm School of the Aristotle University in 2013.
He was interviewed extensively byThe Times cultural correspondentMelinda Camber Porter and was featured prominently in her bookThrough Parisian Eyes: Reflections on Contemporary French Arts and Culture (1993, Da Capo Press).
Costa-Gavras received theMagritte Honorary Award in 2013.[23] He was the first filmmaker to receive theCatalonia International Prize (2017).[24]
His daughterJulie Gavras and his sonsRomain Gavras andAlexandre Gavras are also directors. He is the first cousin ofPenelope Spheeris,Jimmie Spheeris andChris Spheeris.[25]
In 2009, Costa-Gavras signed a petition in support of film directorRoman Polanski, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his1977 charge for drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl.[26]He argued that "the crime could not be considered rape because the teenage girl was 13 years old but looked 25".[27]
| 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 |
| 2024 | Last Breath | Yes | Yes | No | Le dernier souffle |
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."
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.
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) andZ (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."
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).
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."
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."
