The Greek Studio System (1950-1970)
An mporei kaneis na entopisei to arthro tou Constantinidis, Stratos E. me ton titlo toy thread na enimerwsei pliz.
Source: Film Criticism v. 27 no2 (Winter 2002/2003) p. 9-30 Journal Code: Film Crit
Additional Info: United States
Standard No: ISSN: 0163-5069
Details: bibl.
Language: English
Review: Peer-reviewed journal
Abstract: The writer discusses four films produced by Greek studios between 1950 and 1975, when the dominant ideology in Greece fluctuated from right to extreme right. The four films in question, which are examined in the context of this ideological shift, are as follows: The Drunkard, directed by Yiorgis Tzavellas; Stella, directed by Michael Cacoyiannis; Spanking Began in Paradise, directed by Alekos Sakellarios; and Date in Midair, directed by Yiannis Dalianidis.
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Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2002 Allegheny College
Most historical accounts set the rise and fall of Greek film studio
production in Greece between 1950 and 1975, that is, between the end
of the Greek Civil War and the establishment of Greek television as an
entertainment medium. During this period, the number of cinemas in
Greece reached an unprecedented peak, and so did film production.
Greek film production was more or less dominated by six studios: Finos
Films, Anzervos Films, Novak Films, Spentzos Films,
Karayiannis-Karatzopoulos, and Damaskinos-Mihailidis. Each studio
produced films in every genre, even though some studios, like Finos
Films, became better known for their musicals, while others, like
Anzervos, for their melodramas. Film production in these studios
declined when Greek television established itself as an entertainment
medium in Greek homes. Consequently, the number of cinemas decreased
when they began losing viewers to television. Loss of income forced
some of the above studios, including Finos Films in 1977, to shut down
their operations, signaling the end of an era. Other studio owners
adapted to change by restructuring their operations or by disbanding
and reinventing their business anew in order to meet the demand for
television shows, television advertisements, and the growing video
market of home theatres during the last quarter of the twentieth
century.
Greek television began broadcasting in 1966, when it had only two
channels-the National Foundation for Radio-Television (Greek acronym,
EIRT) and the Armed Forces Information Service (YENED). The state had
a monopoly over television broadcasting from 1966 to 1989. The name
and corporate structure of EIRT were changed in 1975. EIRT was renamed
National Radio-Television (ERT in 1975; ERT-1 in 1982), and it became
a public corporation owned by the state and run by a board of
directors appointed by the Greek Cabinet (Law 230/ 1975). YENED, which
had been controlled by the Greek Armed Forces since 1966, changed its
name and corporate structure in 1982. It was renamed National
Radio-Television Channel Two (ERT-2), and became a public service run
by a general council appointed by the Ministry of the Premiership (Law
1288/1982). A third change in name and ownership structure occurred in
1987 when ERT- 1 was renamed Greek Television Channel One (ET-1), and
ERT-2 was renamed Greek Television Channel Two (ET-2). Greek
Television Channel Three (ET3) was added in 1988. The monopoly of the
state ended in 1989 when private television was legalized (Law
1866/1989). The competition from private television (especially from
channels like Mega and Antena) forced Greek public television to
develop new programming strategies in order to retain its viewers.
>From its inception, Greek public television began showing Greek films,
especially films that were produced between 1950 and 1975. According
to Fenek Mikelidis,
the Greek films (with the exception of those known as
the New Greek Cinema) are televised repeatedly, daily,
and uncontrollably. The result is that, while Lieutenant
Natasha, the top Greek film in ticket sales during the
1970-71 period, sold 751,117 tickets at first-run
cinemas, only three years later, during the 1974-75
period, Mihalis Cacoyiannis" Attila `74, the most
popular Greek film of the year, sold only 103,856 tickets
and the corresponding film production decreased from
87 films to 47 films that year. The following year, the
number of films declined to 20, while during 1976-77
to 16. (Mikel\dhV, 1997:47-4Cool
Greek television channels televised more Greek films produced during
the 1950-1975 period than between the 1975-2000 period for one obvious
reason: the 1950-1975 period offered them a greater number and variety
of Greek films than the 1975-2000 period. Less obvious, however, is
the content of the films that were televised repeatedly (if not
relentlessly) for the entertainment and edification of the audiences
of Greek television during the last quarter of the twentieth century.
In this paper, I will discuss the content (thematic message and
ideological aura) of the films that were produced by Greek studios and
were seen in the cinemas during the 1950-1975 period when the dominant
ideology in Greece fluctuated from right to extreme right. However,
when these films were later televised and seen in Greek homes
"repeatedly, daily, and uncontrollably" during the 1975-2000 period,
the dominant ideology in Greece had made a u-turn and fluctuated from
liberal to extreme left. My observations come from the study of fifty
films from this period. However, due to limitations of space here, I
will discuss only four representative films-a melodrama, a tragedy, a
farce, and a musical--which were released at five-year intervals.
These films are The Drunkard/ O Methistakas (Finos Films, 1950);
Stella/Stella (Milas Films, 1955); Spanking Began in Paradise/ To
ksilo vyike apo to paradeiso (Finos Films, 1960); and A Date in
Midair/Rantevou ston aera (Damaskinos-Michaelidis and Finos Films,
1965).
I.
The Drunkard, written and directed by Yiorgos Tzavellas, set a new
record for ticket sales (305,000) in 1950 in the first-run cinemas of
Athens and Piraeus. Its financial success turned the film into a model
for aspiring Greek screenwriters and directors of melodramas. But what
exactly did The Drunkard propose to its Greek consumers and imitators?
The story takes place in Athens, in the poor quarter of Plaka at the
end of the Greek Civil War. The "drunkard" is Mr. Haralambos, (Orestes
Makris) a shoemaker who is suffering from depression--both financial
and psychological. He says that the causes for his present sorry state
were (1) the Second World War, which claimed many lives, including the
life of his son, Costas, who had enlisted to fight the Italian
invaders at the Albanian front in 1940 and (2) the occupation of
Greece by the Axis powers, which brought about famine and disease that
took many lives, including the life of his unconsolable wife.
Subsequently, Mr. Haralambos became an alcoholic. It is made clear in
the film that his business slumped and his socio-economic status
declined because of his alcoholism and the Greek economy, which also
slumped during the occupation that lasted from April 27, 1941 to
October 12, 1944.
Before the Second World War, Mr. Haralambos was a successful,
self-employed businessman, a homeowner who could afford the luxury of
a piano in his house. By the late 1940s, Mr. Haralambos has lost his
middle-class status, but not his middle-class values. These values he
shares with his daughter and his mother-in-law, who also share with
him his recent lower-class status. However, Mr. Haralambos and his
daughter have never ceased to aspire to upper-middle-class status,
even though they had to sell the house and the piano and move to a
lower-class abode in Plaka, which basically consisted of one crowded
room that, depending on the time of the day, served as a living room,
a dining room, and a bedroom. Their recent abode stands in sharp
contrast to the upper-class house of the Bakas family, who enjoy a
well-kept garden, a swimming pool, big rooms, fashionable furniture,
and expensive crystal. Likewise, Mr. Haralambos's run-down shoerepair
store and his ever declining ability to satisfy his customers and keep
his business afloat stand in sharp contrast to the posh and efficient
offices of the Bakas firm. Mr. Bakas is a rich wine merchant with a
wife, Eleni, and a son, Alec (Dimitris Horn).
The Bakas firm employs Annoula, Mr. Haralambos's daughter (also known
as "the drunkard's daughter"), as a typist. Mr. Bakas hired Annoula at
the request of his customer, Mr. Yiannakos, in order to do him a
favor. Mr. Yiannakos is the owner of one of the taverns frequented by
the drunkard. His tavern is open to all walks of life. It operates as
a wine-shop during the day for its local lower-class customers and
more like a pub at night, attracting socialites who scour the local
scene. Mr. Haralambos, who is one of the relatively recent locals, is
not happy about this intrusion, and he complains that tavern owners
like Mr. Yiannakos have ruined "our" taverns. This intrusion of the
upperclass into the local surroundings and into the life of Mr.
Haralambos takes on a tragic dimension when Mr. Haralambos, who has
just left the tavern, is hit by Mr. Bakas's limousine as it barrels
down the narrow streets of Plaka.
Annoula (Billie Constantopoulou), who sought employment at the Bakas
firm in order to support herself and her father, quickly distinguishes
herself as an able and responsible employee. As the new typist, she
also catches the eye of Alec, who flirts with her. Annoula puts up a
polite resistance that weakens only when Alec undergoes a gradual
transformation by showing clear signs of becoming a responsible and
sensitive man and employer. For example, at her request, Alec gives
Mr. Fotis, the doorkeeper, money and a leave of absence to take care
of his sick daughter because she and her baby had been abandoned by
her husband, a sailor. Alec, who had initially made a wager with his
friends to seduce the new typist, now feels respect and admiration for
her. Due to Annoula's influence, he becomes interested in his father's
business and begins to appreciate work and the work ethic, whereas in
the past he would only show up at his father's office to collect his
allowance. "I was expecting from my father," Alec says to Annoula,
"while your father is expecting from you." Thanks to Annoula, the
working girl with a middle-class upbringing, the value of the work
ethic is affirmed as a precondition to achieving integrity, success,
and wealth. Alec, whose middle-class parents raised him as the
upper-class heir of their wealth, buys into the work ethic. Alec, the
"playboy," discovers and appreciates his middle-class origins and, not
unexpectedly, falls in love with Annoula, who is sketched as an
attractive embodiment of middle-class values.
This plot development is a wish-come-true for Annoula because she grew
up listening to her father's fairy tale about "a prince on a white
horse" who would come into her life and rescue her from poverty. What
delays Annoula's rescue are two sets of obstacles. At first, Alec's
intentions are misunderstood by her and her father, and it takes a
couple of plot twists before they ascertain them to be honorable.
However, Alec's argument, which wins for him a permanent place in the
drunkard's heart, depends on the rhetoric of nationalism. Alec, like
the drunkard's son, was enlisted in the Greek army and fought at the
Albanian front. "I am your son now, Mr. Haralambos," Alec pleads his
case for a place in the drunkard's family. The bonding between the
drunkard and his future son-in-law is attained through the memory of
a' "shared" national experience (i.e., the war and the occupation), no
matter how different and unequal the shares from that war experience
have been for the Haralambos and Bakas families.
The other obstacles are Alec's parents, who plan to marry him to a
rich heiress instead of the impoverished "drunkard's daughter," then
Mr. Haralambos himself because of his incurable alcoholism. Mr.
Haralambos goes out on a drinking spree and he returns home to meet
Alec and his daughter very late and very drunk. His behavior
jeopardizes Annoula's chances to marry Alec with his parents's
approval. Alec once again resorts to the rhetoric of nationalism,
reminding his parents that Mr. Haralambos lost his son in the war
while they got theirs back, but he fails to win their approval. "Alec,
take your parents and go," Annoula says, "He is my father, and I must
stay with him even if he is ruining my life." Mr. Haralambos comes to
realize that his alcoholism stands in the way of his daughter's
happiness. He commits suicide to facilitate her social assent as the
bride of her "prince."
The story's bittersweet ending heals any differences in social status
between the two families by uniting their children and burying the
father who became weak and an embarrassment to his class and his
family. Mr. Haralambos's resentment and aggression, which surface on
three occasions in the story, albeit momentarily, have turned inward,
leading him down the path of self-destruction through alcoholism and
suicide. From the day the German invaders defeated the Greek troops
and raised the Nazi flag on the Acropolis in Athens to the day the
Germans were forced to evacuate Greece, the Greeks had lost 8% of
their total population, representing more casualties than any European
country except the U.S.S.R., with Holland (2.4%) at a distant third
place and France (1.6%) fourth. Interestingly, The Drunkard conceals
from its viewers the intense class struggle that culminated in the
Greek Civil War from 1944 to 1949. Instead, Tzavella's story blends
history with fairy tale, celebrating the cohesion of the Greek
middle-class in the 1950s through the triumph of Alec and Annoula over
their parents' disparities. Young princes and young maids like Alec
and Annoula form a long line of exemplary couples imagined by Greek
novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters from Penelope Delta to
Iakovos Kambanellis to be models for the rebuilding of Greek society.
Their middle-class parents (like Alec's father, who reportedly carried
wine-barrels on the docks when he started his business) are often
given lower-class origins or odd job tasks of lower-class status in
the beginning of their careers. Their humble origins and the menial
job tasks of their youth are frequently described vaguely and are
routinely taken out of context; their pasts almost always stand in
sharp contrast to the parents' middle-class manners and mindsets as
portrayed on the screen. The "proletarian" veneer of their alleged
origins may not necessarily make melodramas like The Drunkard more
palatable, but they sugarcoat the bourgeois ideology of these
patriarchs for the viewers. Only a careful and critical analysis of
such films can reveal the ideological distortion of social and
historical. The Drunkard presents the relationship between employers
and employees in the late 1940s as gentle and friendly when, in fact,
the Civil War released intense hostility and cruelty between
proletarians and owners. Nor did the right to vote that was given to
Greek women in 1952 terminate gender inequality to make Greek women
equal partners in private and public life. Of course, Greek men and
women have not ceased to seek spouses and happiness in the workplace,
as did the heroes of The Drunkard and similar melodramas. This may
have been the first Greek film that was shot using synchronous sound
recording, but it was neither the first nor last film that recycled
the fairy-tale of Cinderella for Greek viewers.
II.
Stella, written by Iakovos Kambanellis and directed by Michael
Cacoyiannis, did not set a new record for ticket sales (134,142) in
the first-run cinemas of Athens and Piraeus, even though it climbed to
the top of the charts in 1955 and received a Golden Globe award for
Best Foreign Film. Not everyone was pleased with its theme and
ideological aura. As soon as the film was released, leftist critics
accused its director and screenwriter of a vulgar distortion of the
idea of women's emancipation and of a most slanderous representation
of Greek social reality. "So, freedom for our women is to sleep with
anyone they like and we have achieved Emancipation in our country!"
Stamatiou concluded sarcastically. "Unfortunately, Cacoyiannis's bold
film will claim many victims" (Dawn/Augi 1955). Antonis Moschovakis
was also critical. "Mr. Cacoyiannis," he wrote, "is well advised to
take a walk on Saint Constantine Street, Sophocles Street, and
Socrates Street at midnight to take a closer look at his `brave young
men' and his `dream girls' in white dresses" (Art Review/Epotheoresis
Texni 1956). Nonetheless, despite the bad press that Stella received
in leftist journals in the mid-1950s during the heyday of right wing
politics, the film came to be considered as a "classic" during the
fourth quarter of the twentieth century when the majority of the
Greeks repeatedly elected the socialist party to govern Greece.
Based on Kambanellis's play, Stella with the Red Gloves/E Stella me ta
kokkina gantia, the film depicts the world of Greek urban folk music,
better known as "rebetika" (rempetika), in the 1950s at a critical
juncture in its development. Urban folk music was primarily the
cultural domain of proletarians and sub-proletarians in Greek cities
between the First and the Second World Wars. When the Greek Civil War
ended in 1949 with the defeat of the Greek communists and the
unconditional surrender of the Greek proletariat to the policies of a
new government backed by the United States of America, the social and
musical identities of urban folk music were changed by Greek composers
like Manos Hadjidakis to be more attuned to the aesthetic and
ideological sensibilities of the westernized Greek middle class during
the second half of the twentieth century. Of all the Greek composers
of this period, it was Manos Hadjidakis who flirted most seductively
with Hollywood, winning an Academy Award for the music and lyrics of
the title song for the film Never on a Sunday (1960) and securing
contracts for the music of American-made films like The 300 Spartans
(1962), It Happened in Athens (1962), Nine Miles to Noon (1963), In
the Cool of the Day (1963), America America (1964), Topkapi (1964),
Blue (1968), and The Invincible Six (1970).
In Stella, Hadjidakis traversed through four traditions of dance and
music-namely, country folk (klarino), urban folk (bouzouki), pop
(piano), and jazz (saxophone). Country folk and urban folk music are
shown as poles of attraction for Miltos, the male protagonist. Popular
music and jazz music become poles of attraction for Stella, his female
antagonist, when she flirts with the westernized Greek upper class or
when she runs away from Miltos and the lower-class patriarchal culture
that he represents. Marching-band music is used to associate Stella's
refusal to surrender her freedom to the control of the Greek
patriarchy in 1953, with the Greek government's refusal to surrender
the freedom of its citizens to Italian fascism in 1940. In this way,
Stella's call for women's liberation acquires a broader national
dimension.
Subtle musical and visual clues in the film are as significant in
conveying messages as the radio announcements which claimed that Greek
women have been emancipated (were given the right to vote in 1952) and
their socio-economic position has improved in 1953 thanks to sound
government planning. Stella with her new piano loaded on an old truck
becomes a strong visual metaphor as she carries the preferred musical
instrument of the westernized Greek middle class through the
lower-class neighborhoods of Athens' in search of Pipis, the pianist.
She experiments with western musical instruments, western music and
western dances which she sees in foreign films or hears on imported
records. Her plan to introduce western music, instruments, and dances
to her number at Heaven, a tavern in Athens, is welcomed by Mary who
cherishes the idea of upgrading her tavern to cater to the tastes of
the middle class. In a similar fashion, Hadjidakis who composed the
music for this film, took the proletarian bouzouki music of Vasilis
Tsitsanis and he "upgraded" it to suit middle-class tastes and values.
As a singer, Stella (Melina Merkouri) is the rising star in Heaven.
Poor, single, and without a family, she rents a room in Plaka, where
she enjoys sexual freedom for love rather than money with male patrons
of her choice from Heaven. Heaven is owned and run by a strong
matriarch, Mary (Sofia Vembo) who employs male waiters like Mitsos
(Dionysis Papayiannopoulos) and female entertainers like Stella and
Anneta (Voula Zoumboulaki). Content with her lifestyle, Stella turns
down a marriage proposal from Alekos, a gentle, young, upper-class
patron of Heaven who buys her a piano to secure her wavering
affections. Alekos is deeply in love with Stella at the dismay of his
family. His snobbish sister pays Stella a visit and offends her by
telling her that his relatives have consented to grant their approval
and let him marry Stella. Stella, however, is not interested in
marrying a man who lacks valor, vitality, and virility--even though
she is touched by his generosity.
Stella subsequently falls for Miltos (Yioryos Foundas), a tough,
lower-class soccer player. Alekos is accidentally killed by a passing
car in the street below Stella's one-room apartment where she was
sleeping with Miltos. Alekos' relatives blame Stella for his death and
they forbid her to attend his funeral. Then, Miltos proposes marriage
to her, but his proposal is phrased as an ultimatum because if she
refuses to marry him, he will end their affair. Stella nods "yes"
because she does not want to lose him, but she is in tears because she
does not want to lose her freedom either. Stella begins to have second
thoughts about marrying Miltos when she has an illuminating
conversation with Miltos' mother. Her future mother-in-law, a Cretan,
speaks the language of the patriarchy as practiced in the deep south
of Greece, and she makes it crystal clear that Stella is expected to
quit her job, confine her attention to her husband and household, and
be ignored on major decisions that affect her directly. When she
leaves, Stella reconsiders the role of the last two men in her life.
"The first one wanted to turn me into a lady, the second one, into a
housewife. Oh, brother! So what am I to them that they want to change
me, a gramophone record?"
Instead of going to the church, where she is expected to arrive in her
bridal gown by Miltos and his wedding guests, Stella spends the
evening and the night partying with Anthony, an eighteen-year-old
high-school student. While Stella is celebrating her freedom by
drinking and dancing to the sounds of American music (mainly jazz and
rock), Miltos is coping with his humiliation by drinking and dancing
to the sounds of Greek music (mainly urban folk in two dance rhythms,
zeimbekiko and hasapiko). Stella experiences her liberty and joy in
one of the places (night-clubs or discotheques) where foreign popular
music and values were introduced. Conversely, Miltos vents his
frustration and sorrow in Heaven, trying to prove to himself and to
others that, as he put it, even his rejection by all the Stellas of
this world could not knock a man like him down on his knees.
Indicatively, these two different kinds of private celebration take
place on October 28, a national holiday in Greece. This day is
commonly referred to as "The Day of Denial" or "The Day of No" in
memory of the decision of a Greek military dictator who denied foreign
fascists permission to cross the northern border of Greece in 1940.
On her way back home at dawn, Stella is confronted by Miltos, who is
armed with a knife and had been waiting for her at the intersection
right outside the closed gates of Heaven. Miltos is torn between his
love for her and his vengeful anger because she had publically defiled
his honor. He gives her one last ultimatum--either getting married to
him or getting herself killed by him. Stella chooses not to marry him,
and she walks defiantly to her murder. Miltos stabs her, and she dies
asking for his kiss. "Stella, my love!" Miltos cries out while he is
holding her dead body in his arms as the gates of Heaven open and
Mary, Anneta, and the others approach the scene of the crime
horrified.
Stella was unwilling to compromise her lifestyle which was founded on
both sexual and economic freedom. These freedoms were supported by
Mary's Heaven which provided a discrete, soft adult entertainment.
However, sexual and economic freedoms were taken away from many Greek
women who married into patriarchal households-either of the
lower-class type represented by Miltos and his mother, or of the
upper-class type represented by Alekos and his sister. Alekos's sister
and Miltos's mother disapproved of Stella's lifestyle and of the
"heavenly" world that facilitated it. The sister and the mother were
presented as products, messengers, mouthpieces, guardians, and
producers of values that were characterized as entrapping and stifling
by Stella. Stella shuddered at the idea of giving up her freedoms, as
they expected her to do, as soon as she put on her bridal gown and
took her marital vows. She preferred sharing her proletarian Heaven in
the company of men who fell through the cracks in the underworld of
Greek society than to sharing a suburban household in Halandri in the
company of Miltos who wanted to domesticate her and dominate her.
Stella is exceptional because her views and values are not shared by
the other women (let alone the men) in the film. Even Anneta, one of
the vamps in Heaven, is not immune to the values that Stella rejects.
Anneta, who blames Stella for Alekos's death, expresses a desire to
escape from Heaven by quitting her job as a singer and a vamp, and by
getting married. Unlike Anneta, Stella knows that a Cinderella-like
ascent through marriage to old money (Alekos) or new money (Miltos)
will deprive her of the sexual and economic freedoms she enjoys. Her
rejection of both upper-class and lower-class husbands indicates that
the oppression of women is shared by all classes that practice
patriarchy. She is proud of her lower-class origins and station in
life, and she feels offended when Alekos describes her social
environment in derogatory terms. Heaven was frequented by men who
sought dames, drinks, drugs, and dancing. These four categories of
stimulants temporarily restored their self-worth and manhood which
suffered daily in a society that had demoralized the lower-class
through military and economic warfare.
The social identity of the Greek proletariat and sub-proletariat
underwent yet another change after the Second World War and the Greek
Civil War. A lot of manpower had been wasted or disabled in armed
conflicts over race and class issues in the 1940s. The remnants were
numbed and, subsequently, they were diverted to pursue the illusion of
dominance through the relatively bloodless conflicts offered by sports
in the 1950s. No other sport during the second half of the twentieth
century captured the traumatized psyche of lower-class Greeks than
soccer. Indicatively, Miltos' social identity underwent a telling
change from Kambanellis's stage play to the screenplay. He was a truck
driver in the play before he was transformed into a soccer player in
the screenplay. An astounding number of Greek proletarians and
sub-proletarians invested their hopes in rising lower-class soccer
stars, like Miltos, who played for teams like the Olympic Soccer Club.
Soccer idols presented the losers of the social game with the weekly
satisfaction of becoming winners by either identifying with a winning
player and team, or by winning bets. These bets were later
institutionalized as the PRO-PO lottery.
Interestingly, the film offers yet another diversion to its viewers
because its focus moves away from the racial (ethnic) conflicts and
the class conflicts of the 1940s to the gender conflicts of the 1950s.
The gender conflict in the film is placed in the context of yet
another phase in the westernization of Greek society and culture. The
Americanization of the Greeks intensified after the defeat of national
socialism in 1944 and international communism in Greece in 1949. The
film, however, has a blind spot where these public affairs are
concerned. Instead, it focuses on a private affair, and presents it as
a contest between Stella and Miltos, a match between a man and a
woman, a deadly game between Greek patriarchy and women's liberation.
Each time Miltos raises the stakes in their unconventional love game,
Stella always rises to the occasion with unflinching resolve. She
successfully proves to Miltos (and bystanders) that he has met his
match-from the time Miltos threatens to ram down the gates of Heaven
with his car, to the time Miltos throws a stick of dynamite, instead
of a rose, at her feet. It is with the same defiant determination that
Stella approaches Miltos during their last encounter which ends with
her murder.
>From the wedding reception at Kastella where Stella and Miltos catch
each other's eye for the first time, to the picnic at Saint Andrew's
beach where they feel caught in a web of forces that are stronger than
the two of them, the thematic message knits together two sets of
conflicting threads of thought which provide an understanding of the
human condition-nature vs. culture, and class vs. gender. These
irreconcilable forces color Stella's prose and lyrics. "He wants to
tie me down," she says about Miltos. "He, too, is an owner like all
the others." Her proletarian values make her rebel at the prospect of
losing her independence through love and marriage. "My love, you have
become a double edged knife," she sings to Miltos, "In the past you
gave me only joy, / but now you are drowning my joy in tears./ I can't
figure it out,/ I can't find a cure." When Miltos stabs her to cure
himself from his infatuation with the object of his desire and the
source of his humiliation, the reconciliation of the two sexes is
aborted. However, when Miltos holds her body in his arms for a last
embrace and a farewell kiss in front of the gates of Heaven, it is
clear from his cry of despair that he cannot figure out what
indomitable forces made her turn down his marriage proposal, or, in
turn, what powerful forces made him kill the woman that he loved.
III.
Spanking Began in Paradise, written and directed by Alekos
Sakellarios, did not set a new record for ticket sales (239,530) in
1960 in the first-run cinemas of Athens and Piraeus. However, it did
provide a springboard for Aliki Vouyouklaki, a starlet, to reach star
status and to almost triple the number of ticket sales (591.675) with
Heartbeats in the Classroom/Xtepokradia sto qranio (1963). These two
films exemplify how the star system worked in the Greek film industry
in the 1960s. Greek film studios cast star actors and actresses in
leading roles that were written or revised to fit the popularized
image of a star, like Vouyiouklaki, but they also standardized genres,
stories, and characters. Films like Spanking Began in Paradise not
only appealed to Greek audiences in the 1960s but also continued to
appeal to them throughout the last quarter of the twentieth century
when these old hits were revived on Greek television or were
introduced as videotapes in the home theatre market.
Spanking Began in Paradise is about Dimitris Floras, a very young and
very poor teacher of classical Greek language and literature who takes
his first teaching job at a private high school for girls in Athens.
Its students come from upper-class families, and all of them are
presented as spoiled rotten. Not only do they not take their education
seriously, but they are also disrespectful to their teachers. They
play pranks on them, undermining their resolve to fulfill their
educational mission. Floras soon becomes the butt of the jokes of Lisa
Papastavrou, a student in the graduating class. Lisa (Aliki
Vouyiouklaki) is the unruly pretty daughter of a ship-owner. Floras
(Dimitris Papamihail), who takes education seriously, rebukes her and
her classmates more than once. One day, however, he slaps her in the
face, reintroducing to this school corporeal punishment as a
disciplinary method. This incident is blown out of proportion by Lisa
when she talks to her mother. Her exasperated mother contacts the
principal of the school and demands that he fire Floras. When Floras
is fired, Lisa realizes that she has been in love with him, and she
begins to feel guilty and sorry for the poor teacher. She begs her
father to ask the principal of the school to rehire Floras. Indeed,
Floras is rehired, and his colleagues (all of them male) endorse
corporeal punishment in order to discipline their female students and
restore their respect for education. As soon as Lisa graduates, Floras
proposes marriage to her, and she accepts. Her father asks Floras to
tutor Lisa at home so that she can pass the state university entrance
examinations.
Sakellarios's farce reverses the gender roles in the Cinderella
fairy-tale, but the joke is on the Greek lower-class viewers of this
film for one simple reason. Despite the gender reversal, the female
"prince" and the male "Cinderella" do not upset any established
notions about the hegemony of either the upper class over the lower
class or men over women. Class conflict and gender conflict define the
relationship between the all-male faculty and the all-female student
body. The aging lower-middle-class teachers do not have any control
over their young upper-class students except when the newly-hired
lower-class young teacher introduces (on impulse and almost by
accident) corporeal punishment and, with it, physical contact between
teacher and student. Corporeal punishment gives the older teachers the
right and pleasure of both touching and controlling their female
students, while simultaneously reasserting their withering manhood and
venting their lower-middle-class frustrations on the bodies of their
upper-class female students.
Nonetheless, the film only superficially lampoons education as the
cornerstone of nation-building in Greece. The promise that lower-class
Greeks could acquire higher incomes and higher social status through
education did not apply to the Greek educators themselves. In the
film, Greek teachers are presented as the servants of upper class
students and parents who can fire and rehire even the best of teachers
at any time for any reason. The Greek proletariat and its vociferous
advocates, who were defeated at the end of the Civil War and were
silenced in the early 1950s, began to regain their strength and their
advocates recovered their voice in the late 1950s. The dominance of
the upper and middle classes--which was accomplished militarily and
economically with American aid--was often questioned in the context of
Greek nationalism. It is not a coincidence that Floras is a teacher of
classical Greek language and literature, or that the conflict develops
between traditional Greek values (represented by the male teachers)
and modern western values, mostly European and American (represented
by the female students).
While the male teachers instruct their female students about the
models and values of their Greek heritage, they either sound
ridiculous (like the principal, who speaks in modern Greek
neoclassical purist vernacular) or fail to attract their attention and
interest (like Floras, who teaches the classics). Their Greek
upper-class female students love to listen to foreign music, to dance
foreign dances, to wear clothes of foreign fashions, to see foreign
films (especially French and American) and to admire foreign models of
masculinity and rebellion, mainly those performed by Marlon Brando,
the nonconforming prototype of the beat generation, James Dean
(1931-1955), the personification of the restless youth, and Gerard
Phillipe (1922-1959), the handsome and sensitive leading star in
French romantic films. Foreign films and female rebellion, however, do
not change the film's viewpoint, which remains patriarchal and
nationalist, catering to the racial, social, and economic anxieties
and pipe-dreams of the Greek middle class. The female students are
presented as so undisciplined, impudent, and immature that any attempt
to silence them, control them, and educate them appears to be
justifiable.
Floras draws the class rift between teacher and student as soon as he
walks into the classroom. "You come from big and rich families," he
tells Lisa and her classmates. "I have taught at night schools to
students from poor and humble families who live in basements." His
night-school students work for wages during the day, and their
lifestyle is described as the exact opposite of the leisure-class
lifestyle that Lisa and her classmates enjoy. The night-school
students, according to Floras, had discipline (agogi), manners
(troupou), dignity, and a strong work ethic. Floras, the son of a
widowed mother, stands as an exemplary specimen of the type of
lower-class Greek student who excelled. By contrast, the upper-class
female students are seen as unruly, ill-mannered, negligent, and
incompetent. Lisa is a specimen of this type of student. She addresses
him with mockery and irony. He retorts with sarcasm and contempt. He
is so strict with himself and so demanding of himself that, when he
treats his colleagues and students likewise, he appears to be
autocratic.
The slap in the face that Lisa and her class (the pun is intended)
receive is a gestus (Brecht's term) that codifies class struggle and
gender struggle for over domain. It reaffirms the dominance of the
teacher at school, the dominance of the worker in the workplace, and
the dominance of man over woman. Of course, all this is a young man's
delusion. As soon as his delicate teenage upper-class student
complains to her mother and her mother complains to the principal,
Floras is fired. Upper class women burst Floras's bubble with a
hairpin and "put him in his place." His impulsive attempt as a
teacher, worker, and a man to take control by reversing the hierarchy
in the classroom ("his" workplace) backfires. In the revived
privatized Greek economy, his customers (i.e., the female students)
are in control even when they appear to be uncontrollable. The power
of the student over the teacher is reaffirmed when Lisa asks her
father to have Floras reappointed. The female student taught her male
teacher a tough lesson. When earlier in the film the slap in the face
made Lisa see "butterflies," Floras expressed the intended democratic,
equalizing function of schools through educational reforms in Greece.
These anticipated reforms would ban class inequality and favoritism
from the classroom and would eliminate divisions between daytime
schools and night schools that were for working-class students. By
getting him fired and rehired, Lisa teaches him that although the
elimination of class inequalities and favoritism from society is the
agenda of the Greek lower class, this agenda is neither shared nor
encouraged by the Greek upper class.
Floras impulsively adopts physical violence to modify Lisa's
upper-class disrespect, whereas Lisa instinctively adopts
institutional manipulation to command Flora's respect. For him and his
male colleagues, direct physical violence is an acceptable and
effective way for teaching the upper class a lesson. For Lisa and her
parents, indirect institutional violence is an acceptable and
effective way to teach the lower-class a lesson. Regardless of their
class status, however, the men are cast in the role of advocates for
discipline and order. Conversely, most of the women are presented as
the source of disorder, except, of course, for lower-class women like
Floras' mother. Upper-class teenage and adult women need to be
controlled and to be reformed. Therefore, Lisa receives two more slaps
in the face from Floras later in the film, gestures that help her come
to her senses. Floras's corporeal method of teaching is readily
adopted not only by his colleagues, who show an excessive zeal to beat
some sense into the heads of their female students, but also by Lisa's
father. When he talks to Floras on the telephone, he congratulates the
young teacher for slapping his daughter. He then asks him to
discipline (sofronizo) both his daughter and his future mother-in-law
by coming to his house and putting things in order in the way he did
at the high school.
The class rift between the poor young man and the rich old man in
Spanking Began in Paradise is bridged by a shared male attitude toward
women. That highlights the ideological dimension of this farce.
Whereas in the beginning of the film, Floras admonished Lisa that
money does not bring happiness and that her lifestyle would make her
and others unhappy (a prediction that was fulfilled when she got him
fired), the film ends with Lisa making him happy because her male
Cinderella goes from rags to riches by marrying into money. Floras's
new role in the Papastavrou family is prescribed by his future
father-in-law, who wants him to become Lisa's tutor--often an in-house
slave in classical times. This Cinderella's masculinity, which,
initially, was a product of the power relations among the
lower-middle-class male teachers and their upper-class female students
in the private high school, will be redefined once more in relation to
the members of the Papastavrou family.
Sakellarios turns the young teacher's worldview upside down in the end
of this subtle and masterful farce. Floras's social ascent has not
been accomplished through hard work or equal opportunity, but through
favoritism and marriage. And the joke is on the Greek lower class,
which is misrepresented by Floras. Spanking Began in Paradise is a
good representative example of the farces produced during the "studio"
era in Greece. It maintained its popular appeal when it was shown on
Greek television during the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Lisa's school picnic songs, "I Have a Secret" and "The Grey Kitten,"
which blend innocent teenage tenderness with adult sex appeal,
continued to please Greek television viewers. "The Grey Kitten" sold
750,000 copies, becoming a serious rival to "Maduvala," a hit love
song sung by Stelios Kazantzidis.
IV.
Date in Midair, written and directed by Yiannis Dalianidis, set a new
record for ticket sales (617,423) in 1965 in the first-run cinemas of
Athens and Piraeus. While this film was under production, the French
film musical, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/Les parapluies de Cherbourg
(1964), made news in Greece. However, the Greek musical was influenced
more by its American than by its French, British, and German
counterparts. Generally speaking, a taste for film musicals was
developed along Western rather than Eastern models derived from
imports from the Near East and India.
There are four separate plot strands in Date in Midair that are
braided together. The first strand is about the love affair between
Mary Stahatou and Dimitris Nikolaou; the second and third concern the
love affair between Dimitris' friends and two sisters, Lia and Eli;
and the fourth one is about the love affair between Mary's older
sister and a commander (epismhnia dioikhth) in the Greek Royal Air
Force. Dalianidis uses plot formulas and gender stereotypes common to
musical films. Date in Midair consists of a series of alternating
segments between four male and four female leads who get romantically
involved. The story unravels from sequences where the boys meet the
girls to where the boys see the girls expose their hidden talents
before they decide to marry them, bringing the plot to a happy ending
that presumably resolves or reconciles the latent class and gender
tensions.
Mary Stathatou (Eleni Prokopiou) has won the title of Miss Greece in
Athens, and her older sister, Jenny (Rena Vlahopoulou) escorts her to
Paris, where Mary fails to win the title of Miss Europe but meets and
falls in love with Dimitris (Andrew Douzos), the son of a ship-owner.
The couple enjoy only a brief love affair in Paris because his father
rushes him back to Athens, to Anita, his rich fiance, and to military
training, which is mandatory for Greek citizens of his age. In the
Greek Royal Air Force, Dimitris makes friends with Yiannis (Yiannis
Voyiatzis) and Costas Papariyas (Costas Voutsas). His two friends meet
three young and unattached women: Mary Stathatou, Lia (Martha
Karayianni), and her sister Elli (Chloe Liaskou). They invite him to a
triple date with the girls, and he joins them. Dimitris and Mary, who
is a dancer, are reunited and renew their love affair. Lia and Elli
also become attached to his two friends. However, Dimitris cannot see
Mary as often as he would like, so his two friends help him out when
they realize that his commander (Yiannis Voyiatzis) is an infatuated
fan of Rena Vlahopoulou, a diva. They propose to stage a musical show
with Rena Vlahopoulou and Mary Stathatou for the entertainment of the
servicemen, and they obtain the commander's permission. Then, they
recruit Jenny, Mary's older sister, who looks exactly like Rena
Vlahopoulou, to play the part of the diva. Jenny agrees to perform at
the show for the sake of her sister. The commander thinks that Jenny
is Rena, but when the impostor falls in love with him, her concealed
identity causes all sorts of problems and funny misunderstandings. In
the end, all is cleared up and the story ends with the musical show
for the Air Force and for an experimental television channel in
Athens.
The ruse with the impostor impersonating the diva helps Dalianidis
blur the boundaries between reality and illusion because Rena
Vlahopoulou, who is cast in the double role of diva and Jenny,
impersonates herself. Music and dance become integral parts of the
plot development, which unravels by sustaining a deceptive sense of
continuity between reality and fantasy, which is expressed as wish
fulfillment. The production numbers unify the four couples, helping
them reach their romantic fulfillment despite their conflicting values
and limitations. Dalianidis structures the plot around the creation of
a show, and, in this way, gives himself the license to exploit male
voyeurism though image manipulation of the female body. The male
leads, along with Dalianidis camera, are cast as the viewers of
"their" women, who reveal their seductive bodies while singing or
dancing. Union with their men cannot take place unless they dress (or
undress) and behave in a manner appealing to male desire as conceived
by Dalianidis's screenplay and constructed by his camera work. The
pseudo-conflicts of the plot are resolved with solutions that involve
the mediation of musical numbers and entertainment.
The representation of femininity in Date in Midair is determined by
the Greek film studio's standardized notions of male desire. The
record ticket sale from the showing of Date in Midair in Athens and
Piraeus proves that Greek viewers (not exclusively male viewers)
aligned their gaze to that of Dalianidis's camera. His camera, in this
and other film musicals, depicts women from a male viewpoint. The skin
deep characterization of all the leads is a recurrent pattern in his
films. Their behavior is not aligned with their class and gender
specifications prescribed by Greek society in the mid- 1960s. Their
non-alignment (and the resulting discrepancy) makes his youthful
characters appear to be non-conformists. Lia, for example, is
presented as an emancipated, modern, carefree, seductive young woman
who embodies a new model of femininity for Greek women. Jenny, Mary's
homely and single older sister, is presented as a cosmopolitan Greek
who feels equally at home in Paris and in Petralona, a suburb of
Athens.
Dalianidis's camera zooms in to reveal the femininity of these Greek
women. Jenny is single not by choice, but by circumstance. She
believes that lack of physical beauty, social status, and a fat dowry
have formed a potent "anti-aphrodisiac" shield around her. She
discovers her femininity and sexuality when she begins impersonating
the diva. Her revealing performance fulfills the fantasy of the
commander, who asks her to marry him. Equally revealing is the dance
performance that transforms Elli from a plain "ugly duckling" to a
seductive and "graceful swan." Costas, who chooses her over the rich
Anita, Dimitris's former fiance, covers Elli's body after her dance in
order to hide it from the intrusive gaze of the camera--an
"instinctive" gesture that signifies his intention to keep the
enjoyment of her body for his eyes only. Costas's gesture, of course,
is deceptive and serves to excite the fantasy and voyeurism of
viewers.
Equally deceptive is the notion about the equalizing power of the
Greek Royal Air Force in which it is alleged that rich boys like
Dimitris are not treated any differently from poor boys like Costas.
Rights and privileges are meted out according to rank and seniority,
and the presumption that a hierarchical institution like the Greek
Royal Air Force could possibly illustrate democratic values to Greek
citizens involves a gross distortion of Greek history and Greek
reality. In fact, even the hierarchy of social class is observed in
the Air Force albeit superficially and mildly degraded. Costas, for
example, befriends the handsome and serious heir of the ship-owner.
Costas, a member of the lower-class, serves the immediate interests of
the scion of the Nikolaou family. His humor and shrewdness reflect
only a presumption of independence. In this film, the desire to
equalize the characters is directed toward gender rather than class
and expressed in a humorous attempt to lampoon the stereotype of the
autocratic "macho" officer who makes tough men tremble in his
presence. The commander, for example, is initially presented as an
authoritarian officer who orders everyone and everything. However,
when the commander decides to get married, he asks permission to marry
from his mother, to the great amusement of the men serving under him.
In a similar vein, the men are more ashamed and less confident about
their nudity than the women when they are ordered to remove their
clothes.
These and other amusing scenes in the film do not preclude the
intention for social critique, but, for the most part, when Dalianidis
juxtaposes traditional and modern elements in Greek music and society
in the 1960s, he is interested in promoting the idea of a Greek
society without class and gender conflicts. He quickly bridges the
class rift between poor Mary and rich Dimitris with love, song, dance,
and marriage. He associates the modernization of the Greeks with their
westernization, and he presumes that westernization will secure class
and gender equality because economic prosperity will resolve any
latent conflicts. In this way, Date in Midair distorts and displaces
the historical record and the collective memory of the Greeks. The
thematic message of his film proves unfounded when, two years later,
the military dictatorship of George Papadopoulos put restrictions on
the liberties of the Greek people that extended from the penal code to
the dress code. Under his dictatorship Greek television took its first
steps and aired films that were congenial to its political platform
through the EIRT and YENED channels.
The last scene of Date in Midair is the broadcast at the Experimental
Television Channel. "Everything is fine," Lia reassures the viewers
and the cast sings: "The years go by,/everything changes / and the
only thing that stays on / is an old memory./ Only love, only love, /
stays in our heart." The historical memory of the Greeks who lived and
died in the 1960s has already become a faded memory. Films like that
sadly distorted the actual experiences of the Greeks in the 1960s and
were aired repeatedly for the edification and entertainment of the
next generation of television viewers.
Filmography
Cacoyannis, Michael, dir. Stella/Stella (b/w, 97 min). Screenplay by
Iakovos Kambanellis. Photography by Costas Theodoridis. Music by Manos
Hadjidakis. Starring: Melina Mercori, Yioryos Foundas, Alekos
Alexandrakis. Athens: Milas Films, 1955.
Dalianidis, Yiannis, dir. Date in Midair/Rantevous ston aera (color,
97 min.). Screenplay by Yiannis Dalianidis. Photography by Pavlos
Fillipou. Music by Mimis Plessas. Starring: Rena Vlahopoulou, Costas
Voutsas, Martha Karayianni. Athens: Damaskinos-Mihailidis and Finos
Films, 1965.
Sakellarios, Alekos., dir. Spanking Began in Paradise/To ksilo vyike
apo to paradeiso (b/w, 98 min.). Screenplay by Alekos Sakellarios.
Photography by Dinos Katsouridis. Music by Manos Hadjidakis. Starring:
Aliki Vouyiouklaki, Dimitris Papamihail, Hristos Tsayaneas. Athens:
Finos Films, 1960.
Tzavellas, Yioryos, dir. The Drunkard/O Methistakas (b/w, 105 min).
Screenplay by Yioryos Tzavellas. Photography by Joseph Hepp. Music by
Costas Yiannidis. Starring: Orestis Makris, Dimitris Horn, Billy
Costantopoulou. Athens: Finos Films and Damaskinos-Mihailidis, 1950.
Bibliography
Athanasatou, Yianna. Ellinikos kinimatoyrafos, 1950-1967: Laiki mnimi
ke ideoloyia. Athens: Finatec, 2001.
Aktsoylou, Babis, ed. Yioryos Tzavellas. Thessaloniki: Thessaloniki
Film Festival, 1994.
Damianakos, Stahis. Paradosi antarsias ke laikos politismos. Athens:
Plethron, 1996
Emmanouil, Zahos. "Metapolemikos kinimatoyrafos, Meros C: To
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Kakoyiannis, Mihalis. Mnimes apo ti Stella: Stella, Senario. Athens:
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Kolovos, Nikos. "Sans Famille, Pas Melodrame! To Oikoyeneiako
melodrama ston Elliniko kinimatoyrafo." In Melodrama: Eidoloyikoi &
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laiki tehni sti maziki koultoura." In Melodrama: Eidoloyikoi &
ldeoloyikoi Metaschimatismoi, edited by Savvas Patsalidis and
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periodo, 1945-1967. Athens: Idrima Saki Karayioryi, 1995.
Kotaridis, Nikos, ed. Rembetes ke rembetiko trayoudi. Athens:
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Athens: Etaireia Ellinikon Skinotheton, 1984.
Andrew Horton, Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Video Studies at
the University of Oklahoma, is an award-winning screenwriter. He is an
author of some sixteen books, including two pioneering studies of Theo
Angelopoulos. Among other works with Greek themes are Bones in the
Sea: Time Apart On a Greek Island (1999) and Life Without A Zip Code:
Travels of an American Family in Greece and New Zealand (2000).
Originally Posted by The Nerd
