THE CONFESSION

France, 1970,134 minutes, Colour.
Yves Montand, Simone Signoret, Gabriele Ferzetti.
Directed by Costa Gavras.

The Confession is associated in most people's minds with Z, because the same director, Costa Gavras, the same screenwriter, Jorge Semprun, and the same principal actor, Yves Montand (appearing here with his wife, Simone Signoret) are involved. Z was a drama focussing critical attention on the dangerous effects of extreme right-wingism. In The Confession, the totalitarianism and double-think of the extreme left is criticised. The Confession is not as engrossing as Z. Rather its effect is cumulative as it makes the audience share in the fear, torture, fatigue, hunger and humiliation of the protagonist.

There is little dramatic action with the result that scenes with Artur London's wife and flash-forwards to 1968 are welcome as variations in the grim impact of the film.

The Confession is based on the memoirs of Artur London, still a loyal Communist, who suffered in the political purges and rigged trials of the early 50's. He sees these as a Stalinist aberration of Communism and the film ends apprehensively as in 1968 Soviet repressionist tanks invade Prague. Yves Montand gives his customary dignity to the role (perhaps too much dignity, for he retains so much poise throughout an almost two-year ordeal). Heavy and oppressive, the film terrorises us, as his experience does the protagonist, into a loathing of double-think.

1. Did you grasp well Artur London's active Communist background (Spain, French Resistance, Czech loyalty) and his important political position at the time of his arrest?

2. Why was he followed and arrested? Were adequate reasons given? Why didn't party members intervene?

3. What is the nature of a Communist political purge? How Was London affected? (Note how his accusers remind him of his approval of a similar Hungarian trial.)

4. What is The Confession attacking? Is it Communism itself or a particular type of Communism, Stalinism?

5. How does the film illustrate totalitarian and party 'double-think'?

6. What impact did the continued torture sequences make on you? Did you feel you shared his fear, oppression, fatigue, hunger, humiliation? What torture affected you most?

7. Did London (in the film) look as if he had been exhaustingly tortured, kept walking, or did he remain well in possession of himself?

8. How did the scenes with London's wife affect the mood of the film?

9. Were the interrogators in good faith? note London's later meeting with his main interrogator who cannot understand how it happened and how he was involved and used.

10. Why did London consent to the rigged trial?

11. What was the effect of showing scenes of London at the Riviera in the mid-60's reminiscing about what had happened? Was this an effective dramatics device for the film?

12. What impression did the trial make on you, the memorised questions and answers, the pretended openness of the trial to the mass media, the fear of the defendants of forgetting their lines? What was so funny about the accused whose trousers fell down? What did this show about the trial and the defendants.?

13. What were London's reactions after his release?

14. What was the point of ending the film at the eve of the publication of London's book (with the approval of the party) and the eve of the Russian invasion of 1968 and the slogan on the wall, "Lenin wake up. They have gone mad. "?

15. Was the technique of interrogation, torture and trial as the film's structure satisfactory? Was there enough dramatic action?

16. Compare the film with Z in technique, impact and political viewpoint under attack.