Ζει Or How I Read a Novel Before Seeing the Film

waking up in America    

    Another Saturday morning to wake up and see the state of the world. Still no good. Troubling times we live in amigos. Needed a breath of fresh air and luckily for the past week or so Past Francis Booth, who I can hardly trust, went about in feeling the tremors below his feet and navigating down the road of life with a specific goal in mind; To Read a Book. 

Fundamentals

    Compared to last year, I've been pretty slow in starting up my reading habit. It's already March and I only have just three books finished so far. Though I believe I get some leeway since the book I chose to start off the year with that big ass Neal Stephenson novel Cryptonomicon but I digress. 

 Girth Thy Name is Novel

    My second book was then King Rat by James Clavell which felt like something you would place against a film like The Great Escape and showcase the hell of a World War 2 POW Camp in the Pacific Theater.

 the copy i was reading with its green tinted pages

    Then after reading those two novels, I decided that I need to go further into my reading list or what can also be referred to as the books I purchased with the intent of reading but never getting around to it and just kept adding them to the infinite void of books I will eventually get around to reading. All of this to say that I finally got to reading Z by Vassilis Vassilikos and being that this is a place where I review films, I decided that it was about time to give the movie a watch as that existed on my to watch list for the longest time as well

The Novel

    The basic plot of the novel revolves around this progressive deputy/political powerhouse by the name of Z who after giving a speech imploring for a better tomorrow against the current totalitarian democracy that is running the country of Greece is assassinated. This event taking up the first part of the novel with the rest of the novel dealing with the conspiracy around his murder, first acknowledged as an accident, starting to unfold involving those in power pulling the strings of men who only just need a push to get a job done. The kind of guys that don't care how much dirt, or blood, will get on their hands.

    The tone of the novel shifting between the procedural moments of an investigator and reporter digging more and more into the crime to uncover the truth to moments of characters dealing with the tragedy. Something I didn't really expect to see when having first picked up the novel but reflecting back on those moments, probably opened up a bigger understanding in my brain on how to tell a story.

how i see myself after reading the tender moments in Z

    What also fascinated me about the novel is how the passage of time is presented via these tender moments of the wife longing for her dead husband or through the various other characters that can't help but think of Z and the power he resonated in their hearts.

    For the wife moments, you realize the truth regarding the state of their marriage as it was nowhere near being the perfect marriage. Which goes a long way in showcasing how even perfection escapes the legacy of a martyr but even so, there was so much love and the pain that now comes and goes the more you read. Theses moments of growth that would be impossible to see if the novel had been a run of the mill police procedural and ultimately she reaches this moment of acceptance and has to make a decision to move forward in life. This moment being the end of the novel and it was an ending that I didn't even know I needed more so than the conclusion of the investigation into the death.

    The lyrical nature of the novel, I had to read a translation as I am uncultured, left me with the opinion that the novel itself is a memorial and letter of love towards the memory of the actual politician whose unfortunate end prompted the need to write this. How the death created this feeling of hope lost that stays present even as the conspiracy unfolds but ultimately hope is revived by the end even though the aftermath of the investigation itself left everything up in the air. Nothing is certain as to the consequences for those involved except that no one person in the eyes of Justice is truly placed as the singular figure to take the blame. At least, not enough to be considered guilty of masterminding and facing the consequences of their action. 

    Bittersweet in the grand scheme of things but hope comes from the fact that Z is now forever. Z lives becomes the go to phrase and with that fire going, it will never go out. Now, after having finished the novel it was time to give the movie a watch.

The Film

    Z is directed by Costa-Gavras, who would go on to make a career with such fantastic political thrillers such as State of Siege and The Confession, who adapts the novel with Jorge Semprun and has to shoot it in Algiers due to not being able to film in Greece because of the right-wing government that was running the place. With Yves Montand playing the title character of Z and Jean-Louis Trintignant as The Examining Magistrate the film shifts the novel into a different direction but nonetheless a cinematic one.

   A straight from novel to film adaptation seems impossible. To capture those highs and lows of the assassination to the funeral and having to change from the multiple point of views from the various characters would cause the script to have something like 300 pages to truly get the job done right of a straight adaptation. Maybe a miniseries could work but the problem with that is that modern day television looks terrible and dead so it most likely would be a faithful adaptation that was shot with digital muted tones. Which makes me sick just thinking about it.

    And so with the jettison of the lyrical nature of the novel the film shifts into the world of documentary styled filmmaking. Something that would set the standard for political thrillers to follow after its release. For looking at a list of political thrillers, its easy to connect the dots of this film having an influence on something like All The President's Men and Traffic. This film also having often being repeated as an influence on William Friedkin when going about in filming The French Connection. What influenced this film though? I figure Roberto Rossellini's films played a role but most likely 1965's The Battle of Algiers was a big influence on the film but I'm only guessing. You should go see that movie too. It's great.  

it's pretty great 

 

    Moving away from the slowly unfolding narrative is having this film play more along the way of a crime being solved. The novel leaves little as far as mystery is concerned as a lot of the set up to the assassination you read about beforehand and then the crime happens. It wasn't written in a way to thrill you in trying to figure out the criminals but more so deals with the aftermath of what the assassination means to those that care before ultimately reaching the end when the entire conspiracy is told via a letter written by one of the main persons in the conspiracy. 

     

    The film starts off with leaving the audience having to play catch up as we see leftists scramble to get a venue for Z to give his speech while government officials are surviving a speech about mildew that must be destroyed much like communism. Then Z gives his speech as the film builds up to the moment of the assassination. With the rest of the film, about an hour and forty or so minutes, having The Examining Magistrate going about in slowly unfolding the events that occurred. A reporter showing up as in the novel to investigate the assassination but the movie now using flashbacks from the various testimonies to have both the main characters and audience discover the reasons at the same time.

    The biggest bummer of the film though is that it jettisons the real emotional weight of the wife's arc. There is a moment right after the death when she appears and its her silent suffering that really sets the tone for this arc to occur but she leaves the film and doesn't appear until the end and thats a shame.

    Overall though, its fantastic with an ending that goes about in showing the actors and the real people they are playing side by side. A person reading off the end results of the investigation with the strange high amount of suicides regarding various witnesses, the lack of convictions, and ultimately the right wing government taking over the country to make it all moot. The film then shows the now restricted list of banned books, music, teachings of philosophers and other works of art but most importantly, they had ban the letter Z as Z, a slogan for He Lives, references the martyred deputy.

The End

    A great book that transforms into a great movie with being able to coexist for anyone interested. I couldn't believe I waited so long to give it a watch but I am glad that I did sit down and read the novel beforehand. Now onto the next question that will be split into 2; what to read and what to watch next?