I just saw Zorba again today on TCM, 40 years after first seeing it as a young teenager. I was again entranced by the characters and the cinematography. In fact, I had forgotten that it was shot in black and white but imagined it had been shot in vibrant color! I also have read the novel, and while there is of course more detail and perhaps more depth in it, the movie is one of the best adaptations of a book I have ever seen. I feel I must take issue with some reviewers who watched this movie through the lenses of 2006 and evidently did not understand the world described in Zorba. First of all, even though the movie was shot in 1964, it takes place in the 20's from the look of the cars, etc. The people and events on the island of Crete thus are what we, today, might see as "primitive" but nevertheless that was how things worked at that time and in that place. To label him "Zorba the Creep" is cute but only shows that reviewer's lack of historical understanding and possibly her lack of travel. A woman's place was indeed ruled by men and tribal justice was swift and often cruel. Therefore the movie may have seemed "depressing, misogynistic and unpleasant" to you. Zorba was not a perfect person; he could be mean as well as kind. But he had also experienced a lot in life, including going to war and the death of his young son, and he had learned how to pick himself up and go on despite great hardships. Thus Zorba embodied an instinctive and life-affirming principle never before seen by the uptight Englishman and this was something that moved and changed him, even if he also was not perfect and did not react as we would have expected him to act today. The movie does not glorify or justify what happens but simply presents the facts and lets us draw our own lessons from them. Moreover, the comment "Threadbare plot and tiresome stereotypes abound in this movie...The story is sluggishly paced and rather tedious, without a single line of fresh, original dialogue" really shows this reviewer's total lack of knowledge of film history. Rather than being "Quinn's usual schtick," this was the origination of a character that he then went on to play, perhaps overplay, in many subsequent movies. The dialogue is so beautiful that it has been copied to the degree that these reviewers found it derivative, rather than realizing this movie is the template for the others that followed!! Lastly, the novel and the screenplay were written by Greeks, and the director was Greek. Therefore I hardly think they were being condescending or "laying on the local color" too thickly. These scenes and events had deep significance for them and from the tenor of the majority of reviews, it meant something to others as well. Maybe it's that there can be beauty in life even though there is also great injustice; that some people can be tolerant to some degree; that there are moments that call for something non-analytical like dancing in order to express the mix and chaos of our emotions.... One of the greatest things in this movie as I watched it for the second time was the moments of silence; the lack of music bombastically intruding on the love scene; the many communications carried by a look and no words. WHAT A GEM!!
Review of Zorba the Greek
