The Battle of Algiers (film)

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The Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers DVD cover
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
Produced by Antonio Musu
Saadi Yacef
Written by Gillo Pontecorvo
Franco Solinas
Starring Brahim Hagiag
Jean Martin
Saadi Yacef
Distributed by Rizzoli (original USA release)
Rialto Pictures (re-release)
The Criterion Collection (DVD)
Release date(s) September 20, 1967 (USA)
Running time 117 min.
Country Algeria
Italy
Language French
Arabic
English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile
This article is about the film. For information on the battle, see Algerian War of Independence.

The Battle of Algiers (in Italian, La Battaglia di Algeri) is a 1966 black-and-white film by Gillo Pontecorvo based on events during the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence against French occupation.

Contents

[edit] Subject matter

The film depicts an episode in the war of independence in the then French Algeria, in the capital city of Algiers. It reconstructs the events of November 1954 to December 1960 in Algiers during the Algerian War of Independence, beginning with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah. From there, it depicts the conflict between native Algerians and European settlers (pied-noirs) in which the two sides exchange acts of increasing violence, leading to the introduction of French paratroopers, under the direction of General Massu and then Colonel Bigeard, to root out the National Liberation Front (FLN). The paratroops are depicted as "winning" the battle by neutralizing the whole FLN leadership through assassination or capture. However, the film ends with a coda, depicting demonstrations and rioting by native Algerians for independence, in which it is suggested that though the French have won the Battle of Algiers, they have lost the war.

The narrative is composed mostly of illustrations of the tactics of both the FLN insurgency and the French counter insurgency, as well as the uglier incidents in the national liberation struggle. It unflinchingly shows atrocities being committed by both sides against civilians. The FLN is shown taking over the Casbah through summary execution of native Algierian criminals and others considered traitors, as well as using terrorism to harass civilian French colonials. The French colonialists are shown using lynch mobs and indiscriminate violence against natives. Paratroops are shown employing torture, intimidation and murder to combat the FLN and MNA insurgents.

Refraining from the conventions of the historical epic, Pontecorvo and Solinas chose not to have a protagonist but several characters based on figures in the conflict. The film begins and ends from the point of view of Ali la Pointe, played by Brahim Hagiag, who corresponds to the historical figure of the same name. He is a criminal radicalized while in prison and is recruited to the FLN by military commander El-hadi Jafar, a fictional version of Saadi Yacef played by himself.

Other characters include the young boy Petit Omar, a street urchin who serves as a messenger for the FLN; Larbi Ben M'hidi, one of the top leaders of the FLN, who is used in the film mainly to give the political rationale for the insurgency; Djamila, Zohra and Hassiba, a trio of female FLN militants called to carry out a revenge attack. In addition, The Battle of Algiers used thousands of Algerian extras in bit parts and crowd shots; the effect Pontecorvo intended was to create the impression of the Casbah's residents as a "chorus", communicating to the viewer through chanting, wailing and physical affect.

The Algerian revolution has been called by many the bloodiest revolution in history. Although the revolutionary forces in Algiers were defeated by the French Army, the long war throughout the country led to the French withdrawal from Algeria. As leftists, the theme of showing the inevitable demise of colonialism as an instrument of Western imperialism was central to Pontecorvo and Solinas's treatment of The Battle of Algiers.

[edit] Production and style

The Battle of Algiers was made in a manner similar to Italian neorealism, French cinéma vérité and Soviet socialist realism, cinematic movements that aspired to create realistic depictions of the lives of ordinary people.

[edit] Screenplay

The film was inspired by the account of one of the military commanders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), Saadi Yacef, in his memoir Souvenirs de la Bataille d'Alger.[1] The book, written by Yacef while a prisoner of the French, was meant as propaganda to boost morale among FLN militants. After independence, Yacef was released and became a part of the new government. The Algerian government gave its backing to have a film of his memoirs made and Yacef and exiled FLN member Salash Baazi approached the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and screenwriter Franco Solinas with the project. However, Solinas's own first draft, entitled Parà, told the story from the perspective of a disenchanted French paratrooper, whom he and Pontecorvo hoped to be played by Paul Newman. Baazi rejected this idea, as it relegated the suffering of the Algerians to a backdrop, and Yacef wrote his own screenplay, which the Italians then rejected as overly biased toward the Algerian side. While sympathetic with the cause of Algerian nationalism, the Italians insisted on dealing with the events from a neutral point of view. The final screenplay has an Algerian protagonist, but attempts to depict the suffering and the cruelty on both the French and Algerian sides.[2] Solinas began the script by jotting down "flashes of ideas" on a blackboard, which became the basis for scenes; this may explain the "episodic" feel of the movie.[citation needed]

Although the film is based on real events, it makes use of composite characters and changes the names of certain figures. For instance, the character "Colonel Mathieu" is a composite of several French soldiers in the Algers counterinsurgency, in particular Jacques Massu.[3] Accused of making the character seem too elegant and noble, Solinas denied that this was his intention: he simply made Matthieu "elegant and cultured, because Western civilization is neither inelegant nor uncultured."[4]

[edit] Visual style

The film has been hailed for its stunning realism, especially in its scenes of Algerian city life and large-scale public protest and rioting.[citation needed] This reflects the influence of newsreel footage upon Pontecorvo's style, already evident in his Academy Award nominated film Kapò (1959) which established his reputation. For Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo and cinematographer Marcello Gatti filmed in black and white and experimented with various techniques to give the film the look of newsreel and documentary film. The effect was convincing enough that American reels carried a disclaimer that "not one foot" of newsreel was used.[5]

Aiding the sense of realism, Pontecorvo and Solinas spent two years in Algiers scouting locations, especially those areas where the events to be depicted in the film took place.[citation needed] With Saadi Yacef as a guide, he learned about the culture and customs of the residents. Pontecorvo chose to cast from the non-professional Algerian Arabs or Kabyles he met, picking them mainly on appearance and emotional effect (as a consequence, many of their lines were dubbed).[6] The sole professional actor in the film was Jean Martin who played Col. Mathieu; Martin was a French actor who had worked primarily in theatre. Ironically, Martin subsequently lost several jobs because he condemned his government's actions in Algeria.

[edit] Sound and music

Sound — both music and effects — performs important functions in the film. Pontecorvo stated in several interviews that he spent much of his time during editing thinking of leitmotifs for the score.[citation needed] These motifs were eventually incorporated into the orchestral score by Ennio Morricone to heighten the emotional impact — and to evoke parallels between events: scenes of French and Algerians civilians being slaughtered are both underscored by the same deeply elegiac music. Indigenous Algerian drumming, rather than dialogue, is heard during a scene in which female FLN militants prepare for a bombing. In addition, Pontecorvo used the sounds of gunfire, helicopters and truck engines to symbolize the French approach to the battle, while bomb blasts, ululation, wailing and chanting symbolize the Algerian approach.

[edit] Post-release history

[edit] Critical acclaim

Critics have commended the Battle of Algiers for its technical merits and relatively even-handed portrayal of both sides.[citation needed] It won the Venice Film Festival Grand Prize and was nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Screenplay (Gillo Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas), Best Director (Gillo Pontecorvo) and Best Foreign Language Film.

[edit] Political controversies in the 1960s

The film produced considerable political controversy in France and was banned there for five years.[7] Scenes of torture were cut from the original American and British releases as incendiary toward the French.[citation needed] The popularity and sympathetic treatment of the FLN in The Battle of Algiers often dismayed former French colonists of Algiers (the pieds-noirs) and French army troops. The film was condemned by Gen. Paul Aussaresses (a commander of the French counterinsurgency, who wrote The Battle of the Casbah, challenging the film's portrayal of events) and Jean-Marie Le Pen, far-right politician in France and former paratrooper in Algeria.[citation needed]

[edit] The Battle of Algiers and guerilla movements

The release of The Battle of Algiers coincided with the decolonization period and national liberation wars, as well as a rising tide of left-wing radicalism in Western nations in which a large minority showed interest in armed struggle. Beginning in the late 1960s, The Battle of Algiers gained a reputation for inspiring political violence; in particular the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare and terrorism in the film were supposedly copied by the Black Panthers and the Provisional Irish Republican Army. [8]

Among Third World groups, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the broader Palestinian nationalist movement may be among the best known of those who have made use of The Battle of Algiers as a discussion piece, propaganda film and training aid.[citation needed] The Palestinian exiled intellectual Edward Said, whose writings were in part influenced by one of the FLN's theorists, Frantz Fanon (see his book Culture and Imperialism) recognized the film's significance as a document of colonial repression and its resistance.[citation needed] Said later narrated one of the special features on the Criterion release of Battle of Algiers.

Right-wing politicians have criticized The Battle of Algiers as mere communist and terrorist propaganda[citation needed]. Often cited is Gillo Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas's membership of the Italian Communist Party (though both had split from the Party by the time of the making of the film).[citation needed]

[edit] Screenings worldwide

[edit] 1960s screening in Argentina

Antonio Caggiano, archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1959 to 1975, inaugurated with President Arturo Frondizi (Radical Civic Union, UCR) the first course on counter-revolutionary warfare in the Higher Military College (Frondizi was eventually overthrown for being "tolerant of Communism"). By 1963, cadets at the (then infamously well-known) Navy Mechanics School (ESMA) started receiving counter-insurgency classes. In one of their courses, they were shown the film The Battle of Algiers. Caggiano, the military chaplain at the time, introduced the film approvingly and added a religiously oriented commentary to it [9]. Anibal Acosta, one of the ESMA cadet interviewed 35 years later by French journalist Marie-Monique Robin described the session:

They showed us that film to prepare us for a kind of war very different from the regular war we had entered the Navy School for. They were preparing us for police missions against the civilian population, who became our new enemy. [9]

On 2 July 1966, four days after President Arturo Umberto Illia was removed from office and replaced by the dictator Juan Carlos Onganía, Caggiano declared: "We are at a sort of dawn, in which, thanks to God, we all sense that the country is again headed for greatness."[citation needed]

[edit] 2003 Pentagon screening

Further information: Comparison of Iraq war to the Algerian War of Independence

In 2003, the film again made the news after the US Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict at The Pentagon offered a screening of the film on August 27, regarding it as a useful illustration of the problems faced in Iraq.[10]A flyer for the screening read:

"How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film."[11]

According to the Defense Department official in charge of the screening, "Showing the film offers historical insight into the conduct of French operations in Algeria, and was intended to prompt informative discussion of the challenges faced by the French." [12]

The 2003 screening lent new currency to the film, coming only months after U.S. President George W. Bush's May 1, 2003 "Mission Accomplished" speech proclaiming the end of "major hostilities" in Iraq. Opponents of President Bush cited the Pentagon screening as proof of a growing concern within the Defense Department about the growth of an Iraqi insurgency belying Bush's triumphalism.[citation needed] One year later, the media's revelations regarding the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal lead critics of the war to compare French torture in the film and "aggressive interrogation" of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison[citation needed].

[edit] 2003-2004 theatrical re-release

At the time of the 2003 Pentagon screening legal and "pirate" VHS and DVD versions of the film were available in the United States and elsewhere, but the image quality was degraded. An Italian film restoration had been done in 1999. The restored print allowed Rialto Pictures to acquire the distribution rights for a December 1, 2003 theatrical re-release in the United Kingdom, a January 9, 2004 theatrical re-release in the United States and May 19, 2004 in France. The film was shown in the Espace Accattone rue Cujas in Paris from 15 November 2006 to 6 March 2007 [13]. This made the rounds of art house theaters and the festival circuit and was generally thought a "victory lap" for the film and its makers[citation needed]. A small number of festival showings in the United Kingdom were accompanied by a live soundtrack performed by electronica group Asian Dub Foundation. In the United States, the re-release was accompanied by a number of discussions of the film's influence by political and film commentators. In an ironic twist of fate, among the best receptions for the Battle of Algiers was at the Cannes Film Festival.[citation needed]

[edit] 2005 Criterion edition

On October 12, 2005, The Criterion Collection released the film, transferred from a restored print in a 3-disc DVD set. The extras include former United States counter-terrorism advisors Richard A. Clarke and Michael A. Sheehan discussing The Battle of Algiers' depiction of terrorism and guerrilla warfare and directors Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh and Oliver Stone discussing its influence on film. Another documentary includes interviews with FLN members Saadi Yacef and Zohra Drif.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ 'The Source.' The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 14.
  2. ^ Peter Matthews, "The Battle of Algiers: Bombs and Boomerangs", in The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 7.
  3. ^ Arun Kapil, "Selected Biographies of Participants in the French-Algerian War", in The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 50.
  4. ^ PierNico Solinas, "An Interview with Franco Solinas", in The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 32.
  5. ^ J. David Slocum, Terrorism, Media, Liberation. Rutgers University Press, 2005, p. 25.
  6. ^ Matthews, p. 8.
  7. ^ PierNico Solinas, "An Interview with Franco Solinas", in The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 37.
  8. ^ Peter Matthews, "The Battle of Algiers: Bombs and Boomerangs", in The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. 9.
  9. ^ a b Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church and the "dirty war", Horacio Verbitsky, 28 July 2005, extract from El Silencio transl. in English by Open Democracy
  10. ^ "Re-release of "The Battle of Algiers" Diplomatic License, CNN, January 1, 2004.
  11. ^ Michael T. Kaufman's "Film Studies" New York Times, 7 September, 2003.
  12. ^ Michael T. Kaufman's "Film Studies" New York Times, 7 September, 2003.
  13. ^ See La Bataille d'Alger: Horaires à Paris, accessed on 6 March 2007

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa		 Golden Lion winner
1966		 Succeeded by
Belle de jour
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