Zorba has insinuated himself into the employ of Basil (Alan Bates), a bookish Englishman who has inherited a mine in Crete.
The English screenplay, written by the film's Greek Cypriot director Michael Cacoyannis, is based on the 1946 novel of the same title by Nikos Kazantzakis.
The phrase "the full catastrophe" does not actually occur in the novel, but the screenplay dialogue above blends and condenses the language of two distinct scenes in the novel.
In a 2011 interview, Cacoyannis, who was fluent in English, said that in writing the script he consciously chose the non-idiomatic expression "the full catastrophe" for Zorba for the sake of "humor and impact".
[2] "The full catastrophe" in uses after the film most commonly refers to the stresses of marriage and family life, but it has been used in broader senses as well.