The Criterion Collection has sent us a clip from a new video interview with acclaimed director Costa-Gavras. Last month, the boutique label released on Blu-ray two recently restored films directed by Costa-Gavras: The Confession (1970) and State of Siege (1972).
You can see our listings and reviews of these releases here and here.
The Confession
The master of the political thriller, Costa-Gavras became an instant phenomenon after the mammoth success of Z, and he quickly followed it with the equally riveting The Confession. Based on a harrowing true story from the era of Soviet bloc show trials, the film stars Yves Montand as a Czechoslovak Communist Party official who, in the early fifties, is abducted, imprisoned, and interrogated over a frighteningly long period, and left in the dark about his captors' motives. Also starring Simone Signoret and Gabriele Ferzetti, the film is an unflinching, intimate depiction of one of the twentieth century's darkest chapters, told from one bewildered man's point of view. NEW 2K restoration.
State of Siege
Costa-Gavras puts the United States' involvement in Latin American politics under the microscope in this arresting thriller. An urban guerrilla group, outraged at the counterinsurgency and torture training clandestinely organized by the CIA in their country (unnamed in the film), abducts a U.S. official (Yves Montand) to bargain for the release of political prisoners; soon the kidnapping becomes a media sensation, leading to violence. Cowritten by Franco Solinas, the electrifying State of Siege piercingly critiques the American government for supporting foreign dictatorships, while also asking difficult questions about the efficacy of radical violent acts to oppose such regimes. NEW 2K restoration.