TCM Pick O’ The Day: Friday, February 20th
by John Nolte
7:30am PST - Battle Of Algiers, The (1965) – Algiers revolts against the French Foreign Legion. Cast: Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Brahim Haggiag, Tommaso Neri Dir: Gillo Pontecorvo BW-121 mins, TV-14
I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never seen this. I have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion and C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate, but somehow this one got past me.
Good thing, then, we have our own Robert Avrech, who wrote a masterful two-part deconstruction of the film just last month titled, “Learning From the Real Battle of Algiers.” Here’s the opener:
The Battle of Algiers, (1965) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, a perennial favorite on college campuses, is hailed as a modern classic. Certainly the skillful use of black & white cinema verite is highly effective, making the viewer feel as if he’s been plunged into the heart of the Algerian maelstrom. The scenes of torture and terror are stomach churning and bring chills to any civilized viewer.
But let’s be clear, the film is a work of leftist propaganda, beautifully crafted, to be sure, but a film that seeks to justify Islamic terror by proposing that the French were so brutal that the Algerians had no choice but to resort to unrestrained terror.
Sound familiar?
You better believe it.
You can read both parts of his essay here and here, and then check out the movie tomorrow. Anyplace else would charge you tuition for all these services.
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21 Comments
It looks like documentary footage at times,the "bombings" are sickenly realistic. as John Nolte says,it is propoganda,so best viewed in conjunction with some informed overviews of the gestation of Islamic fundamentalism …
For this,i would recommend the documentary series by Adam Curtis,first aired on the BBC and still available on Google Video.."The Power Of Nightmares" ..I would recommend i"TPON" anyway,for pure entertainment/artistic value,it being a shifting collage of found/archive footage and carefully chosen music,narrated over by Curtis in a disarming objective,unsensational style.
I reviewed films for my college newspaper in the late '60s and this was my favorite. Yes, I was a conservative back them. The best line in the film was when the French commander responded to a reporter at a press conference – "Why are you liberals always on the wrong side?" It showed the the tide changed when the people supported the fight for independance at the end of the film. Before that, the fighters were basically alone.
Wow! I've just finished reading Mr. Avrech's dissection of 'Battle of Algiers'. Talk about having your eyes opened. Even before I finished reading, I clicked over to Amazon and put Horne's 'Savage War of Peace' in my cart. Thanks so much. BTW, I saw this film some years ago – it is brilliant propaganda. Avrech is correct in linking it with 'Triumph of the Will'.
Wow, John Nolte is actually Roy Batty.
I had to watch it in a poli sci class in college. The best part is that the very people who advocated its message of hatred of the west, neglected its message of hatred of anyone and anything that isn't repressive. In the film there is a scene where children chase and kills a drunk man, attack other muslims who don't fit their code, and kill muslim people who happened to be near french people.
It's a film with a terrible message that glorifies ideas that would result in the murder of the very 'artistic' people that made it. I have always found it funny that the groups that have the most to lose: marxists, homosexuals, sexually active and educated females, reading(other than the quran), the artists, movie makers, musicians, etc are the ones doing the most to promote the very thing that would kill them.
If they think conservative american christians, well multiply them by 1000 and turn them extremely violent and you have created the extremist islamists.
I saw this a few years ago and didn't realize it was propaganda for the Left. I kept rooting for the French and didn't mind their using torture at all. The movie seemed to illustrate how evil the terrorists were, not how bad the French were.
Why is a movement of liberation from colonial powers in the 20th century almost always labeled socialist, without exception. (they very well may all have been-but if that is what the people there wanted, then where do we get off telling them that, ” No your chosen form of government just isn’t what WE want you to have, and because of that, we find you repulsive and reprehensible. Do not count on normal relations with us. We will try to install some sort of “democratic government” through regime change asap.” (for example iran and chile long ago.)
Also how would you define the foundation of our own country. We were very anti-establishment. We were bucking the current trend. We practiced guerilla warfare. We stole, damaged others properties, engaged in activities if looked at through British eyes could be defined as terrorism if conducted in modern times.
Check your history.
First, not all liberation movements were socialist.
Secondly, it wasn't the west that labeled these groups socialist or marxist, they labeled themselves that. Most of these liberation groups were headed by people who had trained in East bloc schools and were supported either militarily, financially, or logistically by the Soviets or the Cubans (see Angola). They fought with the EXPRESS intent of replacing colonial rule with socialist regimes. That's why call them socialist.
As for being government's that the people wanted, if that was true, those same people wouldn't have been struggling for the last thirty years to overthrow these same regimes.
You know, there was a time when your side was proud to call themselves Socialist or Marxist. But I guess that whole hundreds of millions dead, economies ruined, countries bankrupted, people starving in breadlines and dying in work camps or fleeing to the capitalist west kind of ruined it for you huh?
Nice Blade Runner mention, John, and as always, thanks for the TCM heads-up.
A great film, bad history or not. And you can just root for the French. I did.
Shouldn't be embarrassed about not having seen this film, Mr. Nolte. Based on what Mr. Avrech has written about The Battle Of Algiers, I'm not inclined to see it. Most propagandized films don't appeal to me for obvious reasons (Just a few minutes of Alexander Nevsky convinced me of that; come to think of it, so did Platoon). Sometimes, the content makes the film less than worth it, no matter how well made it is.
Actually, this is an excellent film. It is remarkably fair in its depictions of both sides, in my opinion, though it shouldn't be taken as gospel. The documentary style is amazing, and it feels like you're watching the real history unfold. Personally, I don't like the French and I don't like empires, but this film didn't demonize them or hero-worship the terrorists, though it probably did support Algerian independence in the end. The Algerian revolutionaries were clearly Muslim, but their motivation was much more about gaining independence for their country than simply killing westerners, and their strategy eventually worked. However, to start out with, small bands of them are depicted murdering policeman and other government officials, and women are shown setting bombs in cafes and dance halls, killing dozens of innocent people. It also shows the French government striving to cope with this isurgency by setting up blockades around the Muslim section of town and methodically arresting and torturing to get to the center of the terrorist ring. The film does not pass judgment on any of these actions, it merely documents them and displays both sides rationalizations. In the end, even though the French kill all the terrorists, the people rise up en masse, and the French are forced to leave. It isn't a fun movie or an action flick, it deals with the issues clearly and methodically and leaves the judgment up to the viewers. Watch it.
Battle for Algiers is a great movie. It would be a shame for someone to miss this because they mistakenly believe it is leftist propaganda. The Muslims are not glorified, the French are not villainized. Terrorism and torture are the brutal tools each side employs against the other. Robert Avrech's essays don't much address the actual movie, except to say that Pontecorvo neglected a Jewish narrative. But the story is the Algerians terrorising the French to scare them into leaving the country, and the French efforts to protect themselves. See this movie for yourself and come to your own conclusion. It's well worth it.
Stephen presents my original point, much better than I did. Thanks. Other movies that play fast and loose with the truth (such as 'Munich'), I am better able to criticize for their political posturing.
I thought Battle of Algiers was OK, no better.
If you want to see a real movie that shows the development of a militant urban guerilla warfare campaign from the ground up, you should check out – and I'm NOT making up the name of this movie – The Spook Who Sat By The Door. It's now on DVD.
I was thinking the same John.. but I'll have to admit, I haven't seen this one in a LONG time.
u should get the dvd of this one becouse it's chock full of interesting comments and history of that time.
The movie is blatantly dishonest. The insurgents killed far more of their own people than they did the French. It's less historically accurate than the new movie on Che. Cheer for the French and mourn the tens of thousands of Algerians massacred by the terrorists.
I always have to explain the end of this movie. It was meant to be leftist propaganda. The directer did his best to be as accurate as possible. He succeeded. The result is that he showed how the French destroyed the terrorist network. This is why this film is very popular with the Pentagon and other armies around the world. While the French won Algers they lost the war. The directer did not want to show the real reason why the French lost the war.
You write a about a film without seeing it? Does the concept
of going to a video store or ordering a film from Netflix seem difficult?
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