COSTA-GAVRAS

born Feb. 12, 1933, Loutra-Iraias, Greece byname of Konstantin Gavras Greek-born naturalized French motion-picture director noted for films that have been both political arguments and entertainments (usually as mysteries or thrillers). He was perhaps more overtly political than any other major filmmaker in history. The son of a Russian-born father and a Greek mother, Costa-Gavras left Athens in 1952 to go to Paris, where he enrolled in the Sorbonne. After taking a degree in literature with the intention of becoming a writer, he followed another long-held ambitionto make filmsand entered the Institute of Higher Cinematographic Studies (Institut des Haut tudes Cinmatographiques). He became an assistant to such filmmakers as Yves Allgret, Ren Clair, Ren Clment, and Jacques Demy. Costa-Gavras' first film, Compartiment tueurs (1966; The Sleeping Car Murders), was a detective thriller. His second, Un Homme de trop (1966; One Man Too Many, Shock Troops), a World War II drama, had good reviews; but it was his next film, Z (1968), a powerfully dramatic description of political assassination in Greece, that won him an Academy Award Oscar for best foreign-language film and brought him international acclaim. It was followed by L'Aveu (1970; The Confession), on the persecution of a communist by communists in an East European police state, and then by L'tat de sige (1972; State of Siege), on the kidnapping of a right-wing American by Uruguayan revolutionaries. Other successful films include Missing (1982), on the desaparecidos (disappeared persons) in army-ruled Chile, Betrayed (1988), on the rise of a white-supremacist group in America's heartland, and Music Box (1989), on the prosecution of a Nazi war criminal in the United States. Although he included antifascist political messages, his films appealed not merely to intellectuals or ideologues but also to a wide film-going public because they usually were excitingly suspenseful or otherwise entertaining.