acting, and the extraordinary pair of performances by Lila Kedrova and, especially, Irene Pappas, who need not speak a word to convey an entire menu of emotions.The final scenes are among the best in movies. The music is among the best. Indeed, the MOVIE is among the best.A GREAT movie.

beyond by smiling and, why not, dancing in the sun.

book about a month ago and I guess I couldn't visualize the Zorba image in my mind that well. His looks,one-liners,his dancing sirtaki on the beach,his harmony with Madame Hortense Lila Kedrova just looks so nice.It is really surprising that Lila Kedrova got "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress" while Anthony Quinn just got the nomination for best actor in a leading role. Such a pity that he didn't get it. Well that work of art is not so great as "Jesus Re-crucified" or "The Last Temptation of Christ " but is a still great Kazanthakis art.And the adapted movie is a really good one coz given that the whole book is based on a contrast introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche and it is not supposed to be easy to cinematize a philosophical book.Great Quinn! Great movie! But I Don't THINK LILA KEDROVA DESERVES THAT AWARD If you have ever read Kazanthakis you should absolutely see this movie!

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!!

Theodorakis's score all together in a beautiful, savage, compelling film that doesn't show any signs of aging

product. The director was fortunate to find such collaborators as Mikis Theodorakis, the genial composer of the music score and Walter Lassally, who photographed the barren area where most of the action takes place. Viewing the film on cable recently, shows Lassally's crisp black and white photography in mint condition.The film is totally dominated by Zorba, who is a figure larger than life, as he takes Basil under his wing from the start. Anthony Quinn was a perfect choice for playing the title character. Mr. Quinn had worked with other brilliant directors, Federico Fellini, being one of them. It's almost impossible to think of Mr. Quinn as being an American because the magnificent transformation he undergoes here to portray Zorba.Alan Bates, who is seen as Basil, the Englishman of Greek descent, who is going to Crete to see the family's land and mine. By underplaying Basil, Mr. Bates set the right tone, in sharp contrast with Anthony Quinn's exuberance. Alan Bates, in the end, made perfect sense with the way he played Basil.Lila Kedrova is another surprise in the film. She is the tragic Madame Hortense, who has lived in the island for quite a while. It's ironic that love always eluded her until she finds in Zorba a reason for keep on living. Irene Papas is equally intense as the widow who is haunted by all the men in town. She has little to say, but just a look from her smolders the screen, be it, for the lust she felt for Basil, or the hatred for the town male population.Michael Cacoyannis uses these men, as a sort of Greek Chorus, so important in Greek tragedies. The same could be said of the older women of the town who resent the arrivals of strangers. The Greek cast one sees is quite effective in the context of the movie."Alexis Zorbas", or "Zorba, the Greek", is a film that will stay with the viewer for quite a while because of what the director accomplished with it.

is extraordinary as the pathetic old courtesan Madame Hortense who loves Zorba.Both women have great death scenes: Papas killed by the villagers for sleeping with Bates in a sequence of almost Old Testament ferocity and Kedrova, dying of consumption, her house ransacked by the old, black clad village women like so many carrion crows. Neither of them are on screen long enough but when they are the film feels like a masterpiece.As Zorba, Anthony Quinn's performance is a tour-de-force but there's almost too much of him. The film can hardly contain him and after the shooting of the film ended Quinn never stopped playing Zorba. It was if he had found the ideal part and wouldn't let it go . The film remains hugely entertaining but it is something of a mess and lacks the spontaneity of Cacoyannis' earlier films like "Stella" and "A Girl in Black".

forgotten corner of the world. The script, that is the story, is rather weak. I guess the film's meandering story, which comes to nothing by the end, is part of its charm. I was enjoying Quinn and Kedrova so much, both the actors and characters, that I never got bored. Unfortunately, Bates' character is a black hole. The film may have been a masterpiece if the writers whichever step it got messed up in, whether the novel or the screenplay had done anything with this character. He has so little to do, and when he does something, it's frustrating. I'm particularly referring to the subplot involving a young widow Irene Pappas, who starred in several of Cacoyannis' Greek tragedy adaptations . Every local man is sexually obsessed with her, and they attack her whenever she appears in public, nearly ready to rape her. It comes as no surprise that she falls for Bates, who treats her kindly when everyone else is trying to molest her. When she accepts him into her bed, a young man kills himself. The rest of the village persecutes her. This should be the strongest point of the film, but the writers give Bates no real reaction. He doesn't even seem sorry or upset at what happens to her. At this point, I stopped being bored at him and just despised him. Cacoyannis' direction is quite beautiful in its realism, and the cinematography is quite gorgeous of course the setting helped in that . Perhaps most memorable, after Quinn and Kedrova, that is, is the film's score, by Mikis Theodorakis. While Zorba the Greek has its flaws, it is well worth taking the journey. 8/10.