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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:18
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whyso?
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:18
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
However, if you will notice in the film, all of the armored military vehicles are Soviet built, which immediately made me suspicious. Since the filmmaker had been given that sort of access, I seriously wondered what the director's personal leanings were.
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Gillo Pontecorvo was also Jewish, joined the Italian Communist Party during World War II, and fought with the partisans. His second film 'Kapo' was a joint French-Italian-Yugoslavian production and was about life in a concentration camp.
Should one assume therefore that he was a Titoist, a Gaullist, a supporter of the Italian Christian Democrats or Socialists or a Zionist ?
Lets see what he had to say about it:
quote:
Left party in 1956 after Soviet invasion of Hungary. Maintains left-wing politics and this commitment inspires his work as a film-maker.
Self deprecating description: "I am not an out-and-out revolutionary. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews. I come from Pisa and I lean that way naturally." |
European Communism (more especially Italian Communism) was not necessarily Soviet supporting or Stalinist in inspiration- especially after the invasion of Hungary.
I don't believe one say from the film that his sympathies are unreservedly with the terrorists- since his camera doesn't flinch from showing us who is affected by the bombings or what the effects of the bombings are.
quote:
Film sponsored by Yacef Saadi, FLN leader of Algiers units during war, but Pontecorvo insisted on creative autonomy and independence. Pontecorvo and his script writer Franco Solinas spent 6 months doing research for the film; using newsreels and police archives and eyewitness interviews. Interviewed veterans from both sides and then worked on script for 6 months. Shot on location in Algiers. |
http://homepage.mac.com/dmhart/WarF...eOfAlgiers.html
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shawnmmcc
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Molly - your first statement, in an attempt to show my suspicions (please note I was suspicious) has a series, no all poor analogies. To imply a voluntary association - i.e. Italian communist - is the same as an involuntary association, i.e. Jew is frankly a red herring. If it was a Jewish director attacking the Palestinian terrorists (or is it freedom fighters?) I would first check if that individual was a Zionist, which is a voluntary association. I would not assume it, I would check. Like I did with Pontecorvo.
If I had seen him directing a film about the glories of Communist Yugoslavia, it would have been germane if he fought with the partisans. That would have caused me to see which side he had fought with (they were all NOT communists) and if he had fought with Tito, I would have watched his documentary with a very skeptical eye.
If the film had shown him having access to French military equipment that was only available to either the French military or countries with close ties to the French government, and the film had portrayed the Algerians as terrorists and the French paratroopers as heroes - yes, I would have checked for his Gaullist leanings. Ditto if he had done similar work connected to the Italian political parties.
None of those per se are germane to the film in question (except the Gaullist part and I've already stated what would have made me suspicious in those circumstances). In this case the fact he was a member of the Italian communist party, and was given help by the authoritarian Algerian government, both justify my skepticism.
Note I did NOT accuse him of being pro-Soviet, what I stated was that the appearance of the Soviet armor made me skeptical, and rightfully so. You mae the point about Eurocommunists and the Soviets, I never even say it by inference. I even quote cites as to the relationship of the Algerian government to the Soviets, they are clearly NOT a satellite state, but can be considered friendly to that dictatorship. The Soviet armor was an indicator, and rightfully so, of a certain commonality, in this case all three parties - the Soviet government, Pontecorvo, and the Alergian government were all opposed to the French colonial regimes, and for some, but not necessarily all, common reasons. That is why my first post was so wordy - I knew somebody would just have to nit-pick.
To give an avowed leftist - by your own quote - and a voluntary communist, by his own choices - creative control is like Carl Rove quoting the Heritage Foundation as an independent think tank. Yes, technically that is true. Practically, by sponsoring a director who already was sympathetic, the FLN was more or less guaranteeing that the film will as a minimum be favorable, and at a best case a sterling propaganda piece.
If you look at the director's portrayal of the French - torturing and engaging in military ops in civilian areas - versus his overall friendly treatment of the insurgency - I would say he was biased. I also make very clear that I do not support what the French government and military did, and that Pontecorvo’s bias does not excuse anything the French did. I am warning about using this film as a primary source to judge the insurgency as a whole.
As I've mentioned, a good propaganda piece tells the truth for the most part, but spins it very favorably to you side, with an occasional lie (more by omissions than commissions to add more clarity to my opinions). Pontecorvo made what, IMHO, I would consider a biased film, and I would have to think more and study the war more closely before I could honestly say it was unequivocally a propaganda piece.
You, by your introductory statement, do both yourself and me a disservice, Molly - I believe I've always treated your posts with respect. It's the point I kept telling Ned, and I got some good info out of him when he would stay focused. Stick to good facts and solid arguments, instead of rhetorical tactics of the type Dinodoc uses. You will get more respect from the majority of posters here, and be more likely to sway more opinions. I would rather sway opinions than make a point - then I get other people to make my point for me. 
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:18
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
You, by your introductory statement, do both yourself and me a disservice, Molly - I believe I've always treated your posts with respect. It's the point I kept telling Ned, and I got some good info out of him when he would stay focused. Stick to good facts and solid arguments, instead of rhetorical tactics of the type Dinodoc uses. You will get more respect from the majority of posters here, and be more likely to sway more opinions. I would rather sway opinions than make a point - then I get other people to make my point for me. |
Well I have to confess I think you have misread the tenor and content of my post.
It isn't always possible to discern the political leanings nor the sympathies of a director or writer from their films- I'd say it's about as successful as trying to describe Shakespeare's or Leonardo's character or politics from their works.
'The Battle of Algiers' isn't a docudrama- it's a fictional work that uses elements and techniques found in documentary films to make its artistic point more successfully- similar to Peter Watkins film 'Culloden' or Orson Welles's 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast.
'Culloden' :
http://www.bfi.org.uk/videocat/more/culloden/
" In 1964, the average documentary of a battle would involve historians doing voice-overs and maps showing troop advancement. Watkins didn't want to tell his audience the way it was, he wanted to show them. As a result, he gathered together a cast of unknowns to re-enact the battle but, instead of merely using his actors to demonstrate how it would have appeared, he went one better, actually "interviewing" members of the clans, personalising them, to accent the wealth of the English and Lowland Scots army compared to the poverty of their Gaelic-speaking adversaries. "
http://www.iofilm.co.uk/printer_fri...oden_1964.shtml
'Battle of Algiers' was made on location in Algeria- this doesn't imply that Pontecorvo approved of the Algerian government, any more than filming 'El Cid' in Spain showed approval of Franco's regime. One could infer that admittedly- especially given the anti-colonialist struggle prevalent in the wider world at the time he made the film, and his likely sympathies as a leftist.
As for how he viewed the use of violence by both sides:
quote:
In one scene, a group of ordinary people, French and Algerian, are enjoying coffee and conversation near the casbah when a rebel bomb explodes among them. The shock of this sequence is even worse than the scenes of the French using torture. |
http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_...rticle_continue
I think his film works because it shows us that the victims of the Algerian independence fighters' bombs are humans too- enjoying a coffee, listening to music in a cafe- and that violence dehumanises both sides, the paratroopers and the rebels.
If you're going to say that you have suspicions about Pontecorvo's sympathies and his political stance, then let him speak for himself:
quote:
"For a long time, I had begun to criticize that which I had liked for so long: those [Communist Party] grooves that had given me a great sense of security, the romanticization of the working class...the romanticization of the Soviet Union and the myopia concerning certain facts.... This series of small delusions had brought [me and others] to the truth and had separated us from the religion. When the suppression [of the revolt] in Hungary took place, all these feelings came to a head, and I decided to leave a party in which I had believed blindly, but which had deluded me in many ways." |
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/beary4.html
Now as for using rhetorical tricks- come on, mention 'Soviet' and 'communist' in short order and who is going to take the time to distinguish between a disillusioned Eurocommunist who joined the party to fight Fascism in WWII, and an ardent cold war warrior ?
quote:
Pontecorvo and his collaborator Franco Solinas, Bignardi writes, were "fascinated by the events and their ideological implications, convinced that the anti-colonial struggle was an urgent and important subject, almost a symbol and model for the political struggle against ‘an invincible capitalism in Italy,’ " as Solinas put it in an interview. In 1964, a representative of military head of the FLN leader Jacef Saadi (who in the film plays the part of the FLN commander Kader) arrived in Italy looking for a leftist director to make a film about the struggle for Algerian independence and decided on Pontecorvo. In 1965, the government of Algeria gave the director "not only all the necessary permits to shoot the film in Algiers, but put at his disposal – though not completely without charge – the Algerian army for the crowd scenes." |
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C0ckney
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Big Up The Macedonian Massive
Apr 2000
time: 05:18
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
ZK - legally it was part of France, if you grant the premise of the supremacy of Western doctrines of conquest. Islam actually states, since Algeria was Moslem, that it is rightfully a Muslim state and will always be so - as is/was most of the territory of Spain. |
spain was christian long before muslims invaded it.
che, i could be very wrong here, but don't christians (protestant croats and orthodox serbs) outnumber muslims in bosnia today?
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shawnmmcc
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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. 
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:18
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quote:
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.
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shawnmmcc
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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.
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BlackCat
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quote:
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.
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11-07-2005 13:44
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