My husband told me his Zorba story, or at least one of them, a while back, and it stuck with me.<\/p>
I never liked “Zorba the Greek”. \u00a0I grew up with men like Zorba – crude, dirty, full of themselves, pretentiously primitive. \u00a0They were the kind of people who were mean to their wives, hunted out of cruelty and liked to tease little girls.<\/p>
I thought Zorba to be a man without honor: taking advantage of women because of a rationale that to do otherwise would be the one sin that God could not forgive, squandering his friend’s minimal inheritance by trying to make himself out to be an expert in construction. \u00a0The filmmaker’s absurd conclusion, that idiotic dance on the beach, is insulting: it would have been much more life-affirming if Alan Bates’ character had knocked Anthony Quinn’s block off.<\/p>
Thus, it surprised me that Ron, a bright, educated man with a strong sense of ethics, would have found the film so compelling.<\/p>
I thought that it might be the music, but I’ve heard real Greek dance music, and it’s dark, musky, sensual. \u00a0In contrast, Mikis Theodorakis’\u00a0watered-down score is timid, tepid, commercial.<\/p>
There’s a big Greek church a couple of towns over, and I’m planning to invite Ron to attend their annual festival next year. \u00a0We’ll see if we can generate some heat for ourselves there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband told me his Zorba story, or at least one of them, a while back, and it stuck with me.I never liked “Zorba the Greek”. \u00a0I grew up with men like Zorba – crude, dirty, full of themselves, pretentiously … Continue reading