I thought that the terrorism aspect of this movie was very interesting. You almost want the terrorists to succeed so that Algeria will be free from the French, but in the same sense it mirrors passed incidents that have destroyed many lives and caused death all over the world. I tried to look a little further into the films history and how the terrorist aspect was perceived back when it was released. I found that theaters all over France that attempted to show the movie were bombed and viewers in Italy were attacked over this controversial film. Many times people don’t realize how influential a film like this can be. Many people argue that the Middle East learned how to produce terror from Algeria.
This article is a really interesting read telling how accurate Pontecorvo’s depiction of this movie was, how it affected the world, and how it mirrors the world today:
I thought the use of music Pontecorvo incorporated in his film The Battle of Algiers was well done. the use of music in the scenes leading up to the three Algerian women’s bombing the french quarter and the bombing scenes themselves were particularly effective. The music itself was very intense with a rapid and jarring beat. However what made the scenes even more dramatic was the contrast of sounds the director used. Scenes would switch off with the music or just standard sounds. I thought this was effective because when there is music that is continuously playing in the background the audience may tune it out and it loses its potency. The film however avoids this by cutting of the music and bringing it back through the use of different scenes. This prohibits the audience from sub-consciously tuning out the music and increases the effect of intense music.
In the scene where the young boy is walking down the stairs past the cop I think the director did a great job of showing how suspicious the cop was by putting the cat in the background. The boy told the police officer he was walking down to the beach, but he was really shooting the cop. The police officer asked about three times what the boy was doing and where he was going. In the background, there was a cat wandering around. Cats usually symbolize suspicion and suspense. The use of the cat really enhanced the cops suspicion of the boy trying to kill the cop, which he ended up doing.
This video was taken in 2013. Obviously it is a little theatrical but you can see the relevance of “Do the Right Thing” spewed throughout his poem. The pain that is felt throughout the movie is embodied in this poetry slam and sure “Do the Right Thing” was made almost 30 years ago but we have to ask ourselves how much did things really change. People will always have a skewed few of things that are “different” whether that relates to race, obesity, hair color, size, etc. However we shouldn’t need to “learn to deal” with this issue, we should be able to embrace it with open arms.
At the rate that racism is getting exposure in America it becomes obvious to everyone that it is slowly but surely dying out. Now don’t get me wrong there will probably never be a day where it does not exist and today we are not close by any means of it being gone. However it is certainly being throttled down, this upcoming generation and our generation have made great advances in promoting equality not just of race but of sexual orientation and most importantly a change in culture. People aren’t smoking cigarettes like chimneys anymore, vegetarians and vegans are more prominent than ever and healthy lifestyles are promoted across all fronts of society.
Even with all of these advances though you are left with this underlying feeling that there is more that we can do. That is accomplished through videos like the one above and “Do the Right Thing” not because they are making white people look bad. They are exposing what minorities have to go through on a daily basis and that alone is enough for people to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves.
“How:
Is anyone different in the end?
can I help?
can someone possibly go through that on a daily basis?
can you truly feel superior when you are smiting your fellow human beings?
and finally why should there be a difference?”
These are the questions these videos bring to the table.
A powerful scene in this film is when the police chief is getting the day-to-day info on the shootings and deaths. He realizes they are terrorist attacks by the algerians. He is in his office, on the phone, telling the person who is taking down the info the dates, times, and ways of the attacks. There is uncertainty and fear in his voice. In addition, the filmmaker makes him look nervous by showing him wiping down the sweat off his forehead and getting a glass of alcohol to drink. He is pacing around the room and looking out the window. There is a close up shot of him in front of the window with the blurry backround showing the future Battle of Algiers that is going to take place in the city that is behind him, which is calm at night behind him. He does not fully know what to do and how to take on the previous attacks- where many of the policemen have died. This is a powerful scene because it is very realistic and pauses after the violent attacks, there is a: ” calm before the storm”.
There are several recurring and important themes portrayed in The Battle of Algiers, undoubtedly meant to expose the truth behind unstable areas of the word and the violence that comes with them. In several different scenes racism is flaunted, although this could just have been the reality of the time period and not commentary on the situation. However, innocents taking the blame and the backlash for acts of violence is a theme that is showed several different times within the film. This is a sign of the realism of the film, as it shows the injustice of violence and the tendency of people to let anger cloud their judgement and hurt those who are innocent. The “Arabs”, no matter who they are, are assumed to be up to no good or responsible for whatever has happened every time. This is seen when Ali is tripped up at the beginning of the movie(although he actually was a criminal being chased in that instance), when an attack on a police officer is blamed on an innocent old man by accusing French people on the rooftops, and when a child is attacked after the bombing of the horse races. The racism that leads up to these unjust acts of accusation is undeniable, and seems to have been included purposefully by the director to show how quickly blind tensions can escalate.
I found this video on Vimeo that shows a montage of different dolly zooms used throughout cinema, from films like Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (which apparently made the technique famous and introduced it, more or less, into mainstream Hollywood) and Lord of the Rings, and even into music videos like “Thriller.”
The shots can be a little disorienting, but they’re pretty fascinating to look at, and definitely establish a stylistic theme of confusion, fear, and mystery.
Note: Just a warning that the music in the video can be a little annoying and overbearing.
In both films interesting how they employ the use of over saturation. It is very noticeable in both films how the filmmaker employs the use of over saturation. The element of saturation have different symbolic meanings in the films. First, in Do the Right Thing, the saturation helps show the tension and pressure building up in the characters and events. The filmmaker also uses a lot of red colors which indicates the warmth and anger. So you can almost feel the warmth off the screen. The red and saturated colors shows tension emulating. In contrast, in Amelie there is more of a simplistic palate of primary colors not dark, deep reds and oranges. This makes it not as evocative as much as visually consistent. In the end, both films employed saturated colors in different ways to make it visually more intriguing.
In the opening scene, it shows Amelie doing very typical activities that a child would do. This sets up the viewer to take into consideration Amelie’s youth and innocence. Amelie is shown putting raspberries on her fingers and I remembering doing that as a child, but I would always do that with my sister. The director purposely does this to show how Amelie lives a lonely life and is forced to always do things alone because no one pays attention to her. Another thing that the director makes very apparent is how strict Amelies parents are. Amelies dad shows no love towards his young daughter which is very strange. A father usually has a very special relationship with his first child. The mom is very strict as well, but it is portrayed that she is strict because she cares. Amelie is home-schooled and when Amelie got the answer wrong her mom smacks the ruler on the table. This shows that Amelies mother is strict about her education, but parents are strict about education because they want their children to do well. It seems as if this movie will have a common theme of Amelie struggling to get her dad’s attention and approval and her mom will struggle to balance wanting the best for her daughter and being strict.
In the opening scene of Amelie, all the props that were used served a similar purpose. They showed her innocence as a child and her imagination. As the movie progresses, it is shown that Amelie was very lonely being home schooled and had tuff parents. The only friends she really had were her fish and her imaginated friends. The props in the opening credits such as the paper cut outs, the coin spinning, and the sound coming from the top of the class showed that all of her fun came from her imagination. This plays into our class discussion of Mise en Scéne. During the opening scene, there wasn’t much dialogue between the characters. Instead, most of story was told by the actions of the characters and the props they used.
