20 BATTLE OF ALGIERS, THE [ItALIAn: LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI]
in mind about a former French paratrooper covering the conflict as a journalist
who grows disillusioned with his country’s brutal counterinsurgency tactics. Two
years later Salah Baazi, an FLN official, met with Pontecorvo and Solinas in Italy
to further pursue their Algerian War film proj ect. Baazi subsequently rejected “Parà”
as not sufficiently centered on the Algerian people and countered with a script by
Saadi Yacef, a former FLN military commander, based on Yacef’s own book (Sou-
venirs de la Bataille d’Alger [Memories of the Battle of Algiers] 1962) that details a year-
long episode in the war known as the “ Battle of Algiers” (1957–1958). Pontecorvo
found Yacef’s script “sickeningly propagandistic” so he and Solinas set out to write
an entirely new screenplay, closely based on true events but striving for a more
even- handed treatment that avoided partisan extremes in either the French or
Algerian direction. The Algerians subsidized six months of research and location
scouting in Algiers, during which Pontecorvo and Solinas interviewed hundreds
of eyewitnesses. They also visited Paris, studied documents and newsreels, and
interviewed French army veterans who had served in Algiers. Five major revisions
of the script were produced before both sides were satisfied. By 1965 Pontecorvo
had forged a co- production deal between Casbah Films, an Algerian com pany co-
owned by Yacef and the state, and Igor Film, an Italian firm owned by Antonio
Musu, Pontecorvo’s production man ag er on his previous film, Kapò (1960).Production
Influenced by Italian neorealism, Pontecorvo and his cinematographer, Marcello
Gatti, took pains to mimic the raw immediacy of newsreel and Direct Cinema doc-
umentaries. Using techniques already perfected during the shooting of his previous
film, Kapò (1960), they shot in black and white, with 16-mm handheld cameras, in
natu ral light. To simulate the look of newsreel footage shot hastily in uncontrolled
conditions— a high level of graininess and image contrast— Gatti and Pontecorvo
made new negatives from the positive images. They then made new, rougher posi-
tive prints from those that were then blown up to 35 mm. As for actors, Pontecorvo
mostly cast Algerian Arabs or Kabyles (a Berber ethnic group native to Kabylia in
northern Algeria) who had no professional acting experience. The only profes-
sional actor in the film was Jean Martin, who played Col. Mathieu. A French actor
who had worked mostly in theater, Martin had fought with the Maquis in World
War II and had been a paratrooper during the Indochina War, military credentials
that lent his per for mance a high degree of authenticity.Plot Summary
The film opens in Algiers in 1957. A group of French troops have completed a round
of torture during their interrogation of an Algerian prisoner. The interrogation has
proved successful, and the troops travel to an address given up by the tortured
Algerian. One of the four key leaders of the FLN and his fellow crew members are
masked by a fake wall. Col. Mathieu ( Jean Martin) demands that the leader, Ali la
Pointe, emerge from his hiding place, as he is the only one of the leaders still alive.
Next we see a flashback to Algiers in 1954; the National Liberation Front (FLN)
calls its members to take arms and fight for in de pen dence. Ali la Pointe, aka Ali