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 BUZZ
Color, 120 min., feature documentary, 2005;
Greece/Germany
In English
Directed, written and produced by: Spiro N. Taraviras
Production company: Atalante Pictures/Spiro N Taraviras Film
Production,
Supported by the German Federal Film Board, Hellenic
Ministry of Culture, Federal Government Commissioner for
Culture & The Media BKM
Co-producers: Greek Film Center GFC, Greek Broadcasting
Corporation, Soulis Athanasiou – Studio STV Film,
Netherlands Broadcasting Corporation NPS
Cinematographer: Yorgos Giannelis
Music: Nikos Platyrachos
With: Albert Isaac Bezzerides, Jules Dassin, Gloria Stuart,
Terry Moore, Cloris Leachman, Dan Georgakas, Philippe
Garnier, Peter Bezzerides
Buzz is a memorable, absorbing and illuminating profile of
the legendary Hollywood scriptwriter (and acclaimed
novelist) A I 'Buzz' Bezzerides, whose most notable credits
include Robert Aldrich's timeless Kiss Me Deadly (1955),
Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway (1942) and Raoul Walsh's
They Drive By Night (1940). Bezzerides quickly became known
as ‘the King of Noir’ - in fact, no less an authority than
François Truffaut reckoned the Bezzerides-scripted Juke Girl
(1942) to be America's first real film noir. The man himself
is now well into his tenth decade, but on the evidence of
Taraviras’s loving tribute he's lost remarkably little of
his famous zip and joie de vivre.
The film traces Bezzerides’ exotic pre-Hollywood existence:
born 1908 in the Black Sea city of Samsun ('Kingdom of
Pont', now Turkey) during the Ottoman Empire, he went to the
USA at a very young age and was brought up among the fruit
truckers of Fresno, California - which background became
source material for several of his novels and screenplays.
Bezzerides had a fascinating career - "graylisted" during
the McCarthy era, he was one of many talents to suffer from
the industrial-style practices of the 'dream factory' in
which writers were regarded as being at or near the very
bottom of the food chain, and frequently denied screen
credits.
Interviewed between 1999 and 2002 in Los Angeles, Bezzerides
proves enormously engaging company as he takes an
idiosyncratic tour down memory lane. Anecdotes abound,
featuring the likes of William Faulkner (with whom
Bezzerides had a particularly strong, mutually-beneficial
relationship), Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, Humphrey
Bogart, Robert Mitchum and many more. (Neil Young)
Awards
Greek Film Critics Association Award for Best Film of the
YEAR (2005)
(fiction & non fiction category), Thessaloniki International
Film Festival, November 2005
Greek State Film Award for Best Feature Documentary Film
(2005)
awarded by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs
Distinction of the German Federal Evaluation Board,
FBW Wiesbaden
Youth Award for Best Documentary Film
Cyprus International Film Festival 2006
Director Spiro N. Taraviras
Born in Greece, Taraviras studied film theory at the
J-W-Goethe University in Frankfurt, and directing at the
State Academy for Television and Film in Munich where he
immediately after graduation became Assistant Professor. For the last 15 years, Mr. Taraviras has been
making award winning short films (Duet, Runaway, The Doll's
House). Buzz is the culmination of a 5 year long labor of
love - tribute to Hollywood's first film noir screenwriter, A.I. Bezzerides. Buzz is his first feature length film.
Filmography
Runaway, short, 1992/III
Das Puppenhaus, short, 1994
Sunset in Venice, short, 1998
Buzz, feature documentary, 2006
Print source:
Outsider Pictures
1127 Ninth Str., Suite 104
Santa Monica, CA 90403
Tel 310.393.4190
paul@outsiderpictures.us
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