Costa-Gavras

The Confession

The Confession

The master of the political thriller, Costa-Gavras became an instant phenomenon after the mammoth success of Z, and he quickly followed it with the equally riveting The Confession. Based on a harrowing true story from the era of Soviet bloc show trials, the film stars Yves Montand as a Czechoslovak Communist Party official who, in the early fifties, is abducted, imprisoned, and interrogated over a frighteningly long period, and left in the dark about his captors’ motives. Also starring Simone Signoret and Gabriele Ferzetti, the film is an unflinching, intimate depiction of one of the twentieth century’s darkest chapters, told from one bewildered man’s point of view.

Film Info

  • Italy, France
  • 1970
  • 138 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.66:1
  • French
  • Spine #759

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Costa-Gavras, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • You Speak of Prague: The Second Trial of Artur London, a 1970 on-set documentary by set photographer Chris Marker, featuring Costa-Gavras, source book coauthor Artur London, actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, and screenwriter Jorge Semprún
  • Portrait London, a 1981 French program featuring Artur and Lise London discussing their experiences as political prisoners
  • Interview with Montand from 1970
  • New interview with editor Françoise Bonnot
  • One-hour conversation between Costa-Gavras and film scholar Peter von Bagh from 1998
  • New interview with John Michalczyk, author of Costa-Gavras: The Political Fiction Film
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Dina Iordanova

New cover by Adam Maida

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Costa-Gavras, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • You Speak of Prague: The Second Trial of Artur London, a 1970 on-set documentary by set photographer Chris Marker, featuring Costa-Gavras, source book coauthor Artur London, actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret, and screenwriter Jorge Semprún
  • Portrait London, a 1981 French program featuring Artur and Lise London discussing their experiences as political prisoners
  • Interview with Montand from 1970
  • New interview with editor Françoise Bonnot
  • One-hour conversation between Costa-Gavras and film scholar Peter von Bagh from 1998
  • New interview with John Michalczyk, author of Costa-Gavras: The Political Fiction Film
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Dina Iordanova

New cover by Adam Maida

The Confession
Cast
Yves Montand
Artur London/Gérard
Simone Signoret
Lise London
Gabriele Ferzetti
Kohoutek
Michel Vitold
Smola
Jean Bouise
Factory boss
Credits
Director
Costa-Gavras
Book by
Artur London
Book by
Lise London
Adaptation and dialogue
Jorge Semprún
Produced by
Robert Dorfmann
Produced by
Bertrand Javal
Cinematography
Raoul Coutard
Editing
Françoise Bonnot
Music
Giovanni Fusco
Production design
Bernard Evein

Current

Costa-Gavras on Political Filmmaking
Costa-Gavras on Political Filmmaking
Having made such urgent, ripped-from-the-headlines, international dramas as Z, The Confession, State of Siege, and Missing, it stands to reason that the Greek director Costa-Gavras is often referred to as a political filmmaker. But in this excerpt fr…
Raoul Coutard on The Confession
Raoul Coutard on The Confession
You may not know his name, but Raoul Coutard is a crucial figure in modern cinema. A war photographer turned cinematographer, he was the camera man of choice for many directors of the French New Wave, shooting an astonishing array of classics from th…
The Confession: Enthralling Absurdity
The Confession: Enthralling Absurdity

A shocking chapter of Soviet Czechoslovakian history is dramatized in Costa-Gavras’s controversial follow-up to Z.

By Dina Iordanova

A Born Editor: Remembering Françoise Bonnot (1939–2018)
A Born Editor: Remembering Françoise Bonnot (1939–2018)

The great French editor talks about growing up in the cutting room and how she became one of Costa-Gavras’s most trusted collaborators.

Explore

Raoul Coutard

Cinematographer

Raoul Coutard
Raoul Coutard

Perhaps the most famous cinematographer of the nouvelle vague, Raoul Coutard shot more than seventy-five films during his forty-three-year career. A war photographer (in Indochina) turned freelance photojournalist (his images appeared in Paris Match and Look), Coutard turned to film, hesitantly, only in the late fifties. After fumbling his way through a few film assignments (he was inexperienced with a movie camera), he was hired by producer Georges de Beauregard to shoot the debut film of a young critic named Jean-Luc Godard. His ragged, incisive shooting style on Breathless became iconic in modern cinema, and Godard kept him on board for the rest of the sixties and beyond, while other directors, like François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Jean Rouch, and Costa-Gavras, also called upon his skills. His exacting images, which vary from rich and luxurious to gritty and documentary-like, can be seen in countless indelible films, including Shoot the Piano Player, Jules and Jim, Contempt, Alphaville, Pierrot le fou, and Z.