Zorba's Madness
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Before there was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, there was Zorba, The Greek, one of my favorite movies. Where is your madness? It’s four in the morning, and my insomnia wins out again as I turn on the television to see what early morning viewing could be had. Sandwiched between an informercial for hair replacement, and an infomercial for hair removal, there was Zorba, dancing on the beach on AMC.
I was 14 when the Michael Cacoyannis cinematic masterpiece came onto the scene. My first impression of the movie was its wonderful music. My folks thought the movie was too racy for me to see (it was 1964 and Bambi was considered "morally objectionable"), but they bought the soundtrack and played it over and over again. When I finally saw the movie a year or two after its release, it was fun to see what went with the music that was so indelibly burned into my brain.
It was filmed in black and white, which made it kind of artsy. There was a plethora of these types of films in the 1960’s: A Man and a Woman, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, La Dolce Vita and 8 ½. All of these films dealt with exotic locations and/or subject matter making the world a wondrous and mysterious place to any adolescent. And they all showed in small theaters rather than the big, downtown movie houses. They would play at The Foster Theater (pre-porn days), The Uptown, and The Newport. Seeing them was an event.
I didn’t see Zorba again until a year or so ago when it began to pop up on the cable movie channels. When I was a teenager, I was hooked on the experience of actually seeing an adult movie. The movie was interesting but secondary to the experience of going to see it. So it was fun to watch it again through older eyes, and figure out what the movie was all about.
Plot summary: Alan Bates plays Basil, a Brit who inherits a mine in Crete, and goes there to operate it. While there, he hooks up with Zorba, Anthony Quinn’s signature role as a weathered, earthy Greek, who ostensibly was supposed to cook for him, but ends up teaching Basil the ins and outs of life. Sounds hokey. It isn’t. There is a dark side when Zorba and Basil pursue their individual love interests. Zorba, in particular, chases a widow who is desired by all of the men in town...to no good end.
There are several notable quotes in the movie. Here are my two favorites:
“Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.”
“A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
The last line is said at the end of the movie when Basil asks Zorba to teach him to dance after a year’s construction project collapses around them, literally.
It is the ultimate lesson of the movie. One has to be a little nuts to understand the absurdity of life, and to realize that living a full life is its own reward. It doesn’t matter whether one succeeds or fails, it’s the ride that counts. Even when everything is collapsing around you, it doesn’t matter, as long as you had a good time doing it. So you might as well dance. As the movie ends, the camera fades back to show Zorba and Basil doing just that, dancing on the beach.
What is your madness? Is it blogging and writing like me? Is it quilting like my wife? Is it politics like my son? Is it spending 4 nights/week practicing for a mammoth musical undertaking like Verdi’s Requiem, or even crazier, directing a community chorus to pull it off?
Does any of it make sense? No. Do you have fun doing it? Of course. That is Zorba’s madness. That is our madness. So let's enjoy the ride, and go out and dance.
Before there was My Big Fat Greek Wedding, there was Zorba, The Greek, one of my favorite movies. Where is your madness? It’s four in the morning, and my insomnia wins out again as I turn on the television to see what early morning viewing could be had. Sandwiched between an informercial for hair replacement, and an infomercial for hair removal, there was Zorba, dancing on the beach on AMC.I was 14 when the Michael Cacoyannis cinematic masterpiece came onto the scene. My first impression of the movie was its wonderful music. My folks thought the movie was too racy for me to see (it was 1964 and Bambi was considered "morally objectionable"), but they bought the soundtrack and played it over and over again. When I finally saw the movie a year or two after its release, it was fun to see what went with the music that was so indelibly burned into my brain.
It was filmed in black and white, which made it kind of artsy. There was a plethora of these types of films in the 1960’s: A Man and a Woman, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, La Dolce Vita and 8 ½. All of these films dealt with exotic locations and/or subject matter making the world a wondrous and mysterious place to any adolescent. And they all showed in small theaters rather than the big, downtown movie houses. They would play at The Foster Theater (pre-porn days), The Uptown, and The Newport. Seeing them was an event.
I didn’t see Zorba again until a year or so ago when it began to pop up on the cable movie channels. When I was a teenager, I was hooked on the experience of actually seeing an adult movie. The movie was interesting but secondary to the experience of going to see it. So it was fun to watch it again through older eyes, and figure out what the movie was all about.
Plot summary: Alan Bates plays Basil, a Brit who inherits a mine in Crete, and goes there to operate it. While there, he hooks up with Zorba, Anthony Quinn’s signature role as a weathered, earthy Greek, who ostensibly was supposed to cook for him, but ends up teaching Basil the ins and outs of life. Sounds hokey. It isn’t. There is a dark side when Zorba and Basil pursue their individual love interests. Zorba, in particular, chases a widow who is desired by all of the men in town...to no good end.
There are several notable quotes in the movie. Here are my two favorites:
“Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.”
“A man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
The last line is said at the end of the movie when Basil asks Zorba to teach him to dance after a year’s construction project collapses around them, literally.
It is the ultimate lesson of the movie. One has to be a little nuts to understand the absurdity of life, and to realize that living a full life is its own reward. It doesn’t matter whether one succeeds or fails, it’s the ride that counts. Even when everything is collapsing around you, it doesn’t matter, as long as you had a good time doing it. So you might as well dance. As the movie ends, the camera fades back to show Zorba and Basil doing just that, dancing on the beach.
What is your madness? Is it blogging and writing like me? Is it quilting like my wife? Is it politics like my son? Is it spending 4 nights/week practicing for a mammoth musical undertaking like Verdi’s Requiem, or even crazier, directing a community chorus to pull it off?
Does any of it make sense? No. Do you have fun doing it? Of course. That is Zorba’s madness. That is our madness. So let's enjoy the ride, and go out and dance.
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