Word: zorba
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...earthy, powerful Zorba is growing old--and growing aware of it--when he encounters an intellectual young Englishman. Together they go to Crete. Or more accurately, Zorba invites himself with his usual impulsiveness and the Englishman accepts with an impulsiveness which is most unusual for him. Zorba meets an aging French courtesan, an outcast in the Cretan community, and makes her feel young again and watches her die. Meanwhile the Englishman meets a young widow, as beautiful and bitter as the ancient Greek heroines. He makes love to her. A young boy who loved her in vain drowns himself...
...behind this plot, with its obvious parallels and clear-cut themes, are emotions as subtle and changing as the ocean which Zorba and the Englishman live near. This curious combination of the most obvious and most suggestive is typical of Kazantzakis's writing. In adapting the novel and directing the film, Michael Cacoyannis has captured much of the combination...
...good deal of the credit for this must, of course, go to the actors. Anthony Quinn--well, sooner or later he had to play a grizzled Greek. He's always looked like Zorba the Greek should look. In this film, he is so hearty that all the dour faces in a waiting room break into responsive chuckles when he laughs; so tender that he can console the courtesan for the loss of her lovers, the English, French, Italian, and Russian generals; so defiant that after a mine he has attempted to open collapses, he shakes his fist at the obstinate...
...then, unfortunately, there's Alan Bates. Zorba the Greek is a superb film anyway. But anyone who has read the book would join me in adding the "anyway." For in the novel, the Englishman whom Bates portrays is a complex character, whom the reader respects as much as he loves Zorba. Zorba may embody life, but Zorba's boss hardly embodies lifelessness...
...film, on the other hand, he is a milquetoast. He looks like a model from some fashion magazine--just as depressingly lifeless, unreal, and unlikeable. He is no more than a simple foil for Zorba. The film implies, apparently unintentionally, that this effeminate character is homosexual. Although the suggestion is later contradicted, it is unmistakable and confusing...