michael_gothard_archive

Massacre Play is a drama, filmed in Italy, and directed by Damiano Damiani.

The exact release dates are unknown.

The film examines the relationship between successful film director Theo Steiner, and his boyhood friend Clem Da Silva. Clem feels that Theo’s success has come at the price of his own; that Theo has stolen some of his ideas.

Michael Gothard plays actor Michael Zabo, one of the pawns in the game being played out between these two giants of the cinema. He is one of many guests at Theo’s villa, and Theo uses him to play the role of Clem in a couple of scenes he sets up, in pursuit of his aim to make a film about his old friend, and to find out how Clem feels about his impending death.

Zabo is one of very few of Theo’s guests who is prepared to say what he really thinks of Theo’s ideas; perhaps that is why Theo chose him to play Clem.

Very little seems to have been written about this thought-provoking drama. Please leave links or references in comments.

Publicity still



Michael’s character, Zabo, is wearing sunglasses in this publicity still, but in the film, he is not wearing them when he arrives at the villa - see screencap below.



Review by Cranston Mcmillan.

“Damiano Damiani remains one of the most difficult Italian directors to categorise. He is comfortable at the helm of commercial exploitation such as Amityville 2, but would be better remembered as the key political movie-maker of his generation, with a string of socially aware dramas that puts the better known cinema of Rosi and Gavras to shame.

Massacre Play (The Killing Game) is a rather unknown entry in the Damiani canon, but is well worth the investment of a couple of hours purely for the amazing performances of the two leads. Milian is quite magnificent and Elliott Gould shows just how good an actor he is: they play two friends, both film directors who have taken very different paths. Wordy, intelligent but never boring and with a few little surprises along the way …

Not in Damiani's top league but all in all, very worthwhile.”

Watch Massacre Play on Youtube.

IMDB entry