Word: zorba
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...hell, the horror, the wonder, the sheer animal delight of it have drawn thousands of readers to a novel called Zorba the Greek, a mad magnificat to man composed by the late Nikos Kazantzakis. This translation of the book into an English-language film might easily have changed the author's hearty wine of life into cinematic sugar water. Instead, Director Michael Cacoyannis (Electra) has served it up in a grand uproarious Bacchanalian bash...
...hell of it, as the film begins, the young man (Alan Bates) turns suddenly to the old man (Anthony Quinn) and says yes. "I have a lignite mine in Crete. We can work it together. May God be with us." Zorba lifts his glass. "God," he bellows sturdily, "and the Devil...
...young man doesn't have to look far. The morning after his first night with the widow, she is grotesquely murdered by the vengeful villagers. Some clays later, as Zorba's silly old slut lies dying, bestial peasants burst into her house and strip it while she lies weakly watching, strip it to the walls and leave her there alone with nothing but a bed to die on. And at the climax of the film the mine and all the money the young man has sunk in it go smash in one catastrophic afternoon...
...young man is struck numb with horror; but the old man, though his heart cracks and his eyes weep blood, rises up stronger than ever from every disaster to dance the delirious unremitting dance of life. "Zorba!" the young man cries, "teach me to dance!" The old man rises up, his eyes alight. "You lack madness, my friend," Zorba says softly. "A man must be a little mad to cut the rope-and be free!" A little mad, the young man begins to dance...
Kazantzakis is the Dostoevsky of the Mediterranean, and Zorba the Greek is his most popular work. Director Cacoyannis treats it with respect but not with awe. The big moments of the book are all in the film, but the fictional furbelows are trimmed, and some dazzling cinematic doodads added. The camera sees much that Kazantzakis didn't, and the movie is often funnier than the book-Kedrova's minx emeritus, she of the floor-length eyelashes, frequent chins and raucous reminiscences is, for instance, a major comic creation. Zorba, of course, is the heart and soul...