REEXAMEN INTERMEDIO

Despite the Metaxas dictatorship, a revival of Greek cinema began to emerge in 1939 and continued during the German occupation. The major personality in this movement was the charismatic Filopimin Finos (1908–1977), who would become the most important producer in Greek cinema after 1945, indeed the Greek Samuel Goldwin. In 1929, Finos had tried with Meravidis to produce a Greek Western entitled Three Greeks from America (Treis Ellines apo tin Amerika). Not much is known about its quality, as it was burned acciden- tally while the film-print was being developed in 1929. Ten years later, Finos directed his only movie, The Song of Parting (To Tragoudi tou Horismou). It was

thought destroyed after Finos’ arrest by the Germans, but early in the twenty- first century a fragmented copy was recovered in Egypt and restored.

The Song of Parting is a social melodrama that deals with a wealthy woman from the city who seduces an innocent fisherman and convinces him to abandon his girlfriend and his village. He moves to the city, where he becomes a successful singer, only to realize soon after that he does not fit into this system of conventional relations and social etiquette. After he receives a letter from his girlfriend, he abandons the wealthy seductress to return to his native island and the pure love of the woman who has patiently waited for him. Song and action compete for primacy in this film, without making any real connection with each other, something which Finos would keep in mind when he went on to produce the best Greek musicals. The actors stand still and act out stylized mannerisms as the camera dives into long-medium shots of the urban landscape to explore the emerging reality of an alien- ating and frightening city or the salons of a hypocritical bourgeoisie. The looming nightmare of history frames an interesting character with moral and emotional dilemmas, one of the first near-complete characters to be produced in Greek cinema.

The movie was a colossal failure and, in terms of directing, was a dead-end for Finos. N. G. Makris was scathing about the film:

The directorship is altogether missing; it is not only bad: it is simply missing. This is a movie made fatally and accidentally. There is neither montage, nor editing, nor photography. There is nothing. Deep darkness prevails from the very beginning till the very end.37

Although the film’s escapism and retreat from history ignored the onslaught of events that were to befall Europe, the film was a great step forward for Greek cinema as it was the first talking picture to be processed in a Greek technical laboratory. The facility had been built by Finos and would be the genesis of Finos Films, which would subsequently become the dominant production company in the postwar studio era.

Another talking picture, Night without Dawn (Nihta horis Ximeroma), was also made in 1939. The film was directed by Tonis Papadantonakis who co-scripted it with Dimitris Bogris. It was a romantic comedy and featured well-known singers of the musical stage. Tracking shots were used in a primitive way: a carpet was placed under the camera tripod and was dragged slowly across the floor! Despite its poor technical quality, it might have been a hit but for the outbreak of the Second World War in Greece. (The film would later be recut and reissued in 1955 as a drama under the title Better Late than Never.)

The storyline dealt with a resistance fighter who faces the moral dilemma of choosing between wife and country. Finos’ own sound technology was used for the film. This involved a system of “post-synchronizing” or

“dubbing.” First the action was filmed, then the dialogue was recorded, and finally they were mixed together. This system was used until 1954 when modern sound studios and technology in the American style were imported.

The Italian invasion and the unexpected Greek victory in October 1940 would become one of the most celebrated themes of postwar Greek cinema, inspiring a whole catalogue of movies ranging from popular melodramas to genuine existential explorations of war psychology. In contrast, the German occupation that began in April 1941, with its horrible atrocities, humiliations, terrible famine of 1942 and 1943, collaboration, and finally the Resistance, remained one of the most politically sensitive and heavily censored issues for cinematic elaboration. Indeed, it became the dominant subtext of almost all Greek movies produced after 1945 through to the 1990s.

The occupation of the country meant the destruction of the industry’s infrastructure and the cinema culture, since large gatherings were banned and most cinemas were used as Soldatenkinos—cinemas for soldiers. In one of his last reviews before the occupation, Makris lamented, yet with deep optimism, the destruction of cinema all over Europe:

Cinema’s defeat in Europe is but a local episode. Let all national produc- tions perish! Let the great crisis unfold! The blow is not lethal. As long as Hollywood remains, nothing is lost for ever. One day the whole of Europe will become a huge screen on which the showing of Charlie Chaplin’s latest film will acquire the magnitude and the power of an eternal symbol.38

Under German occupation, many movies made in the prewar years were lost, not simply because of the destruction by the Nazi forces occupying public buildings that housed archival material, but also because of the intense lice epidemic that had infected the urban population of Athens. The Germans had confiscated the city’s supply of soap and in desperation most of the existing films were melted for their silver to make combs and lice removers.39

The Italian invasion provided the stimulus for the creation of the first Greek animated short film, Ducce Narrates How He Conquered Greece by Stamatis Polenakis and the camera of Meravidis and Papadoukas. The film was made on the island of Sifnos in 1942 and was finally released after 1945, but remained totally forgotten until 1980. Seven minutes long with a very good synchronization of image and sound, this short film is a rare achievement and quite interesting in terms of its innovative technique and optimistic spirit. In 1946, Yorgos and Yannis Roussopoulos made the second ever cartoon in the country, a satire on the ancient gods of Olympus called Settle Down With the Thunders! (Siga tous Keraunous!). It took another 23 years for this experiment to find its sequel, when Thodoros Marangos, a graphic designer, made his famous Tsouf (1969) and his scathing satire Hush (Ssssst, 1971).

During the German occupation, only German, Italian, and Hungarian movies were being screened, but in 1942 Filopimin Finos set up a studio with its own sound equipment and montage facilities and called it Finos Films. This modest and primitive studio was destined to become the center of the most important film productions for the period of and after liberation, the nucleus for the revival and the triumph of the medium in the country. Finos and his associates, including the sound technician, production director, and internal designer Markos Zervas, brought together screenwriters, directors, actors, and all kinds of film technicians, providing them with a space for discussion, exchange of ideas, and experimentation with filming.

Finos was also active in the resistance movement. His father was arrested and executed by the Germans in early 1944 and Filopimin narrowly escaped a similar fate. This made him later, when he had become the most important producer in the country, suspicious of power and unwilling to get involved in any unnecessary conflicts with the government, even the 1967 dictatorship. During the last year of the German occupation, Finos produced Dimitris Ioannopoulos’ The Voice of the Heart (I Foni tis Kardias, 1943), a sentimental melodrama with many technical problems but good perfor- mances and music. To the extreme consternation of the Nazis, the film drew large audiences and was an immediate financial success. From the three films made during the occupation, the most important was Applauses (Heirokrotimata, 1943), directed by one of the greatest Greek directors, Yorgos Tzavellas (1916–1976). The film, produced by Finos’ antagonist in this period, Novak Films, was characterized by a suggestive atmosphere of fear and claustrophobia, soft use of the camera and yet by a touching optimism. It was about the life and death of Attik, one of the most popular musicians and songwriters of the prewar period, and was similar to Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight (1952).

Tzavellas filmed not just on location, but in the studio, exploring what would later become his main contribution to the cinematic art: the hidden and inexhaustible dimensions of interior spaces. As an anonymous reviewer observed, “The director proved that he was not afraid of the studio.”40

From his very first film, Tzavellas was the master of perfect lighting, effective spatial arrangements, and detailed photography. His shots were full of details and hidden subtexts: the viewer had to look from one side of the frame to the other in a series of “eye-stops” in order to form a complete picture of the story: the narrative unfolded on each shot separately. Meanwhile, the camera panned in and out in a gentle, almost imperceptible, manner, revealing the endlessness of interior space, and essentially of the domestic private space of families or lonely individuals. Tzavellas was the first Greek director who achieved effective spatial continuity and thematic unity in his movies, an achievement which found its complete maturity in his films of the next decade.

Gregoris Gregoriou (1919–2005), one of the most prolific directors of the next period, noted in his memoirs the importance of these two films: “If The Voice of the Heart marks the beginning of the history of Greek cinema, Tzavellas with his Applauses marks the beginning of the history of Greek cinematic mise- en-scène.”41 _{It was becoming obvious that with these films something really new}

had started to emerge in the cinematography of the country.

Meanwhile, Finos had constructed a well-equipped and functional studio that offered the possibility of good interior settings, effective lighting, and better photography; and technical innovations that allowed a complete story to unfold in a linear narrative. By then, sound and image could techni- cally work together in Greek movies. Consequently, when liberation from the Germans took place in October 1944 the technical background was ready for the industry to take off.

Dimitris Ioannopoulos, The Voice of the Heart (1943). Greek Film

Archive Collection.

One of the most popular film critics of the prewar period, Vion Papamihalis, claimed that 15 movies were ready to be released or close to completion by the end of 1944. Although he criticized those who imagined that Greece, “in its current historical situation, could easily become a second Hollywood” because of the enthusiastic announcements regarding the construction of new studios, he stressed that, “the creative performance under the present circumstances is surprising” and concluded, “Tomorrow there will be Greek cinematography, whether we want it or not. And we have high expectations of it.”42

Shortly before the Germans left, another anonymous reviewer pointed out the shortcomings in “cinematic experience” which could not be overcome in the war period in which they lived. Yet the reviewer made the very inter- esting point:

The perspectives of production . . . should tend towards purely Greek themes, filmed in an “international” way, so that, even if the budget does not allow for comparison and distribution in the international market, there should exist at least at the artistic level the ethnographic color which might interest international consumption.43

History, however, did not become any easier for the country after the departure of the Germans, who, as they were withdrawing, destroyed all important infrastructure including roads, factories, and railways. The process of reconstruction was to be long and not without problems. The depiction on screen of the traumatic events of 1941 to 1944 became extremely contro- versial and politically dangerous in the context of a highly polarized society, since new political problems began to surface with liberation.

During the occupation, as elsewhere in Europe, a strong division began to loom between the resistance fighters, organized mostly by the Communist Party, through EAM (Greek Liberation Front), and the government in exile, supported by the British establishment. Attempts for cooperation were made, as in the case of the destruction of the Gorgopotamos Bridge in November 1942, but as Germany was collapsing and the Cold War beginning, conflict was inevitable. After the liberation, Greece was the only Balkan country to be assigned to the British-American sphere of influence. Resistance fighters, mostly committed communists or pro-communists, were marginalized, persecuted, and in many instances systematically exterminated. The traumas of famine, public executions, and savage brutality against civilians inflicted by the Germans were exacer- bated by the events of December 1944 when a left-wing demonstration in the center of Athens ended with the massacre of many innocent people by British troops.

This tragic event caused collective disillusionment and rage and was destined to appear more often in subsequent Greek cinema than the German

occupation itself. One could indeed claim that this event was the founding mythos of postwar political cinema in the country.

After that, four years of civil war would destabilize Greek society and cause a mass wave of refugees to migrate to the countries of Eastern Europe. Although many of the defeated insurgents sought asylum in the communist countries of the Balkans or in remote republics of the Soviet Union, many others who were committed to left ideology and who remained in the country were sent to uninhabited barren islands which became places of exile, torture, and execution. These islands were soon transformed into the symbols of a dark and horrific period in Greek history, which lasted well into the late 1950s. The island prisons were later resurrected by the Greek Junta between 1967 and 1974.

In the Greek collective memory to this day, every island seen on screen is not simply an idyllic place for summer holidays under the hot Mediterranean sun. On the contrary, it is surrounded by an unredeemed memory of exile, oppression and death that rarely reached the screen, although it was present through its very invisibility. As in the case of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the trauma of history was present but was never represented as an objectified reality—and it remained so until the late 1970s.

An Assessment

Generally speaking, the prewar films were still, in their majority, pictures that moved rather than real continuity cinema (with one or two exceptions before 1936). The camera tried to capture real events, almost accidentally and out in the open, in order to document life on location and then to bring them together through a superimposed storyline, creating the illusion of a cohesive visual experience. This method usually did not work well and the gaps in plot, acting, and setting were too blatant to be ignored. This was the harbinger of a problem that still haunts Greek cinema to this day, the absence of screenwriters skilled in rendering, through cinematic dialogue, characterization, continuity, and the transition of scenes.

Furthermore, there remains little to distinguish theatrical acting from acting in movies. Until the early 1950s, when the first school of cinematog- raphy was established, most playwrights were adapting their own theatrical works to film scripts and were themselves the directors. Two prominent examples are Alekos Sakellarios (1913–1991) and Orestes Laskos.

In the 1930s and 1940s most actors in film with formal training had studied or worked under theatrical directors, often at the National (Royal then) Theater of Greece, which promoted a neoclassical Germanic under- standing of performance through a highly stylized form of acting. In short, most Greek actors of this period seemed to act out emotions as if there were no dialogue and the movies were still silent. Their acting was in reality a form

of pantomime, an attempt to show emotions and reactions in an obvious and “loud” manner while remaining unsynchronized with the storyline and its emotions. Also, in the rare cases of feature films with a good continuous storyline, the same approach avoided improvisation and ad-libbing, thus depriving comedians in particular of spontaneity and imaginative energy.

The most successful blending of theatrical and film acting was by Katina Paxinou (1900–1973), who became an actor of international renown in Hollywood films, and who was awarded an Oscar for her role in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). She can also be seen in films such as Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) and Mr. Arkadin (1955). Paxinou and her husband Alexis Minotis (1898–1990), who can be seen in films such as Hitchcock’s Notorious and Arthur Ripley’s The Chase (both 1946), refined a strong theatrical element in a way that was appropriate for the cinema, while still retaining its roots in the theatrical stage.

Theatricality, of course, is always on the horizon of acting; but in the films of the period, especially after the introduction of sound, it often created a singular point of view that conflicted with the special language of images and the depiction of reality as ambiguous and polysemic. Theatrical acting styles also collided with the directorial perspective, especially as directors gradually became more important than producers, actors, or screenwriters. The theatrical tradition dominated acting until at least the 1960s when movie actors didn’t really need to work in theater in order to make their living. After the 1970s, in a strange twist of history, theater became the final refuge of every failed cinema actor.

After 1945, the industry, organized around relatively advanced studios, developed its own dynamic and its own codes and almost reinvented itself. The result was the neglect and the forgetting of earlier productions. This oblivion was accelerated in the category of art films, which emphasized the directorial view as the central element of a film. As the director’s vision became the central focus, early attempts to construct such a vision seemed primitive and irrelevant. The trend would continue at pace in the decades to follow, with Greek film eventually being dominated by the concept of the self-reflecting director as the auteur of the film, as expressed by Alexander Astruc’s “camera-stylo” concept in 1948.

Meanwhile, as the studios flourished, the movies produced between 1910 and 1939 were almost completely forgotten, together with the names of their directors, photographers, and cameramen. Despite the fact that some produced their best work after the war, when technical facilities were available, Hepp, Gaziadis, Meravidis, Madras, and so many others were either thrown into oblivion or were looked upon with derision. Only in recent decades have there been coordinated attempts to restore and preserve these films, but still at a very slow pace.

This restoration work, funded by the state through the Greek Film Center and the Greek Film Archive, has revealed the sustained and heroic attempts of those early film-makers to establish a cinematic language and tradition. Their films both need and deserve a contextual and situational