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- This article is about the film. For information on the battle, see Algerian War of Independence.
Tagline: The Revolt that Stirred the World!
Subject matter
The film depicts an episode in the war of independence in the then French colony of Algeria, in the capital city of Algiers. It is loosely based on the account of one of the military commanders of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), Sadi Yacef, in his memoir Souvenirs de la Bataille d'Alger. 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 he approached the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo and screenwriter Franco Solinas with the project. The two dismissed Yacef's initial treatment as biased toward the Algerian side. While sympathetic with the cause of Algerian nationalism, they insisted on dealing with the events from a distanced point-of-view.
The film 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 French colonists in which the two sides exchange acts of increasing violence, leading to the introduction of French paratroopers to root out the 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; Halima, 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 and is often credited with the beginning of bloody post-World War II decolonisation, which also include the revolutions against the French in the Vietnam War. 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. This French loss was the first in a series of humiliating French defeats in colonial wars. 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.
Style and technical details
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.
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. This reflects the influence of Soviet directors Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin, as well as 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.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. 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). The professional 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.
Narrative style
Although the film is based on 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.In scripting the film, screenwriter Franco Solinas pieced together what he could from his shelved script for Para, a telling of the Battle of Algiers from the perspective of a disenchanted French paratrooper and from Saadi Yacef's memoirs, which told it from the FLN side. These contrasts provided the basis for the film's depiction of "symmetry" between scenes of insurgents and counter-insurgents at play. 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. Solinas sought to embody France in the character of Mathieu - who is "elegant and cultured," according to Solinas, because "the West is neither inelegant nor uncultured."
Sound and music
Sounds (effects and music) perform important functions in the film. Pontecorvo states in several interviews that he spent much of his time during editing thinking of motifs for the score. These motifs were eventually incorporated into the orchestral score by Ennio Morricone to heighten the emotional impact and to create parallels between scenes; scenes of French and Algerians civilians being killed carry the same elegiac tune. In addition, indigenous Algerian drumming was used rather than dialogue in a scene in which female FLN militants prepare for a bombing. Pontecorvo also 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.Post-release history
Critical acclaim
Critics have commended the Battle of Algiers for its technical merits and relatively even-handed portrayal of both sides. 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.Political controversies in the 1960s
The film produced considerable political controversy in France and was banned there for many years in 1966. Scenes of torture were cut from the original American and British releases as incendiary toward the French. 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.The Battle of Algiers and guerilla movements
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 . The release of The Battle of Algiers coincided with several wars that were viewed as national liberation struggles as well as a rising tide of left-wing radicalism in Western nations in which a large minority showed interest in armed struggle.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. This may be due to affinities between the FLN and PLO: both were Arab secular nationalist groups, fostered in exile by the President of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser.Palestinian exiled intellectual Edward Said is known for his relationship with one of the FLN's theorists, Frantz Fanon ; Said also narrated one of the special features on the Criterion release of Battle of Algiers.
In the Western nations, a number of groups were believed to have been inspired to "pick up the gun" by The Battle of Algiers in the late 1960s. In the United States, the Maoist Weather Underground and revolutionary black nationalist Black Panther Party (particularly the section that became the Black Liberation Army) were known for their affinity for the film . In Northern Ireland, the film is believed to have influenced young members of the Irish Republican Army to split the group and form the Provisional IRA .
Right-wing politicians have criticized The Battle of Algiers as mere communist and terrorist propaganda . 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).
2003 Pentagon screening
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 llustration of the problems faced in Iraq. 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.
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."
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. 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 .
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.An Italian film restoration had been done in 1999, fortunately for those whose interest had been piqued by mention of The Battle of Algiers in coverage of the Iraq occupation. 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. 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 . 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 a twist of fate, among the best receptions for the Battle of Algiers was at the Cannes Film Festival.
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.Proposed remake
An American remake of The Battle of Algiers is being pursued by producer Basil Iwanyk. The new film would include an American character, presumably a journalist or United Nations worker. The idea of a remake has not been well-received by the movie's admirers who fear that it will be "Hollywood-ised". Evidence for this allegation is the consideration of actors for the American; Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Leonardo di Caprio and Sean Penn.
External links
- Official Site at Rialto Pictures
- Movie Trailer
- New York Times on the Pentagon Screening
- The Dark Soul of Colonel Mathieu at the blog Lawyers, Guns and Money
- Peter Matthews essay at criterionco.com
Algerian War | 1965 films | Italian films | French-language films | War films | Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award nominees
"The Battle of Algiers"