Customer Reviews

Zorba the Greek

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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

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?

"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.

I first saw this film in my early 20's and am now approaching 60. Over the years I have returned to it just to see if it still held the same truth. It does. In anticipation of this DVD release I reread the book and it was an interesting lesson in book to film adaptation. The spirit is the same and credit for that must go to the director the actors who approach this - the greatest of Kazantzakis' novels with reverance and passion. Certain elements of the episode with the church are "leavened" for 1960's tastes and limits but the rest rings true. After all the awards and praise for acting and cinematography, it remains a film to share with friends and cherish for its humanity and truth. Zorba was a real person, by the way, and maintained an active correspondence with Kazantzakis until his death in the early 1940's.

I first saw Zorba when it was released (1962?) I was so young, 18 or so, I didn't quite understand it but it had a powerful emotional impact. A few years later I read the novel and loved it so much that I then read it twice a year for about 10 years, then once a year after that (so I've read it about 30 times). My opinion of the movie dropped during the reading years because the movie only got about a third of the magic of the novel. Later I watched the film again and fell into love with it, a profound work in its own right. Film doesn't have all the fascinating detail and stories of the novel but does capture the LIFE, the struggle, the wonderful character of Zorba and many of the secondary characters. The movie is so much superior to most Hollywood movies, so character driven, so thoughtful, spiritual and deep as to make it hard to 'get into' right away. I would guess that young people today would have a really hard time enjoying it because it is antithetical to MySpace iPod cell phone culture, ie the "culture" of no-thought, music video, shallowness. It would be most interesting to screen Zorba for a group of 50 or 100 young college students and high school students and then survey their reactions. I would like to think that the simple power and Truth of Zorba would make a deep impression on them but I don't know. All I know is that Zorba (who was a real man that author Kazantzakis met and lived with for some 6 months) should have lived a thousand years, just as Zorba said, and I'd hope that there is still some real hunger for meaning in people that would make them fall in love in Zorba the movie and Zorba the novel.

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 . . .
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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!

I'm puzzled by the previous reviewer who gave Zorba low marks because it failed to present life on the island of Crete as some kind of feminist utopia. In fact, Zorba is an amazing film BECAUSE it refuses to sugar-coat what was the hard reality for women in rural Greece - which is in fact, the hard reality for women in many rural, non-industrialized nations. (Greece was not industrialized at the time Kazantzakis wrote the original novel on which the film is based.) In fact, it would have been a betrayal of women everywhere to sugar-coat the discrimination these particular women faced.

Yes, life in Zorba's universe is incredibly brutal, and the fate of the young widow whose only crime was to reach out bravely to a sympathetic fellow human being, well, it's one of THE essential tragedies of this film. (Besides the tragedy of a man like Zorba who has survived fighting the Turks, only to be scarred by his own memories and regrets.) The film is brutal because life for these people (men AND women) truly was brutal. To present it as otherwise would be inexcusable. That there are moments of exultant joy in the midst of so much tragedy is the genius of Kazantzakis - and of Cacoyannis and his cast.

Who could fail to appreciate the courage and dignity of the young widow, played hauntingly by the austerely beautiful Irene Pappas? (She's also heartbreaking in the political thriller "Z.") Anthony Quinn is wonderful as Zorba, and Alan Bates his perfect counterpart, but Irene Pappas is the woman you can't forget. The tragedy of the old French courtesan is yet another important way in which this film refuses to sugar-coat the cruelty of Greek village life in the first half of the 20th century.

Amid this difficult environment, Zorba's essential lesson is that one must live and somehow find meaning and pleasure. The offended reviewer below states that the moral is "To attempt to find freedom results in death, and living a traditional life is a living death." True, Zorba defies tradition, and battles conformity, and this is a good lesson. And he is honest in showing us that the attempt to find freedom involves great risks (certainly the young widow risks everything in her quest for freedom, and Zorba, in trying to protect her, takes his own risks), but that we must try.

This movie is unforgettable, but it's not for anyone who doesn't understand the essential role of tragedy, or who insists that films follow some kind of utopian script. At the end of the film, amid their colossal failures, Alan Bates begs Zorba, "Teach me to dance!" After fighting and losing, what else can one do but dance? Or at least try...

This is one of those movies that you appreciate them more the second time you see them. Very faithful to Kazantzakis' book, it represents the story correctly, without any exaggerations. It definitely makes you think and ask yourself some questions about life and cosmos. Great philosophy! Also, this is the movie that established Quinn as a famous actor! Enjoy!

The rain beats down on a dark, dreary Greek harbor town as a young, well educated English writer (Alan Bates) climbs about a weathered freighter sailing for Crete. Basil (Bates) is making his first voyage to his ancestoral home, he has inherited some property and a mine that he hopes to re-open.

Shortly after boarding Basil is approached by an enigmatic, grizzled looking Greek named Zorba (Anthony Quinn). With intense, flashing eyes and the intimidating smile of a madman Zorba looks into the face of the bewildered Englishman and boldly states, "I like you, take me with you." Surprisingly Basil agrees, thus beginning a most unconventional friendship and a journey of self-discovery the likes of which has seldom be captured on film.

From the first sighting of Zorba peeking through the rain drenched window on the ship you become distinctly aware of the presence of a unique and magical personality. A personality embodying the soul and wisdom of the ages. Priest, confessor, shaman, guru, enlightened master, friend and follow traveller. Reminiscent of the Greek God Pan, Zorba laughs, sings and dances through all the joys and tragedies of life viewing everything as a necessary part of the process of living. As Zorba tells his young friend and pupil, "Life is trouble, only death is not."

Zorba works his magic from beginning to end and will enchant the viewer long after he leaves us dancing with Basil on the barren sandy beaches of Crete against the backdrop of the beautiful Mediterranean.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis and released in '64 'Zorba the Greek' truly captures the existential landscape of the 20th century and Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates deliver the performances of a lifetime. Add to the mixture the stark but inviting scenery of the island of Crete and an intoxicating soundtrack of traditional Greek music and you have one of the greatest motion pictures of all-time. Truly a masterpiece! OPA!!

This is a movie that can't be explained with words... but I'll try:
Zorba is the greatest character in the movie's story and Quinn's carrer. Niko Kazazakis crete a iluminated story for a iluminated man... Zorba is what all human beeing sHould be. espontaneous, lovely and sincere!
THE WORLS NEED MORE ZORBAS.. AND EVERYONE MUST SEE THIS FILM ONCE IN A LIFETIME!

I LOVE YOU ALL