13  Takis Yannopoulos

Takis Yannopoulos has worked with most well-known Greek directors during his forty-five years in the Industry, including Theodoros Angelopoulos. Like many of the individuals in this book Takis exemplifies the total preoccupation with the work, which characterises the dedicated editor.

He was interviewed by my good friend, the distinguished film director, Eleni Alexandrakis.

I was born in Athens in November 1940. My family was very poor – my father had a small shop at the wholesale vegetable market. My mother was not working – she brought up my brother, sister and myself. I finished primary school at a central Athens neighbourhood and secondary school in the suburbs. Afterwards I went to study law at the University of Athens. In the third year I had to decide whether to continue my studies or find a job, and because we needed the money I left the university. I turned to the cinema thanks to my mother’s brother, who was a successful film director.

As a child I couldn’t have any pastimes apart from playing with other children in the street. School was the only outlet; ancient Greek mythology and Homer’s epics were taught very thoroughly at the time, and for us they were like fairy tales. Our financial situation did not allow trips abroad, neither could I afford to attend expensive shows. However I went to the cinema as often as I could – sometimes even twice a day. I really loved cinema.

I started working in the cinema in the summer of 1958, as soon as I finished secondary school at the age of eighteen. As I said, my mother’s brother was behind it all. He was a producer and film director named Andreas Lambrinos.¹ In those days most films were shot ‘silent’ and the crews consisted of seven or eight technicians who did everything. I served as assistant director, continuity, best boy, runner, boom-man, if needed, and whatever else was necessary for the shooting. I’d buy lunch, or paints or whatever was needed for props. This is how my life in the film industry began.

From morning till afternoon I worked on location and in the evening I would go straight to the editing room as I was also the editor’s assistant. My job was to put the rushes in order, and gradually, because of the dubbing that was common in those days, I learned how to synchronise image and sound. At the same time I was studying all the little details that make up this magic invention of the twenty-four frames a second.

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Those were my first experiences with cinema. Two years later in 1960 I met a great editor of that time. His name was Aristidis Karydis-Fouks.² Sadly he died four years ago. He took me at his side and I worked as his assistant for ten years. To him I owe the most important things I have learned. I believe that Karydis was a master craftsman who influenced me greatly. Of course I must also acknowledge the contribution of my uncle, Andreas Lambrinos – who however died early – and the other important editors of the time who influenced and helped me a lot. Nevertheless the person to whom I owe most is Aristidis Karydis-Fouks.

My initial experiences as a film editor came about in 1959 and 1960. My uncle urged me to start editing, just like that. He showed me the Steenbeck and made me start editing although I didn’t know the first thing about it. Knowing me well all my life he insisted on my becoming an editor. I as a youngster preferred the noise of the shoot and the socialising of the crew to the lonely darkness of the editing room. Abandoning my studies, I found myself in the glamorous world of cinema, which had nothing to do with the misery of post-civil war Greece. Nevertheless, my personal attitude is that I examine very carefully everything that I have to do and test it in every possible way before I feel ready to get on with it. At first editing seemed a bit boring to me. It is the way that great love stories begin, those that determine a person’s life. After the first two films I edited in 1959 and 1960, I realised that film editing is a very demanding and serious job and that spending my life doing it would be a challenge. I find exciting the process by which the rules of editing are subconsciously carried through in your daily life, your relationships, and the way you set up your own reality. As if your life is a film, only instead of working on it on the editing machine you live it through.

After those two films I stopped editing and became an assistant to Karydis for the next ten years. I believe that film-making is an art that is learned through practice and not in theory. I could say that my life as a feature film editor really started, or re-started, in 1971. The films which left a mark on me, which made me a different person – even if this may sound too strong – the films that helped me evolve as an editor were first of all my first two films. The first was called ‘Tis mias drachmis ta yassemia’ (‘A Pennyworth of Jasmines’) and the second was ‘Oi yperifanoi’ (‘The Proud Ones’), both directed by my uncle. That was my ‘baptism of fire’, violent and revealing as it was meant to be. After a ten-year break in 1971 I had total responsibility for editing a film produced by James Paris³ and directed by Grigoris Grigoriou⁴ called ‘Oi teleftaioi tou Roupel’ (‘The Last Ones at Roupel’).

A milestone in my career was a film directed by Pantelis Voulgaris⁵ in 1979 called ‘Eleftherios Venizelos’ (the name of a great Greek statesman of the first decades of the 20th century). It was a very big production, perhaps the biggest ever made in Greece, and established my reputation as an editor in Greek cinema. Apart from Voulgaris, other directors who influenced my work were Freda Liapa,⁶ Michalis Cacoyannis,⁷ and another director with an international profile, Nikos Koundouros.⁸ Indeed all the directors I have worked with gave me something important and valuable. I wouldn’t like to single out other films apart from one by Menalaos Karamagiolis⁹ called ‘Black-out’. It was a very difficult job, which I remember for its particularities and the challenges it posed.

I’ve only cut one film for Theo Angelopoulos,¹⁰ ‘The Beekeeper’ in 1986, but it was an important experience in my life, with both positive and negative aspects. Angelopoulos is a great director, very widely known, who has a very personal way of making films. It was an honour for me to have worked with him. However I feel the same about all Greek directors I have worked with. It is a difficult job making films in Greece and whoever does it deserves to be praised for their endurance and perseverance.

‘Eternity and a Day’ by Theo Angelopoulos (Courtesy of Artificial Eye)

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It would be too much to say that editing is equal to directing but in my opinion it is the next most important job, because it is an overall re-evaluation of both the script and the directing. The editor has a decisive presence in the creation of a film. With his or her talent and experience the editor helps to give the film the right rhythm. He builds up the development of the story, which has already been set up in the script. Being aware of all intentions and having his hands in all the footage the editor can complement or re-evaluate the end product. Combining the original intentions and the fortunate or unfortunate moments that came up during the production of the film, the editor supports the intentions of the scriptwriter and the director regarding the dramaturgical development of the film. In the end he proposes a finished film, which unifies these elements and also takes into account the viewer, the ultimate judge of the film. Editing is the stage for vital decisions.

A scene in a film I cut that I remember for a special reason was a love scene in the film ‘Black Out’ directed by Menalaos Karamagiolis.¹¹ Dramaturgically it was a violent scene, which had to render not only the nightmare of the protagonist, but also the Kafkaesque impasse of the story. I spent endless hours in the cutting room, moving the rushes back and forth until an idea occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to put into words. My hands implemented it as if of their own volition, following the thoughts that I couldn’t express. It was very clear in my head what I wanted to achieve. It came from the way the two actors acted in that scene. The result was a violent cut with many rhythmic repetitions of the same movements. This I think helped to express what the director wanted to do in this particular scene to give it an autonomous and functional presence in the film. Since I believe that the particular sequencing of setups is part of the editing process this scene stays in my mind as a happy combination and an effective ‘capriciousness’.

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In my opinion the European cinema, the European director or scriptwriter gives great emphasis to people, to human relationships and everyday problems. On the contrary, Hollywood had focussed on action; most Hollywood films are based on action and sensationalism. With the development of digital effects we watch scenes we couldn’t even imagine twenty years ago. Perhaps this is because profit is the principle aim of the American cinema. I don’t criticise this; I know it’s an industry that has to survive. In Europe where the industry is on a smaller scale, there is a scope for more freedom. In Europe a film can be made without the producer being worried whether it is going to make a lot of money.

While, as I’ve already said, European film-makers produce films that focus on people and their relationships, American films want to manipulate the viewers without allowing them to participate creatively. This is exactly the rhythm that one discerns in the editing of the film. That is one can say that dialectical narrative belongs to the European cinema. Fast editing, incredible action, that is cuts that come massively and successively – within seconds – only allow the viewer to appreciate the film by its rhythm; the characters disappear and emphasis is given to what will amaze the viewer rather than the substance of the story.

I believe that the demands of editing are different in an American film. When I worked as an assistant editor on both English and American films, with both English and American editors I noticed that directors usually say ‘boom, boom, boom’; they give a tempo regardless of the dramaturgical requirements of the scene. The cuts have to change every sixty or eighty frames, perhaps even faster. This determines the way the director will tell the story; the way the atmosphere will work. In American productions – at least that is what I as an editor feel – rhythm is the most important aspect for the director; his concern is the harmony of the rhythm. He or she wants to make a film that rolls fast, whose rhythm is not uneven. By contrast the European director leaves silences in the film and creates plausible and realistic situations, aiming at the involvement of the audience and not at a cascading choreography of things that work only as entertainment. To the European mentality time and space are of primary importance and this attitude effects editing as well.

The silences that a European director leaves in a film allow the spectator to recognise things, which are not said or are not dramatised. However the need to have characters true to life, which give the full range of human feelings is definitely essential. Human reactions are unfortunately more complex than the one-dimensional and superficial behaviour presented in American films. In American films there is a more unified, a rather ‘mass’ perception of everything that concerns feelings, reactions and the psychological substance of things.

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I have chosen this job because it offers unlimited freedom, which, however, has to be determined by strict, unwritten rules. I believe that technology helps but also exercises some influence. It may offer wonderful solutions and ways out, whilst also imposing severe restrictions. With Avid for example, so many things have to be taken into account for a cut to be made that they consume some of the creative thinking and participation in the narrative.

I believe that the ideal way of editing is to cut the picture on the Steenbeck and then fix the sound and music on Avid. If we were to talk about digital effects no one knows where all this is going to end. Two recent films, ‘The Gladiator’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ are two examples of what digital technology is capable of. I think that such technology may take away some of the magic of the cinema; it sets up characters and scenes that are not real, that are made by the computer, which, in my view, reduces instantly something of the astonishment we call cinema.

I do not believe that the Avid makes editing easier and simpler. Whenever I work on Avid I use an operator. The reason is that I don’t want to be bothered with the operation of the machine I prefer to concentrate on the narrative rather than the technique. Over the years my approach transformed the practical process on the Steenbeck into part of the creative process. The automatic movements like cutting the film or stopping the Steenbeck at the right frame is like part of a choreography, necessary for me to be able to immerse completely in the specific requirements of each film. It is as if the material itself determined its own final cut, through a fundamental sense of the rhythm and the narrative process.

So the mechanical movements of the Steenbeck have served me well. The editor on the Steenbeck stops to make a mark and confirms the cut; then he takes two ends and joins them. At the same time his mind works on the specific cut. To do that on the Avid you have to press ten different buttons and press them in the right order; you have to concentrate hard because if you make a mistake, the result will be different from that intended. Computers have their own way of thinking and functioning; they remind me of a housewife obsessed with the rules, who, has a limited way of thinking and little inventiveness. Everything that creates trouble and takes attention away from editing is harmful to the film. When I cut a scene, I want to think only of that scene, so I always use an Avid operator.

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There is a classical Greek saying that ‘everybody has the same chances and the future is unpredictable.’ Of course, whoever said it, didn’t refer to editing but to life itself. But isn’t life a combination of things pursued and lived, and difficulties to overcome? Nobody knows the future. It is a fact that technological development is very fast, that invention and improvements to computers are tremendous. Let’s hope that they will be used in the most creative way and that we won’t abolish the most vital human assets: the breadth of the human mind, its inventiveness and ability to subvert.

Of course there is no way I would reject the Avid. I’ve already said that technology is indispensable. If used creatively it will definitely make the whole process of composing a film easier. I just don’t think that technology should sweep everything away, and in particular it should not upset the unpredictable and amazing ability of the human mind to surprise. After all aren’t all technological achievements creations of the human mind?

I can’t say exactly what the future will be like. However I don’t believe in artificial intelligence deprived of feeling. I don’t know if there will be only hard discs and optical fibres. I believe that the editor will continue to be indispensable and that human beings will never be replaced by machinery. Improvisation and mistakes are all necessary, and can be realised only by the human mind. I believe that film editors will always be necessary, no matter what media for image or sound are to be invented. I don’t think the director and editor should be the same person. In my opinion everything – be it a feature film, a documentary or even a commercial – requires what is called in Greek ‘the third eye’.

At all stages film-making is based on collective work. A person more detached than the director is needed to judge the rushes objectively. Perhaps technology will reduce the editor’s role as it stands today. At the moment Greek film editors who can’t use the Avid are marginalised. Many directors will be satisfied using just an Avid ‘operator’ and this has nothing to do with proper editing, that is with synthesis. This is an example of how the role of the film editor is nowadays underestimated. This may get worse in the next two or three years, but even if this happens, when the first unavoidable excitement of digital film editing is over the needs of filming itself will re-impose the role of the creative editor.

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Due to my genuine love for editing, this has become an essential part of my life. I feel happy at work. I am used to working many hours, as many as I can, with no limits or restrictions. I can’t conceive that it is possible for anybody to edit well – something as fundamental as life itself, for it imitates life – following the timetable of a clerk. It is impossible for me to start editing knowing beforehand how long it will take, or to work at two projects at the same time. When an editor becomes involved in a scene, he is submerged and lost in its material. He enters the reality and psychology of the characters, and tries to re-create the situation in its totality. This can only be achieved if he or she spends hours in the company of the characters, as if cohabiting with them. Sometimes the characters themselves send the editor away, so that he may distance himself before coming back again, while at other times he has to sit back and wait. How then, can one finish when the eight-hour working day is over and leave a scene unfinished in the middle of the creative process?

There are perhaps some colleagues in Greece and abroad who can work like that, and I respect this. For me it is impossible to keep to such a schedule. I like to, sit in the editing room for as long as I want, maybe fifteen or twenty-four hours. My personal record is two-and-a half days of continuous work, but usually I work a fourteen-hour day. I don’t have any particular rituals apart from coffee-making in the morning, during which I feel as if I am about to abandon outside life to concentrate exclusively on the editing process.

Being freelance there are times when there is no work, for say three or six months and times when one film follows another closely. When I’m not at work something really changes in my life rhythm; I feel insecure, something is missing, perhaps because my life is interwoven with what I do, and I look forward to the day I will start editing again. Being freelance I have to learn how to live my life when not editing.

I don’t believe in good and bad editors. I believe in good and bad rushes. A very good editor may make a mediocre film because of the poor rushes. There are no editor – magicians; there are simply good rushes, which help in the making of good editing. For me the ideal editor is someone who loves his or her job and has a kind of love affair with it, who sees his job as if it were a lover. He should love it more than anything else, though this may be exaggerated, owing perhaps to the fact that I am not married and have no family.

The ideal editor is not someone who makes good cuts or edits a scene with great speed. The ideal or good editor is someone who gets into a scene and loves it, who composes with his heart, who gets involved passionately and actively. It is at this point that the actual sparks emerge and the creative differences of opinion with the director take place. The best editor is someone who lives the film as if it were his real life.

In my professional life of forty-five years I’ve worked with many directors. With some of them I’ve had a really good time, with others it was reasonable and with a couple of them it was awful. I think the relationship between director and editor can affect the final result in many ways. When the editor sits on his chair and cuts a scene he or she has to feel very comfortable. This can be achieved when the director who sits behind him is supportive, co-operative and easy to work with, communicative rather than over-critical. When the editor feels that the director is always critical, he starts wondering whether what he does is good or bad, and this creates a situation fraught with difficulties. When a good relationship develops this is visible in the film itself.

In the same way as there are good directors, good musicians or good writers there are also good editors. I don’t believe people are born ‘great’ leaving apart geniuses, exceptional individuals, such as musicians who played great piano at the age of eight. We film editors ought to have a complex and creative relationship with things, to distance ourselves from our private life and environment, so that we may recognise the values of pauses, reactions and evocative rhythm. Undoubtedly the fact that editing is not only a creative process but a technical job as well, means that many things have to be taught and are learned while practising. Of course creativity, the ability to compose – because editing consists of composition and association – well this requires some talent, quite a lot of talent, but it also requires love for the task at hand, because if there is no love for the work, one cannot pay proper attention to it. In this case the editor does not develop and repeats himself. Thus it takes close attention and it takes effort.

However hard he or she may try an untalented individual who has no internal rhythm will never manage to create a film or even a scene with the right rhythm. Talent must be cultivated either by having a very good teacher mentor, sitting next to him or her, watching and learning or by going to a very good special school. Unfortunately, quality film studies are non-existent in Greece. I for one never went to film school and everything I know I learnt while working as an assistant, sitting for ten years behind Karydis’ back. He was working editing a scene, while I was thinking how I would go about it if I were the editor. When the scene was finished I’d compare my thoughts to what my teacher had done. At times they were completely different, mine were entirely wrong, at other times they were almost identical. This was a great, often shocking lesson for me. I learned a lot from all those reversals and surprises.

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Nowadays in Greece there are about 15–18 feature films shot each year and there is the risk of long periods of unemployment. Despite all that I could say I am very selective, or perhaps too fussy. I am very careful over who I am going to work with. In Greece we all know each other quite well. There are about two at most three hundred of us who have something to do with the cinema. When one knows the director one is aware of what kind of films he or she has done. Thus one can decide whether it would be best not to work with him but wait for something better to turn up. In Greece, as everywhere, there are many films of poor quality. Of course I try to avoid working on rubbish films, which I have succeeded in so far. I can’t know in advance whether a film is going to be good or successful – nobody can tell that, but at least I try to work on films of decent quality, that can interest me in some way.

Having agreed to work on a film I take the script, read it two, or three times, and then leave it aside. I want to work and see the rushes without being influenced by the script because very often, at least here in Greece the rushes are very different from the script. This may be due to the problems of production or financial reasons or there may be special circumstances during the shooting. What the director shoots has often very little to do with the script. Thus the reality of the film is just the rushes and nothing else. I’ll use the script when I have problems with understanding what the director wants to say with a scene. Then there is nothing to do but go back to the script, re-read the scene and the one immediately before and after it, so that I nay get the feeling of the action. I like to edit the film on the basis of the pictures and the way the actors play and not on the basis of the written word.

Every change that happens during the shooting can have a positive effect on the final result. Fortunately the rushes are live images of various situations whereas script pages are cold pieces of paper with black and white characters. In the rushes there are people who laugh and cry, who fall in love and who sometimes turn the substance of a film in a different direction. When one goes carefully through the rushes one gets the vital feeling which leads to an understanding of its specific significance and the successful editing of the scene.

When I edit a feature film I start from the beginning. I want to have the whole narrative line from the start – to have an assembly of all the shots in the right order. Then I start cutting as if I’m working on the final cut of the film. In my view editing first scene 15 and then scene 3 followed by the ending and then going back to scene 45 is pretty ineffective. In this way one can neither understand nor control the narrative and the rhythm of the film. The inner rhythm of the shots determines the final rhythm of the editing. When the director has given a slow inner rhythm to a film, in my view, it is wrong for the editor to try to speed it up. This will be disastrous, because there will be inconsistencies in individual scenes as much as in the film as a whole. In order to ‘sniff’, to understand, to get to know the rhythm of the film, the rhythm the director wishes to give, the editor has to work on the film from the beginning, as if he or she is to re-write the script after shooting, following of course the original. Only after half an hour of edited material can I start realising what kind of work is needed, what kind of rhythm the film should have. After the first fifteen or twenty minutes I am still searching for the director’s rhythm.

Every time a cut is finished the editor has to watch it on the big screen. There is a great deal of difference between watching a film from a distance of 80cm in the editing room on an Avid, a TV monitor or a Steenbeck and seeing it on a proper screen. On the big screen it is easier to be aware of the rhythm and possible deficiencies. Monitors are like TV, not like cinema. After watching each cut I go back to it, to change and improve things, perhaps even changing its rhythm completely. Only after watching the film in one go can one feel the rhythm of it. Appreciate if it’s too fast or too slow, if the plot evolves in the right way, if it has to be speeded up or slowed down. If the film needs to ‘breathe’ or if it needs what I call an ‘American’, that is a fast, cut.

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If we assume that in theory there are three hundred rules of good editing there are also another three hundred rules that force on to disregard the first set. There has to be a certain freedom. The rules of editing come through the rushes and the scenes themselves. One should be ready to reverse the rules at any time, whenever they are inappropriate for the specific dramaturgical needs and the particular rhythm of a film. The editor may do jump cuts or put the same action twice, that is he or she should be free to exercise his or her own judgement and do things which are forbidden in theory but are nevertheless required by a particular scene.

Editing against the rules requires the right judgement and personality, and plenty of courage. This shouldn’t be done to show off or as a display of power against the director and producer. It should express a fundamental need that springs from the editor’s creative relationship with the film. This is because the editor offers a different point-of-view. The director may have something in mind – something which he may be taking for granted. It is the editor’s responsibility to suggest two or three ways in which the scene can be cut that might work better than the director’s original idea. Do you realise how vital it is for these two to co-operate and be well disposed to each other? That is why I think that this relationship resembles a game of table tennis, with both sides giving and taking all the time, until they get the finest results. Nothing is predetermined, nothing can be taken for granted. Especially nowadays when, after a century of cinema, everything seems to have already been said and everything is being re-defined.

I believe that sound is as important as picture. I often tell my friends that the viewers, because it is they who should be our first pre-occupation, must first of all be able to hear clearly all the actors’ lines. It is awful to go to a film and hear somebody in the audience wondering ‘what did that actor say? I didn’t hear it properly’. I say it as a joke, however complaints about the quality of sound are frequent, which means we must be very careful. I’m very interested in sound in relation to picture. I like working with it, because in Greece there are no specialist sound or music or dialogue editors, as is the case in America, England and the rest of Europe. In Greece the editor does everything on his own: He cuts the picture, creates the sound effects and atmospheres, lays the music to the picture and synchronises the foleys.¹²

Sound design doesn’t exist in Greece. There are either no good enough reasons for dealing specifically with designing or creating sound or there is a shortage of money or time, and the outcome is that sound requirements for Greek films are kept to a minimum. This film, ‘Black Out’, which I keep referring to because it was important to me, was the first film made in Greece which used the DTS¹³ system in 1997, and it was a great experience. The subject of the film was particularly appropriate since it had warplanes, air battles and so on. Working on the sound was very interesting because we made sounds in the computer from scratch and it worked very well. I’m really proud of what we did for that film, given that it happened in a country in which sound techniques have neither a strong tradition nor trained specialists.

Music is very important, at times extremely important for a film. I believe music should be used wherever needed and be used for functional rather than decorative purposes. A film is not helped by music that is overtly forceful or at such a high level that constrains the spectator’s feelings. I recently saw a film in which the music was out of context. Undoubtedly it was ‘good’ music, but it was the director’s fault that he didn’t communicate with the composer effectively and the latter came up with music that had nothing to do with the image and rhythm of the film. I’ve been known to experiment with various musical themes for hours at a time, overturning the relationship between music and picture, finding the right moments that hadn’t been suggested for the particular music piece, but nevertheless work better than the original ones. Like everything else this needs experimenting and many rehearsals to achieve the necessary balance required by the script, the plot and the director’s preferences.

I think that the film editor’s personality influences his work. One’s culture, sentiments, beliefs and general outlook all these affect one’s work. With my cuts I manipulate and define the characters’ psychology, the way each actor will say one line. Take for example a love scene, in which a young man confesses his love for a young woman. The scene can be presented through shots of just the man or just the woman, or the voice can overlap while concentrating on the reaction of the one who listens. This means that the editor uses his or her own personality, the way he or she experiences the human reactions. He may think that what is important in the particular scene is not the person who talks and edits accordingly. This has nothing to do with technique, it comes through the editor’s own experiences of similar situations, his own beliefs and feelings, and the way he or she perceives the specific dramaturgical needs. It often happens that you watch a scene after a while and feel as if you have really lived through it.

I definitely prefer to cut a variety of films. I wouldn’t like to limit myself to a specific genre. I’m not even sure whether there are genres in Greece. As I’ve already said, out of fifteen films per year an editor may have a share of one or two. So one doesn’t have the luxury to choose genres and variety becomes a necessity. After all editing is a profession. Nowadays if one finishes a film one can’t afford to wait for the next feature film, which might be the same genre, but has to do whatever job comes along to make a living. You can’t abandon the job because it will abandon you in its turn. This means that the editor may have to work on a commercial, then go to a documentary about the Aegean sea, followed by a feature film on a totally different subject. So the variety of the films I edit is dictated by reality and the film demands in Greece, my country.

Notes

1.  Andreas Lambrinos – director, writer, active in 1950s and 1960s.

2.  Aristidis Karydis-Fouks – aside from his editing he has been a cinematographer, actor, set-decorator, writer and director.

3.  James Paris – (1920–82), Producer.

4.  Grigoris Grigoriou – born 1919, Athens, Director.

5.  Pantelis Voulgaris – born in 1940. The film on the politician was made in 1980.

6.  Freda Liapa – made ‘The Years of the Big Heat’, 1992.

7.  Michalis Cacoyannis – born 1922 in Cyprus, came to prominence in 1950’s with a series of films – ‘Stella’, 1955, ‘Girl in Black’, 1957, ‘A Matter of Dignity’ 1957. Work of cinematographer Walter Lassally in black and white was stunning. Greatest international success was ‘Zorba the Greek’,1964.

8.  Nikos Koundouros – born 1926, made ‘Young Aphrodites’ (1963), stunning imagery.

9.  Menalaos Karamagiolis – director, born 1962.

10.  Theo Angelopoulos – born 1935 in Athens, now the most prominent Greek director. The Beekeeper (1986), with Marcello Mastroainni. First major success ‘The Travelling Players’ (1975) also ‘Eternity and a Day’ (1998).

11.  Black Out, 1998, with Hanna Schygulla.

12.  Foleys – replacement of sound effects named after a Tom Foley who invented the system.

13.  DTS – digital sound system.