Word: mercouri
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...honesty and bravery of her self-exposure, and since stars of a certain age are thought to combine volatility and vulnerability in a colorful way, the opportunities for bravura effects are endless. The opportunities for tedious egocentricity are there too-so much so in the case of Melina Mercouri, in this vehicle that her husband, Jules Dassin, has created for her, that the movie has the suffocating air of a vanity production...
...Mercouri plays a fading film star who returns to her native Greece to appear in Medea and also in a TV film about her preparation for the role. As a publicity stunt she arranges to visit, in jail, an American woman (Ellen Burstyn) who, like Medea, has committed infanticide. What with a demanding rehearsal schedule and the raging and pouting she inflicts on her director and her entourage, you would think the Mercouri character would have no time left to feel guilty about exploiting the half-mad murderess, but she does. Repeatedly she goes back into the prison...
...nothing very vital is added to anyone's understanding of that classic figure, and Mercouri's performance in long scenes from Medea doesn't help much either. There is much eye rolling, teeth baring and anguished screeching, but no break in the clouds of self-absorption that always hover around her. Finally, the modern Medea's story gets told, the play opens, and the picture ends, leaving the audience no wiser...
...into the government election center and lifted both hands high in the classic V sign. At their old headquarters building in the commercial and student section of Exarheia, youthful, bearded PASOK workers joyfully embraced as they heard the news about notable new Deputies who had won election: Actress Melina Mercouri (Never on Sunday), comfortably elected-to a seat representing the port of Piraeus-after an unsuccessful try in 1974; and Lady Amalia Fleming, widow of penicillin's discoverer, a bacteriologist and a political prisoner under the junta...
...Melina Mercouri, upon winning a seat in the Greek parliament: "A close link has been established with the people. They treat me as if I am the Madonna of Paris who is going to perform miracles for them...