Word: semprun
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...films, its handling varies according to the conception of the different script writers. Time in Hiroshima has the source of its order in the psychology of the main characters, whereas in Robbe-Grillet's Marienbad the order of time is more metaphysical than personal. Unlike either, Jorge Semprun's script for La Guerre est Finie demanded greater conventionality of form, with a focus on social reality rather than metaphysical complexity. In his treatment of time, then, Resnais peculiarly mixes continuity and flexibility...
...Confession was shuttled out of Boston without surplus discussion or playing-time: it entered the Harvey chain, but played the Orson Welles in a print dubbed with bad American gangsterese. Photographed by Raoul Coutard, written by Jorge Semprun, directed by Costa-Gavras (there's talent in those credits), this chronicle of the Czech Slansky trials resonates with modern fears of industrial slates, of resulting dehumanization, and the ascendance of politics over morals. But it's no sermon: the bulk of the film is anti-melodramatic, a complex historical document, and terror comes through to both mind and gut because...
Confession has enough individual merits to redeem its overall flaws. Though their film lacks the compact literacy of The Prisoner, Costa-Gavras and his Z squad (Screenwriter Jorge Semprun and Director of Photography Raoul Coutard) are too subtle and ingenious to make anything conspicuously bad. The brutal indifference of lower-echelon toughs is conveyed with deadly certainty. The pathetic buffoonery of a courtroom defendant losing his pants is an excruciatingly effective touch of humor. Nor is it possible to fault Montand's performance as a Camus figure cast into a dialectic inferno...
...JORGE SEMPRUN wrote the screenplay, based upon the novel. Z by the Greek-born French writer Vasily Vasilikos, Semprun wrote the screenplay for Alain Resnais La Guerre est Finie, which also stars Yves Montand, who plays Lambrakis in Z. In both films. Semprun makes use of flashback technique. In Z, it shows Lambrakis the man. Throughout the film, Semprun maintains both the man and the mythical martyr through Irene Pappas, who plays his wife and widow. One of Lambrakis aides comes to her after the officials responsible for his death have been indicted and says...
...fact, the filmmakers make a point of stressing the similarities between history and their fiction. In a preface signed by Costa-Gavras and Scenarist Jorge Semprun it is announced unhesitatingly that "any resemblance to persons living or dead is not coincidental. It is intentional...