The Battle of Algiers

[Lancer]

whyso?

[Az]

-You think that France is about to become muslim.
-You babble incoherently.

That's 2 out of 2, ace.

[BeBMan]

I think its pretty clear.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Lancer
France is set to become the first moslem country in europe. Interesting turn of events.

France, not sure; but Chirac or Villepin not impossible. Bonaparte in Egypt contemplated to convert to islam.

[Az]

Sunstrokes

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by DAVOUT


France, not sure; but Chirac or Villepin not impossible. Bonaparte in Egypt contemplated to convert to islam.

Got any source for that? I'd like to check it out.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc

However, if you will notice in the film, all of the armored military vehicles are Soviet built, which immediately made me suspicious. Since the filmmaker had been given that sort of access, I seriously wondered what the director's personal leanings were.

Gillo Pontecorvo was also Jewish, joined the Italian Communist Party during World War II, and fought with the partisans. His second film 'Kapo' was a joint French-Italian-Yugoslavian production and was about life in a concentration camp.

Should one assume therefore that he was a Titoist, a Gaullist, a supporter of the Italian Christian Democrats or Socialists or a Zionist ?

Lets see what he had to say about it:

Left party in 1956 after Soviet invasion of Hungary. Maintains left-wing politics and this commitment inspires his work as a film-maker.

Self deprecating description: "I am not an out-and-out revolutionary. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews. I come from Pisa and I lean that way naturally."

European Communism (more especially Italian Communism) was not necessarily Soviet supporting or Stalinist in inspiration- especially after the invasion of Hungary.

I don't believe one say from the film that his sympathies are unreservedly with the terrorists- since his camera doesn't flinch from showing us who is affected by the bombings or what the effects of the bombings are.

Film sponsored by Yacef Saadi, FLN leader of Algiers units during war, but Pontecorvo insisted on creative autonomy and independence. Pontecorvo and his script writer Franco Solinas spent 6 months doing research for the film; using newsreels and police archives and eyewitness interviews. Interviewed veterans from both sides and then worked on script for 6 months. Shot on location in Algiers.

http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarFilms/BattleOfAlgiers.html

[Mr. Harley]

Molly - your first statement, in an attempt to show my suspicions (please note I was suspicious) has a series, no all poor analogies. To imply a voluntary association - i.e. Italian communist - is the same as an involuntary association, i.e. Jew is frankly a red herring. If it was a Jewish director attacking the Palestinian terrorists (or is it freedom fighters?) I would first check if that individual was a Zionist, which is a voluntary association. I would not assume it, I would check. Like I did with Pontecorvo.

If I had seen him directing a film about the glories of Communist Yugoslavia, it would have been germane if he fought with the partisans. That would have caused me to see which side he had fought with (they were all NOT communists) and if he had fought with Tito, I would have watched his documentary with a very skeptical eye.

If the film had shown him having access to French military equipment that was only available to either the French military or countries with close ties to the French government, and the film had portrayed the Algerians as terrorists and the French paratroopers as heroes - yes, I would have checked for his Gaullist leanings. Ditto if he had done similar work connected to the Italian political parties.

None of those per se are germane to the film in question (except the Gaullist part and I've already stated what would have made me suspicious in those circumstances). In this case the fact he was a member of the Italian communist party, and was given help by the authoritarian Algerian government, both justify my skepticism.

Note I did NOT accuse him of being pro-Soviet, what I stated was that the appearance of the Soviet armor made me skeptical, and rightfully so. You mae the point about Eurocommunists and the Soviets, I never even say it by inference. I even quote cites as to the relationship of the Algerian government to the Soviets, they are clearly NOT a satellite state, but can be considered friendly to that dictatorship. The Soviet armor was an indicator, and rightfully so, of a certain commonality, in this case all three parties - the Soviet government, Pontecorvo, and the Alergian government were all opposed to the French colonial regimes, and for some, but not necessarily all, common reasons. That is why my first post was so wordy - I knew somebody would just have to nit-pick.

To give an avowed leftist - by your own quote - and a voluntary communist, by his own choices - creative control is like Carl Rove quoting the Heritage Foundation as an independent think tank. Yes, technically that is true. Practically, by sponsoring a director who already was sympathetic, the FLN was more or less guaranteeing that the film will as a minimum be favorable, and at a best case a sterling propaganda piece.

If you look at the director's portrayal of the French - torturing and engaging in military ops in civilian areas - versus his overall friendly treatment of the insurgency - I would say he was biased. I also make very clear that I do not support what the French government and military did, and that Pontecorvo’s bias does not excuse anything the French did. I am warning about using this film as a primary source to judge the insurgency as a whole.

As I've mentioned, a good propaganda piece tells the truth for the most part, but spins it very favorably to you side, with an occasional lie (more by omissions than commissions to add more clarity to my opinions). Pontecorvo made what, IMHO, I would consider a biased film, and I would have to think more and study the war more closely before I could honestly say it was unequivocally a propaganda piece.

You, by your introductory statement, do both yourself and me a disservice, Molly - I believe I've always treated your posts with respect. It's the point I kept telling Ned, and I got some good info out of him when he would stay focused. Stick to good facts and solid arguments, instead of rhetorical tactics of the type Dinodoc uses. You will get more respect from the majority of posters here, and be more likely to sway more opinions. I would rather sway opinions than make a point - then I get other people to make my point for me.

[Lancer]

Originally posted by Az
-You think that France is about to become muslim.
-You babble incoherently.

That's 2 out of 2, ace.

Damnit! Get your trolling right.

I babble coherently.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc


You, by your introductory statement, do both yourself and me a disservice, Molly - I believe I've always treated your posts with respect. It's the point I kept telling Ned, and I got some good info out of him when he would stay focused. Stick to good facts and solid arguments, instead of rhetorical tactics of the type Dinodoc uses. You will get more respect from the majority of posters here, and be more likely to sway more opinions. I would rather sway opinions than make a point - then I get other people to make my point for me.

Well I have to confess I think you have misread the tenor and content of my post.

It isn't always possible to discern the political leanings nor the sympathies of a director or writer from their films- I'd say it's about as successful as trying to describe Shakespeare's or Leonardo's character or politics from their works.

'The Battle of Algiers' isn't a docudrama- it's a fictional work that uses elements and techniques found in documentary films to make its artistic point more successfully- similar to Peter Watkins film 'Culloden' or Orson Welles's 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast.

'Culloden' :

http://www.bfi.org.uk/videocat/more/culloden/

" In 1964, the average documentary of a battle would involve historians doing voice-overs and maps showing troop advancement. Watkins didn't want to tell his audience the way it was, he wanted to show them. As a result, he gathered together a cast of unknowns to re-enact the battle but, instead of merely using his actors to demonstrate how it would have appeared, he went one better, actually "interviewing" members of the clans, personalising them, to accent the wealth of the English and Lowland Scots army compared to the poverty of their Gaelic-speaking adversaries. "

http://www.iofilm.co.uk/printer_friendly.php?filename=culloden_1964.shtml

'Battle of Algiers' was made on location in Algeria- this doesn't imply that Pontecorvo approved of the Algerian government, any more than filming 'El Cid' in Spain showed approval of Franco's regime. One could infer that admittedly- especially given the anti-colonialist struggle prevalent in the wider world at the time he made the film, and his likely sympathies as a leftist.



As for how he viewed the use of violence by both sides:

In one scene, a group of ordinary people, French and Algerian, are enjoying coffee and conversation near the casbah when a rebel bomb explodes among them. The shock of this sequence is even worse than the scenes of the French using torture.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,345300,00.html#article_continue

I think his film works because it shows us that the victims of the Algerian independence fighters' bombs are humans too- enjoying a coffee, listening to music in a cafe- and that violence dehumanises both sides, the paratroopers and the rebels.


If you're going to say that you have suspicions about Pontecorvo's sympathies and his political stance, then let him speak for himself:

"For a long time, I had begun to criticize that which I had liked for so long: those [Communist Party] grooves that had given me a great sense of security, the romanticization of the working class...the romanticization of the Soviet Union and the myopia concerning certain facts.... This series of small delusions had brought [me and others] to the truth and had separated us from the religion. When the suppression [of the revolt] in Hungary took place, all these feelings came to a head, and I decided to leave a party in which I had believed blindly, but which had deluded me in many ways."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/beary4.html

Now as for using rhetorical tricks- come on, mention 'Soviet' and 'communist' in short order and who is going to take the time to distinguish between a disillusioned Eurocommunist who joined the party to fight Fascism in WWII, and an ardent cold war warrior ?

Pontecorvo and his collaborator Franco Solinas, Bignardi writes, were "fascinated by the events and their ideological implications, convinced that the anti-colonial struggle was an urgent and important subject, almost a symbol and model for the political struggle against ‘an invincible capitalism in Italy,’ " as Solinas put it in an interview. In 1964, a representative of military head of the FLN leader Jacef Saadi (who in the film plays the part of the FLN commander Kader) arrived in Italy looking for a leftist director to make a film about the struggle for Algerian independence and decided on Pontecorvo. In 1965, the government of Algeria gave the director "not only all the necessary permits to shoot the film in Algiers, but put at his disposal – though not completely without charge – the Algerian army for the crowd scenes."

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by BlackCat


Are you seriously comparing french colony catastropes with Iraq ?

The U.S. military made the comparison when it began using the film in training and studying the war.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lancer
France is set to become the first moslem country in europe. Interesting turn of events.

Really? That what are Turkey, Albania, and Bosnia?

[chequita guevara]

shawnmmcc, the point is not whether or not a piece is biased. Everything is biased. The point is whether the bias distorts the truth. The Battle of Algiers certainly does not protray the rebels in a positive light. It is anti-French, and what decent human being wouldn't have been during the Algerian war. France was the bad guy, just like we were in Vietnam. But the fact that we/they were the bad guys doesn't mean that the other side was inherently good. TBoA doesn't make that claim.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
ZK - legally it was part of France, if you grant the premise of the supremacy of Western doctrines of conquest. Islam actually states, since Algeria was Moslem, that it is rightfully a Muslim state and will always be so - as is/was most of the territory of Spain.

spain was christian long before muslims invaded it.

che, i could be very wrong here, but don't christians (protestant croats and orthodox serbs) outnumber muslims in bosnia today?

[Spiffor]

Since when are the Croats protestant?