Genre Film as Art

The “art film” has traditionally been thought of as a creation whose aesthetics run contrary to what many consider lucrative, bourgeois popular culture films of Hollywood. Historically, the average commercial film was often stigmatized as “low-brow.” Yet at the same time, the “high-brow art film” was often labeled as being too boring and lofty for the average audience. It was not until the mid-20th century that the escapist entertainment of the “genre” film had begun to be seen not only as entertainment for the masses, but also as complex compositions and reflections of societal fears and anxieties, and ultimately as works of art. Numerous schools of filmmakers, critics, and publications have worked to recognize and establish genre films as a vital source of artistic expression in the 20th century and onward.

Genre films include, but are not limited to: horror, thriller, westerns, gangster, and melodrama (and myriad subgenres). For example, previously a suspense thriller film was thought of as pure audience exploitation. Suspense films like Vertigo(1958) and The Wages of Fear(1953), now top lists of the finest films ever made solidifying the concept that entertainment and suspense, which are commercial qualities, can also be art. Where many may think of Antonioni, Truffaut, Bresson, and Bergman as the quintessential art film auteurs, in the 1960s particularly, critics began to look at the films of John Ford, Jules Dassin, and Howard Hawks as seminal influences.

With origins in the Frankfurt School of thought in sociology and critical philosophy, thinkers of the “new left” such as Marcuse, looked at the art of the masses and began to see what could be gleaned from popular entertainment. Prominent scholars from this school included Adorno, Horkheimer, and Benjamin. As a result, popular films and literature began to be looked at through a new lens including perspectives such as Marxist ideology.

In terms of filmmaking, Godard and the journal, Cahiers du Cinema identified and championed American filmmakers particularly Hitchcock, gangster films, and film noir. Godard would very often pay homage to classic American gangster films such as in his Breathless(1960) and Band of Outsiders (1963). Many other international directors owe a debt of gratitude to the earlier genre films. Therefore, it is evident that genre films have something to say about society and the people in it.

Political Thriller, Genre, and Art

In 1969, political filmmaker and now renowned auteur, Costa-Gavras, made the film Z. Z (1969) was the first foreign film to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. The film is a searing indictment of real-life political assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. Told in a fictional manner, but adhering closely to a thinly veiled reality, Z straddles the fine line between art film and thriller. Z’s writer and director, Costas-Gavras, is often credited with creating the genre known as the “political thriller.” His influence can be seen in the political thrillers of Alan J. Pakula and Oliver Stone in films such as The Parallax View (1974) and JFK (1991). His films include the controversial State of Siege(1972) and The Confession(1970.. With this trifecta, Costa-Gavras secured his place as the premiere master of the political thriller.

According to Eleftheriadou, Z can be discussed under two interrelated perspectives: as a self-contained narrative and, secondly, as the origin of a genre. On one hand, there is a literal reading of how well it truthfully simulates reality. On the other hand, it is viewed as the first “political thriller.”[1] Indeed, the film works on several levels illustrating truth and maintaining verisimilitude. According to Gary Crowdus, “Upon its initial release, Z generated serious debate among left critical circles on both sides of the Atlantic as to the effectiveness of using such ‘bourgeois’ Hollywood genre conventions for a consciously political cinema.” [2] This criticism allows one to ask the question: what better way to make an effective political point than through the emotionally charged lens of a political thriller? There can be no doubt that generating emotional responses from audiences through suspenseful, dramatic action can be more effective than ordinary documentary in communicating political messages and existing as meaningful art.

Historical Relevance

Z is adapted from a novel by Vassilis Vassilikos, which was released following a coup in Greece in 1967, which led to the rule of a military junta. In the film, a left-wing politician is bludgeoned at an anti-nuclear armament rally. The film traces the efforts to find the culprits, though military obstructionists thwart many of the efforts.

Gary Crowdus, explains that, “Z authentically re-creates the events surrounding the Lambrakis assassination and the subsequent investigation (Vassilikos’s novel was based on extensive research into the examining magistrate’s files and the court transcripts), although both the novel and film, to avoid legal problems, use pseudonyms for the real-life protagonists and set the action in an unidentified Mediterranean country.”[3]

This project was very personal to the director because of his Greek-born heritage and because of his anti-fascist politics. Z is a work that is a reaction against a heavily censored and propagandized period in Greece. At the time under the repressive government, the public voice was rigorously censored. Such censorship included the music of The Beatles, the written texts of Dostoyevsky, and many other important works of art, music, and literature. Additionally, there were numerous injustices including imprisonment and torture under the ruling junta in an attempt to stifle communist agendas.

Brian Murphy of The Washington Post writing about Costa-Gavras’ legacy explains that “the military junta that led Greece from 1967–74 came under withering scrutiny in Z. Murphy notes that the film masterfully straddled indignation and art from its quickening musical score by jailed Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, which provides an excellent sense of urgency in the film.”[4] Roger Ebert called it “a political cry of rage and a brilliant suspense thriller. It even ends in a chase: Not through the streets but through a maze of facts, alibis and official corruption.”[5] With a riveting soundtrack, a distinct cinematography, and script penned by Costa-Gavras and Vassilikos, the movie proves to be an outstanding of example of a synergistic and harmonious relationship between suspense and politics in cinema.

Style and Content

Generally, films considered “art-films” have been often been interpreted to be slow-moving, measured gazes of some aspect of the human “condition”. More often than not, the art film has been associated with the European influence such as the Nouvelle Vague in France or Neo-Realism in Italy. These types of films contrast with the fast moving, big budget films of Hollywood. Z is a political thriller/ art-film hybrid that proves to be a reaction to the measured pacing of many European art films of the period.

The film is also constructed as semi-documentary style filmmaking creating an even more intense and visceral experience for the viewer. Z works on several levels artistically and as entertainment. It is a compelling and riveting journey into the heart of darkness found in the labyrinthine streets of a city under siege in a country in turmoil. Ultimately, the results of Costa-Gavras’ film is the creation of genre-bending proportions that jolts the viewer at every turn so they can’t look away from the screen, while at the same time creating a dynamic brand of art-film.

The historical significance of the Lambrakis assassination resonated all over the world and much time could be devoted to the politics of this era. Yet, the emphasis of this paper is to demonstrate how a film can be both political and maintain qualities of an entertaining narrative. Many will ask if this blend is a form of yellow journalism or exploitation of its subject matter. It is not the first film to have political implications and succeed as popular entertainment.

Z is quickly paced and creates a tense atmosphere of paranoia. The search for an assassin leads the viewer through an all-night chase down dark alleyways and dead-end streets almost in the manner of noir in a race to find the assailant. The film questions the traditional idea of “art” and “entertainment,” and eschews traditional tropes and clichés of genres in favor of paradigm-shifting aesthetics. The visceral imagery and cinematography by Raoul Coutard, a major player in the French New Wave, creates compositions that give the film a gritty feel.

“The chase” is very often quintessentially the make-up of many popular thrillers. It is certainly evident in the rooftop sequence in Vertigo, or under the elevated train in The French Connection (1970). However, in the case of Z, the film keeps cutting to police procedural sequences that intertwine with the frantic chase sequences. The combination is as nail-bitingly entertaining as it is a demonstration of unrestrained artistic rigor.

Yet, as much as Costa-Gavras early films were groundbreaking and oppositional Hollywood style filmmaking, he would ultimately acquiesce to the long arm of Hollywood filmmaking later in his career.

Michael Atkinson of Sight and Sound explains that:

However minor a voice Costa-Gavras may have seemed to become since he obeyed the call to Hollywood in the 1980s, there’s no overlooking the systemic shock he provided to European art film with his first six pictures, beginning with 1965’s The Sleeping Car Murders and further supplied by Z(1969), The Confession (1970) and State of Siege (1972)” At a stroke, the European political thriller was born, cranked with both the energy of genre film without any loss of realistic sophistication or based-on-fact immediacy and the balls-of-the-feet pertinence of protest usually reserved for anti-war documentaries.[6]

As Atkinson explains about the origin of the political thriller, one cannot help but notice that Z, with all its political muckraking, has striking elements of commercial value. The film is endlessly entertaining as much as it is artistic.

He Lives…

When discussing political thrillers, the 1970s was an especially vital period for this type of film including classics of the genre such as Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Day of the Jackal (1973), and All the President’s Men(1975). The New American Cinema and the New Latin American Cinema were both movements that started in the 1970s and contributed greatly to the elements that Costa-Gavras seemed to have generated with Z, State of Siege, and The Confession.

Costa-Gavras like many auteurs brings his own perspective to Z, equally defined by his own life experiences and the zeitgeist of the time in which the film was produced. Z is at once an entertainment, political criticism, and finally, art. It is a rallying cry for justice and a masterpiece of political filmmaking and is as riveting as any thriller that Hollywood has put out recently. Make no mistake, Z ages well and stands the test of time. The letter “Z” in ancient Greece can be translated as “He lives,” obviously referring to Lambrakis’ inspiration. One can safely say that the film “Z” lives on as well..