The Battle of Algiers - Wikipedia. The Battle of Algiers (Italian: La battaglia di Algeri; Arabic: . It is based on events during the Algerian War (1.
French government in North Africa; the most prominent being the titular Battle of Algiers, the capital of Algeria. It was shot on location and the film score was composed by Ennio Morricone. The film, which was shot in a Rossellini- inspired newsreel style—in black and white with documentary- type editing—is often associated with Italian neorealism cinema. It occupies the 4. Critics' Top 2. 50 Films of the 2.
- La battaglia navale. La tecnica, nelle battaglie tra galee, era assai semplice: si tentava di speronare l'avversario, o di frantumare i remi dell'imbarcazione nemica.
- Magnifica rievocazione di un momento storico, cruciale nel cammino della lotta per l'indipendenza algerina, e della figura di un capo rivoluzionario, Alì La Pointe.
- Spine Number 249 from the Criterion Collection. The Battle of Algiers" is a film that everyone should see. It presents the historical account of the struggle of.
The Battle of Algiers (Italian: La battaglia di Algeri; Arabic: Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. With Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Samia Kerbash. In the 1950s, fear and violence escalate as the people of Algiers fight. LA BATTAGLIA DI LEPANTO Una pagina di storia che ha visto tra i protagonisti Pietro Giustiniani, Ammiraglio della flotta dei Cavalieri di Malta e Gran Priore dell.
Sight & Sound poll. The film concentrates on the years between 1.
Casbah, the citadel of Algiers, which was met by French paratroopers attempting to regain territory. The highly dramatic film is about the organization of a guerrilla movement and the illegal methods used by the colonial power to contain it. A subject of socio- political controversy, the film was not screened for five years in France, where it was later released in 1. The narrative begins with the organization of revolutionary cells in the Casbah.
Then partisan warfare between Muslims and Pied- Noir in which both sides exchange acts of increasing violence leads to the introduction of French army paratroopers to hunt the National Liberation Front (FLN). The paratroopers are depicted as winning the battle by neutralizing the whole of the FLN leadership through either assassination or capture.
However, the film ends with a coda depicting nationalist demonstrations and riots, suggesting that although France won the Battle of Algiers, it lost the Algerian War. The tactics of the FLN guerrilla insurgency and the French counter insurgency, and the uglier incidents of the war, are depicted. Colonizer and colonized commit atrocities against civilians. The FLN commandeer the Casbah via summary execution of Algerian criminals and suspected French collaborators and use terrorism, including bombings, to harass Europeans. The security forces resort to lynch mobs and indiscriminate violence against the opposition.
La Battaglia Di Algeri (1966)
French paratroops are depicted as routinely using torture, intimidation, and murder. Pontecorvo and Solinas have several protagonists, based on historical war figures. The story begins and ends from the perspective of Ali la Pointe (Brahim Haggiag), a petty criminal who is politically radicalized while in prison and then recruited by FLN commander El- hadi Jafar (Saadi Yacef, dramatizing a character based on himself. Other characters are the boy Petit Omar, a street urchin who is an FLN messenger; Larbi Ben M'hidi, a top FLN leader and the film's political rationale for the insurgency; and Djamila, Zohra, and Hassiba, three FLN women urban guerrillas who effect a terrorist attack. The Battle of Algiers also features thousands of Algerian extras; Pontecorvo's intended effect was the . After independence, Yacef was released and became part of the new government. The Algerian government backed a film of Yacef's memoir; exiled FLN man Salash Baazi approached the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and screenwriter Franco Solinas with the project.
Yacef wrote his own screenplay, which does not have any conversations or plot. Although sympathetic to Algerian nationalism, the Italian businessmen insisted on dealing with events from a neutral perspective. The final screenplay of The.
Battle of Algiers has an Algerian protagonist and depicts the cruelty and suffering of French and Algerians. For example, Colonel Mathieu is a composite of several French counterinsurgency officers, especially Jacques Massu. The effect was convincing enough that American releases carried a disclaimer that . The film seems to be filmed through the point of view of a western reporter, as telephoto lenses and hand- held cameras are used, whilst .
Pontecorvo wanted a professional actor, but one with whom audiences would not be too familiar, which could have interfered with the movie's intended realism. Martin had been dismissed several years earlier from the Th. Martin had also served in a paratroop regiment during the Indochina War as well as the French Resistance, thus giving his character an autobiographical element. The working relationship between Martin and Pontecorvo was not always easy, as the director, unsure that Martin's professional acting style would not contrast too much with that of the non- professionals, kept arguing with his acting choices. 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 methods of battle, while bomb blasts, ululation, wailing and chanting symbolize the Algerian methods.
Gillo Pontecorvo had written the music for The Battle of Algiers, but because he was classed as a . The attacks committed by the French and the FLN alike are both portrayed.
The movie's essential fair- mindedness is perhaps its most striking and skillful feature. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for three Academy Awards (in non- consecutive years), including Best Screenplay (Gillo Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas) and Best Director (Gillo Pontecorvo) in 1. Best Foreign Language Film in 1. In 2. 01. 0, the movie was ranked sixth in Empire magazine's . Many in France felt the film was too sympathetic to the Algerian view and may be why it was not screened for many years.
The French authorities, who were very sensitive on the Algerian issue, banned the film for three months. Beginning in the late 1. The Battle of Algiers gained a reputation for inspiring political violence; in particular, the tactics of urban guerrilla warfare and terrorism in the movie were supposedly copied by the Black Panthers, the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.
By 1. 96. 3, 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 movie The Battle of Algiers.
Caggiano, the military chaplain at the time, introduced the movie approvingly and added a religiously oriented commentary to it. They were preparing us for police missions against the civilian population, who became our new enemy. 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. An Italian film restoration had been done in 1. The restored print allowed Rialto Pictures to acquire the distribution rights for a December 1, 2.
United Kingdom, a January 9, 2. United States, and a May 1. France. The film was shown in the Espace Accattone rue Cujas in Paris from November 1. March 6, 2. 00. 7. The extras include former US counter- terrorism advisors Richard A.
Clarke and Michael A. Sheehan discussing The Battle of Algiers's 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. Criterion Blu- ray edition. The Battle of the Casbah: Terrorism and Counter- Terrorism in Algeria, 1. New York, Enigma Books, 2. ISBN9. 78- 1- 9. 29.
References. Retrieved 1. March 2. 01. 6. Retrieved 1. March 2. 01. 6. Retrieved 1. March 2. 01. 6. Retrieved 1. March 2. 01. 6. The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p.
The Battle of Algiers booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection DVD release, p. Peter Matthews, . Arun Kapil, . Retrieved 2. David Slocum, Terrorism, Media, Liberation. Rutgers University Press, 2. Barr Burlin, Lyrical Contact Zones: Cinematic Representation and the Transformation of the Exotic.
Cornell University Press, 1. Peter Matthews, . Pier. Nico Solinas, . Film Guide to The Battle Algiers, p.
Indiana University Press. ISBN9. 78- 0- 2. 53- 2.
Retrieved 2. 01. 1- 1. The Battle of Algiers. Interventions. Retrieved 1. March 2. 01. 6. 3. Sherzer, Dina. Cinema, Colonialism, Postcolonialism Perspectives from the French and Francophone World University of Texas Press, 1. Cowie, Peter, Revolution!
The Explosion of World Cinema in the 6. Faber and Faber, 2. Peter Matthews, . Klaus Stern & J. Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church and the . Retrieved 6 March 2.