Since its release in 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers has divided critical opinion. The film which depicts the Algerian struggle for independence, was awarded the Lion d'Or at the 1966 Venice Film Festival and nominated a year later for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film. Despite this acclaim, the inherently controversial film was banned in France until 1971 due to its graphic portrayal of torture and repression during the war. Heavily influenced by the distinctive film style Neorealism, the politically engaged director sought to make a film which was produced and shot within a 'dictatorship of truth.' These neorealist aesthetics (hand-held camera, non professional actors) rendered such an extraordinarily accurate reflection of social reality that the film's original U.S. distributor inserted the disclaimer: "Not one foot of newsreel or documentary film has been used."
This analysis will explore these cinematic techniques employed by Pontecorvo within a short sequence and examine their effects on our understanding of the issues and themes raised within the film.
The sequence chosen comes moments after the revelation by an old Algerian nationalist of the whereabouts of the last FLN member Ali La Pointe. The French Military, determined to suppress the Independent Movement have stormed the Casbah and have finally located 'la tête du ténia' behind a tiled wall. This sequence therefore effectively begins at the end of the story in the year 1957, the complex temporal structure is evident as we regress to the year 1954, here the film traces the transformation of Ali La Pointe from petty criminal to nationalist martyr.
Film of contrasts/Simplicity of France against Algeria
In the opening shot, the FLN and the French...
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... of the French quarters and the poverty of the Casbah in the previous sequence, between the European youths and Ali La Pointe, visually justifies Ali’s rebelliousness.
When the police arrive, Ali flees until; he is tripped up by a young Frenchman who in turn receives a brutal punch from Ali.
France v Algeria represented through protagonists Ali La Pointe and Colonial Mathieu
A voice-over lists Ali’s record as a petty criminal and past as a boxer, thief, and ruffian. The image accompanying the narration is a close shot of Ali under arrest, walking with the police officer. The music is Arabic. The scene is later paralleled by the arrival of Mathieu parading before waving Frenchmen while the narrator intones a description of Mathieu’s exploits.
due to the Italo-Algerian coproduction, it can be argued that Pontecorvo anoints the FLN with the status of victim.
Film Noir, as Paul Schrader integrates in his essay ‘Notes on Film Noir,’ reflects a marked phase in the history of films denoting a peculiar style observed during that period. More specifically, Film Noir is defined by intricate qualities like tone and mood, rather than generic compositions, settings and presentation. Just as ‘genre’ categorizes films on the basis of common occurrences of iconographic elements in a certain way, ‘style’ acts as the paradox that exemplifies the generality and singularity at the same time, in Film Noir, through the notion of morality. In other words, Film Noir is a genre that exquisitely entwines theme and style, and henceforth sheds light on individual difference in perception of a common phenomenon. Pertaining
Aside from the opening credits, the very first piece of textual evidence displayed is “Detroit Michigan, USA.” Soon after this, the audience is able to see a city being drawn in the background with the date 1968 displayed. This piece of information and artistic aesthetic give the viewer a time and place to anticipate. Also, while there is diegetic music being played, the title and date of the song is displayed on screen. For example, during one of Rodriguez’s song being played diegetically, the title “Crucify Your Mind (1970)” is displayed on the screen.
As an aside, I think the party music opened with the same piece played at the bar in the Battle of Algiers bombing scene. Battle of Algiers was made years later so it probably was a coincidental connection, both just played a popular dance song, but the sound of the music accompanied by a visual of young French people dancing in a colonial setting made me think immediatly that the party was going to end up no where good.
Joyce, James. “Araby”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Eds. R.V. Cassill and Richard Bausch. Shorter Sixth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000. 427 - 431.
To draw the conclusion, it can be effectively said that it is very difficult to incorporate the ideas contained in books into films, especially when one has to prove some theory. Pasolini has done it successfully by incorporating his film theory contained in the book Heretical Empricism into the film Mamma Roma. Pasolini’s creativity is an integral part of the classical art. He gave his life to change the world for the better through his films. He has not only presented his socialistic thoughts in the film, but also included religious motifs of Christianity to show the plight of a woman in this materialistic society. The development of unforgettable emotions and memories are guaranteed in return. Modern society should know and remember the
According to Amin Maalouf, “It seems clear that the Arab East still sees the West as a natural enemy. Against that enemy, any hostile action-be it political, military, or based on oil-is considered no more than legitimate vengeance. And there can be no doubt that the schism between these two worlds dates from the Crusades, deeply felt by the Arabs, even today, as an act of rape” (Amin Maalouf). When reflecting on The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, this quote always sticks out as the most powerful piece of Maalouf’s work. As a growing college student this quote brings harsh reality to the world I live in. I believe as you grow through life, you become more and more aware of the world around you through education. In order to be aware you must be educated; The Crusades Through Arab Eyes has done just that by opening my eyes to a world and viewpoint I have never before considered.
The beginning of colonization also marks the beginning of decolonization. From the day the colonists start exploiting the colonized people and belittling the colonized people for the colonists' self-aggrandizement, the colonized ones have been prepared to use violence at any moment to end the colonists' exploitation (Fanon, 3).Decolonization is violent, there is a necessity for violence. This is a point that is repeated again and again throughout The Battle of Algiers and The Wretched of the Earth. Here, the focus will be on The Battle of Algiers to discuss the violence of
The man does so while shedding a tear and half-heartedly trying to escape; clearly being forced to do something against his will. Within the first seconds of the movie depicts a subtle, yet powerful, connection between violence and power. Col. Mathieu is using his perceived power, through punishment, over the Arabic man to find out where rebel Ali La Pointe and others are hiding- and has the viewers see, it works. Throughout the movie only one dimension of power is exerted- dominance, and while the Battle of Algiers was won by the National Liberation Front, the overall war was lost, giving Algiers independence. I would argue this is because while violence can create immediate power, it will never maintain power over a group of
Muhammad Ali is able to put himself in his father’s murders shoes and the shoes of that man’s family. Muhammad Ali may not understand the man’s actions but he is able to understand and have empathy, if he was to kill this man he is causing other people more pain and suffering.
Classic narrative cinema is what Bordwell, Staiger and Thompson (The classic Hollywood Cinema, Columbia University press 1985) 1, calls “an excessively obvious cinema”1 in which cinematic style serves to explain and not to obscure the narrative. In this way it is made up of motivated events that lead the spectator to its inevitable conclusion. It causes the spectator to have an emotional investment in this conclusion coming to pass which in turn makes the predictable the most desirable outcome. The films are structured to create an atmosphere of verisimilitude, which is to give a perception of reality. On closer inspection it they are often far from realistic in a social sense but possibly portray a realism desired by the patriarchal and family value orientated society of the time. I feel that it is often the black and white representation of good and evil that creates such an atmosphere of predic...
Rascaroli, Laura. "The Essay Film: Problems, Definitions, Textual Commitments." Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 49.2 (2008): 24-47. JSTOR. Web. 08 May 2014.
In the film V for Vendetta the director James Mcteigue uses a range of different film techniques in order to gain the audience's attention and to make the movie more interesting. The four film techniques I’m going to focus on in this essay are editing, music, camera angles and the lighting. I am going to do this by analysing the ‘Domino Montage’ scene.
This influenced his critical view of ‘the system’ and its overbearing influence on those within its reach. Ali:Fear Eats the Soul depicts its characters as nearly entirely subject to the arbitrary actions and perceptions of German society. Ali himself is pavlovian in his responses to outside stimulus and this is seen with remarkable clarity near the end of the film with his last dance with Emmi at the bar. Fassbinder’s anarchist sentiments may also have contributed to Ali’s passivity in the face of social violence. As an outsider himself Fassbinder’s personal perspective contributed to the strength of his film in capturing the struggles of an
Vichy France is a period of French history that has only fairly recently begun to be examined for what it truly is: a period in which many of the French turned against their own state and collaborated with the German forces to betray their own country. Until the eighties, the Vichy Regime was regarded as “an aberration in the evolution of the French Republic” (Munholland, 1994) , repressed by the French in an attempt to regain their national pride. ‘Lacombe Lucien’ (1974), directed by Louis Malle is a film which aims to capture the ambiguity of the era through the documentation of fictional collaborateur, Lucien.
While reading the novel, I was most intrigued by how respectfully and amiably the guards and the local officials treated Meursault –¬ not at all like how a man under arrest for murder would be treated. However, after the OI, I understood that the Arabs – under French colonization – were stripped of political involvement and dehumanized, and that the hostility between the French and the Arabs was great during the 1940's. This explains why Meursault’s trial was not focused on the dead Arab, but on Meursault's refusing to cry at his mother funeral: for the French, defying societal norms was a much bigger crime than taking the life of an Arab.