New York University, Martin Scorsese Department of Cinema Studies

Special issue of Weird Wave Archive – Academic criticism from NYU and global scholars.

Spotlight on Brando with a Glass Eye (Antonis Tsonis, 2024)

“A pivotal work in contemporary Greek cinema and a new chapter in the evolution of the Greek Weird Wave.”

— Weird Wave Archive, NYU

October 27, 2024 • Dr. Marina Hassapopoulou, Founder and Special Issue Editor

The Weird Wave Archive is excited to present its first special issue, marking a new initiative for cross-cultural collaborations with Greek and diasporic artists-filmmakers.

The Archive is the first collaborative English-speaking website dedicated to Greek cinema and crisis-driven cinemas and contemporary art. Launched in 2018, it has grown into a major repository of insightful contributions by NYU students and independent scholars, including multimedia projects and experimental formats.

This inaugural special issue spotlights the critically acclaimed Greek-Australian film, Brando with a Glass Eye (Antonis Tsonis, 2024).

Tsonis—Greek-born, Australian-educated—exemplifies a new current of edgy Greek diasporic filmmakers. His films blend influences from American New Wave, Italian Neorealism, French poetic realism, and Russian-German techniques. The result is a style both timeless and contemporary, deeply rooted in Greece’s social reality but with global resonance.

“Brando with a Glass Eye’s diachronic appeal lies in its externalization and dramatization of the internal and eternal struggle for identity that is relatable to all contemporary viewers. The viewer is viscerally implicated into the film’s tumultuous and kaleidoscopic probing of reality… a multitemporal and intertextually layered reality that can only be fathomed through its fragmentary performative (re)enactment.”
— Marina Hassapopoulou, Special Issue Editor

Charles Khosla
On Marlon Brando, Stella Adler, Transnational Identity, and Brando with a Glass Eye

“Brando with a Glass Eye reveals the inherent egomania and self-indulgence of method acting, suggesting that it fragments performers’ bodies from their souls. Luca’s narcissistic performances provide visceral escapism; rather than deal with his grief or guilt, he imagines himself to be another person to alleviate his internal pain. The film implies Adler’s and Stanislavski’s philosophies create a sharp schism between actors and their characters, amputating performers from their psyches in the process.”

Matthew Ari Elfenbein
The Puncture of One’s Own Eye

“Predicated on the essence and inspiration of European modernism and New Hollywood constructions of masculinity, Brando with a Glass Eye specifically hones into and blurs the boundaries of the fragile inner and outward character. The film situates the method between imagination and experience, with Luca blurring those boundaries and perforating the meanings of each.”

Mayank Dutt Kaushik
A Cinematic Stitch: Performative Psychogeography of Transnational Brando in Athens

“The city of Athens comes alive in the film Brando with a Glass Eye, finding equal activation as a cinematic backdrop and in its bustling streets. Athens is not merely a static entity but a sentient being formulated through the art of navigation. As one advances through its extended channels, Luca paints a kaleidoscopic canvas of Athens, which simultaneously serves as his scenic backdrop for theatrical endeavors.”

source: weirdwavearchive