1 Introduction: Costa-Gavras and microhistoriography: the case of Amen. (2002) – Homer B. Pettey
2 Un homme de trop (1967) and Section spéciale (1975): justice unravelled, a tale of two Frances (1941 and 1943) – Susan Hayward
3 Z (1969) and nationalism – Homer B. Pettey
4 The political efficacy of torture in The Confession (1970) – Hilary Neroni
5 Thriller and performance in State of Siege (1972) – Elizabeth Montes Garcés
6 What’s missing from Missing (1982) – Thomas Leitch
7 Selim Bakri’s quest for a Palestinian identity: Hanna K. (1983) and the Palestinian ‘permission to narrate’ – Matthew Abraham
8 Family Business (1986) and La Petite Apocalypse (1993) – Jennifer L. Jenkins
9 Betrayed (1988) and the ruptures of race and religion – Ian Scott
10 Music Box (1989): melodramatizing the Hungarian Holocaust – R. Barton Palmer
11 ‘Make humans the center of everything’: a cinema for conscious capitalism: Mad City (1997) and The Ax (2005) – Allen H. Redmon
12 Eden à l’Ouest (2009): border-crossing odyssey and comedy – Isolina Ballesteros
13 Representing the economy and neo-liberal subjectivity in Le Capital (2012) – Mark Bould
Index

Known for advancing the genre of political thriller, Costa-Gavras is a seminal figure in French and international cinema. But until now, the only major academic study of his oeuvre concluded with his 1982 English-language debut, Missing. Since that time, Costa-Gavras has directed ten films that expand on his socio-political themes, including Betrayed (1988), Mad City (1997) and Le Couperet (2005).

This collection of original chapters by prominent scholars is the first book devoted to Costa-Gavras's complete films. Beginning with his earliest political thrillers, the book charts and re-examines his career from Un homme de trop (1967) to Le Capital (2012). New issues emerge that open up numerous approaches to Costa-Gavras’s work, among them: contemporary analyses of adaptation, genre theory, identity politics and the nature of the political. Costa-Gavras re-contextualises history as individual human dramas and thereby involves his audience in past and contemporary trauma, from the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, through mid-century international state terrorism and totalitarianism, to the current global financial crisis.

Throughout a career spanning half a century, Costa-Gavras has remained one of cinema’s most intriguing and enduring storytellers, theorists and political commentators. Scholars, students and cinephiles will find this volume provides a fascinating overview of his unique body of work.