SCFZ poll: Costa-Gavras

[flip]

Polling the films of director Costa-Gavras

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Costa-Gavras films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: greennui, bure, roscoe, kanafani, greg x, silga, oscarwerner

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

[flip]

i think it will make sense to use the extended rules for this:

- if you have seen an odd number of his films, you can round up instead of down when deciding how long to make your ballot (e.g. if you have seen 7, you can list a 4-film ballot instead of the usual 3)

- if you have seen more than 10, you can vote for more than 5 (e.g. if you have seen 13, you can vote for up to 7)

[flip]

State of Siege
Z
Missing
L'Aveu
Music Box

seen nine

[john ryan]

Seen 4

1. Z
2. State of Siege

Is his 1988 feature, Betrayed, worth a watch?

[flip]

Is his 1988 feature, Betrayed, worth a watch?

in my opinion, no, not really

[cinesmith]

Is his 1988 feature, Betrayed, worth a watch?

It's a mixed bag. Debra Winger, Tom Berenger and John Heard star in this story about an undercover cop falling for a gal while investigating violent racist radicals in a rural part of the country. The script is by Joe Eszterhaus (Basic Instinct, Showgirls) whose breakout script was for 'Flashdance' (1983) but also wrote this as well as the script for Costa-Gavras' next Hollywood feature 'Music Box' (1989)

[greennui]

Only seen Z but that was ages and ages ago.

I've always been confused by his name. His real name is Constantinos Gavras, is Costa short for Constantinos? If that's the case, why's there a hyphen in there? Is it a Greek thing?

[oscarwerner]

Is his 1988 feature, Betrayed, worth a watch?

I consider this movie as a weak one. Far from Costa-Gavras best. Nevertheless Costa-Gavras always created interesting genre: crime, war, political drama with thriller elements nearly in all his films. Thus all of his films are fun to watch.

[St. Gloede]

Seen 10:

Z
Music Box
État de siège
L'aveu / The Confession
Clair de femme / Womanlight

[...]

Betrayed is almost comically unfit for the moment, given the premise is in "seeing the otherside" around white nationalism. There is something slightly prescient about the sketching of the concept as we can see, and for its time, it had some edge to it as an alternative to the Mississippi Burning type flawed white heroes fixing racism angle that placed the white nationalists as an outside the mainstream force that, obviously, all good whites would stand against. But they, of course, had to go with a love story angle for Betrayed, which moves the story from "understanding" this group, already a dubious good at best, to a kind of sympathy/sorrow in, ultimately, having to turn them in for their crimes. That tack is truer, in some ways, to a lot of white based ideology, the betrayal being double sided in the sense of doing the right thing matched against turning against those you love, but the weighting of it is way off kilter due to its use of Hollywood conventions that, as usual,cut too lightly to draw any real blood.

Some of the individual elements of it, if you can look at it that way, were well handled. Winger and Heard are solid and John Mahoney is really effective in his role and the rest of the cast do a fine job. Costa-Gavras is serious in his examination, using some of the same conceptual "illuminate all sides" methods he'd applied in Z and State of Siege to the story. Hanna K and Music Box were similar in their goals and methods, but even less effective for being even more obvious perhaps. It may be that what worked as examination of near past events with some little narrative distance offered the needed space for greater effectiveness than the more conventional "personal" stories that Hollywood conventions demand, setting them as character dramas in the "now". But I haven't seen Betrayed since it came out, or Hanna K, Music Box, or Missing, so I'm relying on some old memories for my take.

[Holymanm]

Music Box

Seen 1

[Umbugbene]

Seen 4

Capital
Confession

[oscarwerner]

Seen 11:
1. Z (1969)
2. Shock Troops (1967)
3. Missing (1982)
4. State of Siege (1972)
5. The Confession (1970)
I like his earlier films, which had high action tempo and political energy. Long time some old films were not available, but now all Costa-Gavras films are released in digital DVD collection and all problems solved. I highly recommend the first film by Costa-Gavras -stylish detective(who done it) story-The Sleeping Car Murder (1965). All French cinema dream team here:)

[wba]

Seen 2 by Costa-Gavras so far, but didn't yet get the appeal (both ok-ish): "State of Siege" and "Betrayed".
Always wondered about that name though as well.

[greennui]

And about the name. He was born Kostantinos (which gets Anglicized to Constantin) Gavras, his nickname being Costas.

As for the hyphen, it originated after completion of his first film, the 1965 thriller "The Sleeping Car Murders." "When I saw the credits I found a dash," he says. "I called the producer. I said, 'What's that dash?' He said, 'You put it there.' "

Somehow when he wrote his name, the last 's' on Costas looked like a hyphen. The producer told him that to change it would cost $2,000 and refused. And his friends thought it was cool. "Everybody said, 'What do you care? In France we {have} several names. Christian-Jacques ...' So I said, 'Okay, leave it.' " And it's been left ever since.

[greennui]

Christian-Jacque...

Christian Maudet's first taste of the cinematic arts was his job as a poster designer for French silent films. During this period he worked in collaboration with another artist whose first name was Jacques; the men signed their work "Christian-Jacque", which Maudet eventually adopted as his professional moniker.

[greennui]

Ended up watching one of the films that's in every other director's filmography on letterboxd, Lumiere and Company (1995) in which several directors have a go at filming with an original Lumiere camera. Didn't expect it to be a rather lo-fi, made for television vibe effort, always had it down as a more prestige picture kind of thing.

The filmmakers that really got it: Nadine Trinitignant, Merchant Ivory, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Spike Lee, Angelopoulos, Rivette and a few others. Lee's segment was probably the best one.

Everybody on the letterboxd page is gushing about David Lynch's segment but I thought it was rather meh and not in the spirit of Lumiere at all.

As soon as I saw Michael Haneke's face I knew he was gonna do something useless.

Kiarostami seemingly filmed the egg he was steaking for breakfast that morning, voilà another check in his filmography.

Costos Gavras' segment? Meh.

[thoxans]

z

*seen two (really like z, it's just got that sort of aesthetic that i swoon over; other one i've seen is mad city, which is terrible; don't really care about the rest of his filmog tbh...)

[wba]

And about the name. He was born Kostantinos (which gets Anglicized to Constantin) Gavras, his nickname being Costas.

As for the hyphen, it originated after completion of his first film, the 1965 thriller "The Sleeping Car Murders." "When I saw the credits I found a dash," he says. "I called the producer. I said, 'What's that dash?' He said, 'You put it there.' "

Somehow when he wrote his name, the last 's' on Costas looked like a hyphen. The producer told him that to change it would cost $2,000 and refused. And his friends thought it was cool. "Everybody said, 'What do you care? In France we {have} several names. Christian-Jacques ...' So I said, 'Okay, leave it.' " And it's been left ever since.

Wow, what a great story!

[flip]

Is his 1988 feature, Betrayed, worth a watch?

john, you can pick our next director if you like!

[john ryan]

Hal Hartley? If he doesn't work, Peter Bogdanovich or Jules Dassin.

[kanafani]

I've only seen 2.

Z

[thoxans]

hartley 0 (though i did catch the last 10min of no such thing a while back... and it was a total ripoff of the ending of carp's starman)
bogdanovich 6
dassin 8

[greennui]

10 Hartley
7 Bogdanovich
6 Dassin

[Monsieur Arkadin]

Seen 3.
Missing

The first one I ever saw was Mad City and so I kind of had a hard time believing he was capable of anything decent for a long time. My wife likes him though. So much so, she made us track down the site of the actual assassination from Z in Thessoloniki. None of the locals knew what we were talking about, so clearly it has been relegated to the dustbin of history. Missing was interesting, though clearly anchored by the performances.

[...]

4 hartleys 15 Bogdans 12 dassins

[kanafani]

Hartley - 7
Bogdanovich - 7
Dassin - 5

[Umbugbene]

Hartley - 2
Bogdanovich - 5
Dassin - 7

[nrh]

18 hartley, 5 bogdanovich, 3 dassin

[thoxans]

18 hartley

nrh: original hipster