The Battle of Algiers

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Since when are the Croats protestant?

1. Since I sent a little guy in a brown robe, waving a cross

2. Since the Swedes beat Venice, in the war that began in 1570.

3. Since the new beta was released - Johan, call your office! But it DOES improve the balance.

4. Since somebody screwed up the event language

[Az]

Bosnia

AFAIK Bosnia-Herzogovina is mostly christian. Bosnians are the biggest faction, but still are outnumbered by total number of christians.

[Mr. Harley]

I cannot remember the name of the leader in the Casbah, but he is very sympathetically portrayed. The reason I see the film as biased is because I see more of the rebels portrayed humanely versus the French. Not the bomb scene, I will grant that he is more anti-violence than he is anti-French (see, I will change my opinion when the point is well made ).

However, I will stand by my statement that there are more positive portrayals of the FLN then there are of the French. If I knew as much about that war as the Iraq war, I could make an obnoxiously factual appraisel of his film. I will hold, as the second site I linked to earlier implies, that his film is a docudrama. People didn't use the word back then, but it has about the typical accuracy and pacing that you see in those. By calling it a work of fiction, he could create composite characters, and take a good quote from one of the French and put it the mouth of the FLN leader. I still hold he was biased, but will also grant, as I have from the stainrt, that he had a lot of brutality to work with from the French operations.

I have a tendency to hold that there are very few national leaders that qualify as heroes - they have this distressing tendency to do some pretty terrible things in pursuit of their agendas. And that in most civil war/insurgencies/anti-colonial wars both sides tend to be brutal and atrocity prone. The French have a pretty terrible record, that's why I laugh at them critisizing us. Their President is the man who supplied arms to the Hutus in Rawandi, and then helped slow down the rebels so the perpertrators of the genocide could escape. That is beyond revolting.

Molly, I didn't misunderstand you - it's just that the examples you used initially were a mite bit rhetorical. I do apologize, I had thought posting the quote reference the Algerian government (and the Kennedy administration) would have made exactly what I thought about their Soviet connection clear - but I sometimes don't realize that certain terms become hot-button issues even though they are factual. There was a commonality of interest between all three , groups, but that doesn't make them allies. Like what Bush will discover about the Shia-majority government in Iraq - but I don't need to get myself started on that one.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


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

Studying witch war and when ?

[Lancer]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


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

At this moment? They're terribly inconvenient.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

(Since when are Croats protestant?)

1. Since I sent a little guy in a brown robe, waving a cross

2. Since the Swedes beat Venice, in the war that began in 1570.

3. Since the new beta was released - Johan, call your office! But it DOES improve the balance.

4. Since somebody screwed up the event language

Well, we're Catholic.

As for Bosnia, it's about half muslim at this point. There have been no official censii since 1991. when it was 44% muslim.

[monolith94]

Very good film, perhaps even a great one. Pontecervo's other highly political film that I know, Burn! with Marlon Brando isn't as good but also worth a watch.

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


1. Since I sent a little guy in a brown robe, waving a cross

2. Since the Swedes beat Venice, in the war that began in 1570.

3. Since the new beta was released - Johan, call your office! But it DOES improve the balance.

4. Since somebody screwed up the event language

that is proably exactly why i though they were protestant.

[VetLegion]

Europa Universalis

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
I cannot remember the name of the leader in the Casbah, but he is very sympathetically portrayed. The reason I see the film as biased is because I see more of the rebels portrayed humanely versus the French. Not the bomb scene, I will grant that he is more anti-violence than he is anti-French (see, I will change my opinion when the point is well made ).

However, I will stand by my statement that there are more positive portrayals of the FLN then there are of the French.

Yes, I agree- but see the film as a product of its times, when the colonial empires were being rolled back (or were being fought) by independence movements around the world- the methods used to contain or combat them certainly created an unholy marriage of violence begetting violence- in the Palestine Mandate, in Portugal's empire, in Cyprus, in Algeria, Viet Nam, South Africa, Rhodesia, and so on.

It's rare to find any kind of positive portrayal of one of the anti-colonialist movements outside of the cinema of the movement's native country- certainly at a time when John Wayne was making 'The Green Berets' there is no contest as to who made the film which challenged more our basic assumptions about what makes us human, and what dehumanises us.

Moral ambiguities aren't the common fare of entertainment, and I think that having the leader of the French paratroopers ask rhetorically what kind of methods people think he should use to secure the country for France, tells us about the roles of the combatants on both sides, and about the empty posturing of politicians.

[Mr. Harley]

The problem, Molly - and it's why I have a loathing of docudramas and historical movies in general - is that they become not just entertainment but very much part of the "culture wars", and not just in the way the American Religious Right states. A distressing number of people get more of their historical knowledge and impressions more from cinema than from actual histories.

For every film like Tora, Tora, Tora that comes pretty close to being a historically accurate films IMHO, there are a handful that get it mostly right, and dozens that get it wrong, or become propaganda. The Green Berets isn't even good propoganda (look at the standards I posted earlier), it's more jingoism than anything.

If I was going to recommend historical dramas for actually learning some history, for those who a reading challenged, my short list would include, besides Tora, Tora, Tora - Gettysburg (low end of tolerable) - Schindler's List - The Battle for Algiers (for all it's bias, it still is one of the first movies I know of to look harshly at the colonial regimes) - Gandhi (it does not do him justice, neither his good points nor his flaws but remember, this is for those who will not pick up a history book) - Saving Private Ryan - Matewan (if you can get it an excellent look at the coal field wars in the 1920's Appalachians - including the use of machine guns by corporate thugs and the first use of aircraft bombing against US citizens) - and I'm probably too tired and need to go to sleep to do a comprehensive list. Plus I'm not a cinema buff to begin with.

The one about the Australian Aboriginal children that were pressed into domestic slavery and walked away, something like thousand mile fence (?) I want to catch some time. I am still at a loss for a good film that deals fairly with the Native American versus the settler issue, Dances with Wolves is lovely cinema, but still doesn't cut it as historically accurate for me. In lieu of anything better, I might include it.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Matewan[/i] (if you can get it an excellent look at the coal field wars in the 1920's Appalachians - including the use of machine guns by corporate thugs and the first use of aircraft bombing against US citizens) - and I'm probably too tired and need to go to sleep to do a comprehensive list. Plus I'm not a cinema buff to begin with.

The one about the Australian Aboriginal children that were pressed into domestic slavery and walked away, something like thousand mile fence (?) I want to catch some time. I am still at a loss for a good film that deals fairly with the Native American versus the settler issue, Dances with Wolves is lovely cinema, but still doesn't cut it as historically accurate for me. In lieu of anything better, I might include it.

You're communicating with a John Sayles fan- I still have my own copy of Matewan, and owned nearly everything of his save for 'Liana' and 'The Return of the Secaucus Seven'. I did know about the miners' war with the employers and the government thanks to the non-rose tinted histories of the U.S. I read years ago.

'Rabbit Proof Fence' is the Australian film I think you mean, but I'd also recommend 'Heatwave' and 'The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith' and 'The Last Days of Chez Nous' for a full on Aussie experience.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
The problem, Molly - and it's why I have a loathing of docudramas and historical movies in general - is that they become not just entertainment but very much part of the "culture wars", and not just in the way the American Religious Right states.

Art has always been part of the culture wars.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Art has always been part of the culture wars.

Corrected.

Edit : dammit, can't find the tag that strikes out letters.

[chequita guevara]

Try <-strike><-/strike> sans dashes.

You should probably strike the and the final s in order for it to be a proper sentence.