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L'Aveu
''The Confession'' (french: L'aveu) is a 1970 French-Italian film directed by Costa-Gavras starring Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. It is based on the true story of the Czechoslovak communist committed leftist Artur London, a defendant in the Slánský trial. Gavras did not intend the film as an anti-communist film but as a plea against totalitarianism and Stalinism. Plot Artur Ludvik, alias Gerard, is a loyal communist and hero of WWII who serves as the vice-minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia in 1951. He realizes he is being watched and followed, and meets to discuss this with a group of his friends who have also attained top government positions. They realize they are all being watched, even the chief of the same secret police force that is carrying out the surveillance. One day, Artur is arrested and jailed by an organization that declares itself "above the ruling party", and put in solitary confinement for months without being told the reason why. His wife Lis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras (short for Konstantinos Gavras; el, Κωνσταντίνος Γαβράς; born 12 February 1933) is a Greek-French film director, screenwriter, and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with political and social themes, such as the political thriller '' Z'' (1969), for which he won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and ''Missing'' (1982), for which he won the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Most of his films have been made in French; however, six of them were made in English. His film ''Z'' was the first film, and one of the few, to be nominated for both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film. Early life Costa-Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias, Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war. His father had been a member of the Pro-Soviet branch of the Greek Resistance, and was imprisoned during the Greek Civil War. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Coutard
Raoul Coutard (16 September 1924 – 8 November 2016) was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the Nouvelle Vague period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard. Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement. He shot over 75 films during a career that lasted nearly half a century. Biography Coutard originally planned to study chemistry, but switched to photography because of the cost of tuition. In 1945, Coutard was sent to participate in the French Indochina War; he lived in Vietnam for the next 11 years, working as a war photographer, eventually becoming a freelancer for ''Paris Match'' and '' Look''. In 1956, he was approached to shoot a film by Pierre Schoendoerffer, ''La Passe du Diable''. Coutard had never used a movie camera before, and reportedly agreed to the job because of a misunderstanding (he believed he was being hired ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Françoise Bonnot
Françoise Bonnot (17 August 1939 – 9 June 2018) was a French film editor with more than 40 feature film credits. Biography Bonnot was the daughter of Monique Bonnot, a film editor noted for several films directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. In her first film credit, Françoise Bonnot was the assistant to her mother on Melville's 1959 film, ''Two Men in Manhattan'' (1959). She and her mother co-edited the 1962 film, '' A Monkey in Winter'', that was directed by Henri Verneuil. At about this time Bonnot married Verneuil; she edited three more of his films in the 1960s. Bonnot edited Melville's 1969 film, '' Army of Shadows'', when her mother became unavailable. This film is about the French resistance fighters during the Second World War, and was a departure from Melville's more characteristic crime and detective films. Bonnot later remarked that Melville “... had known me since I was eight years old. It was like working with my big brother. He was a character––fascinating, ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yves Montand
Ivo Livi (), better known as Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991), was an Italian-French actor and singer. Early life Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy, to Giovanni Livi, a broom manufacturer, Ivo held strong Communist beliefs. Montand's mother Giuseppina Simoni was a devout Catholic. The family left Italy for France in 1923 following Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime. He grew up in Marseille, where, as a young man, he worked in his sister's beauty salon (Salon de Coiffure), and later on the docks. He began a career in show business as a music-hall singer. In 1944, he was discovered by Édith Piaf in Paris and she made him part of her act. Career Montand achieved international recognition as a singer and actor, starring in many films. His recognizably crooner songs, especially those about Paris, became instant classics. He was one of the best known performers at Bruno Coquatrix's Paris Olympia music hall, and toured with musicians inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artur London
Artur London (1 February 1915 – 8 November 1986) was a Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovak communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský Trial in 1952. Though he was sentenced to life in prison, he was freed in 1955; he then settled in France with his wife Lise London. In 1968 he published his memoirs in ''L'Aveu'' (''The Confession''), a book which resonated internationally, adapted by Costa-Gavras as The Confession (1970 film), the movie of the same name. Biography London was born in Ostrava, Margraviate of Moravia, Moravia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic) to a Jewish family. London spent 1934 to 1937 in Moscow. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, he left for Barcelona where he worked for SIM (Servicio de Información Militar), an intelligence service run by the Soviet NKVD. He moved to France after the defeat of the Republicans. In World War II, he was active in the French resistance, was arrested by the Nazism, Nazis and sent to the Mauthausen concentration ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Bouise
Jean Bouise (3 June 1929 – 6 July 1989) was a French actor. He was born in Le Havre. In the 1950s he helped to found Théâtre de la Cité, and was a player in the company. He entered films in the 1960s, and played a supporting roles in '' The Shameless Old Lady'', '' Z'', '' L'Aveu'', '' Out 1'', '' The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe'', '' Section spéciale'', and ''Monsieur Klein''. He received César nominations for his roles in '' Le vieux fusil'' and '' Le Juge Fayard dit Le Shériff'', before winning the Best Supporting Actor award for '' Coup de tête''. Subsequently, he appeared in ''Édith et Marcel'', '' Le Dernier Combat'', ''Subway'', ''The Big Blue'' and '' La Femme Nikita''. He died in Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of .... ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleep Deprivation
Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary widely in severity. Acute sleep deprivation is when an individual sleeps less than usual or does not sleep at all for a short period of time – usually lasting one to two days. Chronic sleep deprivation means when an individual routinely sleeps less than an optimal amount for ideal functioning. Chronic sleep deficiency is often confused with the term insomnia. Although both chronic sleep deficiency and insomnia share decreased quantity and/or quality of sleep as well as impaired function, their difference lies in the ability to fall asleep. Sleep deprived individuals are able to fall asleep rapidly when allowed but those with insomnia have difficulty falling asleep. The average adult needs seven or more hours of sleep per night to mainta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Show Trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. When aimed at individuals on the basis of protected classes or characteristics, such trials are examples of political persecution. The term was first recorded in 1928. China During the Land Reform Movement, between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as counterrevolutionaries during the early years of Communist China. After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, show trials were given to "rioters and counter-revolutionaries" involved in the protests and the subsequent military massacre. Chinese Nobel Peac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Rehabilitation
Political rehabilitation is the process by which a disgraced member of a political party or a government is restored to public respectability and thus political acceptability. The term is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or standing, including deceased people who are vindicated posthumously. Historically, the concept is usually associated with Communist states and parties where, as a result of shifting political lines often as part of a power struggle, leading members of the Communist Party find themselves on the losing side of a political conflict and out of favour, often to the point of being denounced, imprisoned or even executed. These individuals may be rehabilitated either as a result of capitulating to the dominant political line and renouncing their former beliefs or allegiances to disgraced leaders, or they may be rehabilitated as a result of a change in the political lead ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and most of Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms. The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The freedoms granted included a loosening of restrictions on the media, speech and travel. After national discussion of dividing the country into a federation of three republics, Bohemia, Moravia-Silesia and Slovakia, Dubček oversaw the decision to split into two, the Czech Socialist Republic and Slovak Socialist Republic. This dual federation was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jorge Semprún
Jorge Semprún Maura (; 10 December 1923 – 7 June 2011) was a Spanish writer and politician who lived in France most of his life and wrote primarily in French. From 1953 to 1962, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Semprún lived clandestinely in Spain working as an organizer for the exiled Communist Party of Spain, but was expelled from the party in 1964. After the death of Franco and change to a democratic government, he served as Minister of Culture in Spain's socialist government from 1988 to 1991. He was a screenwriter for two successive films by the Greek director Costa-Gavras, '' Z'' (1969) and '' The Confession'' (1970), which dealt with the theme of persecution by governments. For his work on the films '' The War Is Over'' (1966) and '' Z'' (1969) Semprún was nominated for the Academy Award. In 1996, he became the first non-French author elected to the ''Académie Goncourt'', which awards an annual literary prize. He won the 1997 Jerusalem Prize, and the 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warsaw Pact Invasion Of Czechoslovakia
The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Hungarian People's Republic. The invasion stopped Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring liberalisation reforms and strengthened the authoritarian wing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). About 250,000 Warsaw Pact troops (afterwards rising to about 500,000), supported by thousands of tanks and hundreds of aircraft, participated in the overnight operation, which was code-named Operation Danube. The Socialist Republic of Romania and the People's Republic of Albania refused to participate, while East German forces, except for a small number of specialists, were ordered by Moscow not to cross the Czechoslovak border just hours before the invasion because of fears of greater resistance if German troops were i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
