Gillo pontecorvo biography of albert
Lal Salaam: A Blog by Vinay Lal
. . . with an aside on Frantz Fanon and Edward Said
I read a couple of days ago of the passing of Albert Memmi, the Tunisian-born Jewish novelist, political thinker, sociologist, and essayist who exiled himself to Paris after Tunisia’s proclamation of independence in 1956. At his death, on May 22 on the outskirts of Paris, he was just a few months shy of being 100 years old. I found myself surprised at reading his obituary in the New York Times, if only because it has been years since anyone had ever even mentioned him; to be brutally honest, having known him of him as a writer who had been most active, as I thought, in the 1950s and 1960s, it never occurred to me that he might still be living.
I was first drawn to Memmi’s work upon reading another extraordinary dissection of the psychology of colonialism, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (1982), by his somewhat younger contemporary, Ashis Nandy. By the mid-1980s, when I first encountered The Colonizer and the Colonized, published in French in 1957 as Portrait du Colonisé précédé du Portrait du Colonisateur, Memmi’s star had already faded—at least in the English-speaking world. In one respect, the partial obscurity into which he had fallen was surprising considering that, in the wake of the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), the study of colonialism had acquired a fresh lease of life and yielded rich and rewarding insights. This was the heyday of postcolonial studies, and I recall distinctly thinking to myself after reading Memmi: why do we not hear of him more often? On the other hand, it wasn’t surprising to me at all that Memmi had not so much fallen into disfavor but rather been, as it were, eclipsed—not by Said, whose treatment of colonialism was quite different from that of Memmi, but rather by Fanon.
Fanon is still widely read; he was certainly something of a rage then, all the more so because his wo "Gillo Pontecorvo is concerned with the oppressed, those kept down by the unjust and cruel use of power—and who will eventually rebel against the oppressor. ‘‘I’ve always wanted to look at man during the hardest moments of his life,’’ the filmmaker has stated. An examination of his filmography indicates that he has been true to his goals and ideals." - Rob Edelman (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 2000) Director / Screenwriter Key Production Countries: Italy, France "The younger brother of Professor Bruno Pontecorvo, the Harwell scientist who defected in 1950, Gillo Pontecorvo is himself a Marxist, and his concern with imperialism and colonialism has been very clear in his major films. He worked as an assistant director, directed documentary shorts, and made his first feature in 1957. His second film Kapò, the story of a young Jewess in Aushcwitz, gained some international recognition, but with the third, The Battle of Algiers, Pontecorvo won the Golden Lion at Venice and enormous acclaim. This film of the Algerian struggle for independence was terse, exciting, and essentially fair-minded; it used real locations and many non-professional actors, and looked, and perhaps was, totally authentic." - The Illustrated Who's Who of the Cinema, 1983 "Pontecorvo’s films often grappled with themes of political struggle, oppression, and resistance, displaying his deep-rooted commitment to social justice. His narratives were typically grounded in historical or contemporary sociopolitical conflicts, and he had a particular interest in exploring the perspectives Gillo Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for his 1966 masterpiece, The Battle of Algiers, widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre: realistic though fictionalized documentary. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War uses the neorealist style pioneered by fellow Italian film directors de Santis and Rossellini, employing newsreel-style footage and non-professional actors, and focusing primarily on a disenfranchised population that seldom receives attention from the general media. Though very much Italian neorealist in style, Pontecorvo co-produced with an Algerian film company. BornNovember 19, 1919 DiedOctober 12, 2006(86) An object can have many lives and many uses, including the transformation of the historical and political contexts it enters. A book, for instance, can be used, over the centuries, for pleasure and for educational purposes before becoming a tool for propaganda and then even its victim: burning in a fire as a consequence of censorship. One such object, although intangible, that has had a surprising political journey through the events of the latter half of the 20th century is the film “The Battle of Algiers” (1966) by the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo. Pontecorvo was active during World War II as a communist partisan in southern France and northern Italy, witnessing great suffering and fighting alongside many in the resistance who would go on to help preserve French colonialism in Algeria. Indeed, Pontecorvo’s experiences during the war led him to obsessively revisit the same themes — violence, politics, torture, morality and power — creating several films on insurgency including “Burn” (1969), which explores a Caribbean slave revolt, and “Operación Ogro” (1979), a retelling of the bombing campaign of the Basque separatist group ETA. However, Pontecorvo’s 13th film, “The Battle of Algiers,” unlike his other efforts, has retained a large influence. Banned in France for a decade, it has shaped the politics of anticolonial movements, the American and European New Left of the 1960s and 1970s and counterinsurgency discussions generated by the War on Terror. Indeed, many articles, across magazines, journals and websites, claim “The Battle of Algiers” was a major influence on the Black Panthers, the IRA and the Pentagon’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. The aim is to try to chart the film’s afterlife and dig into these often-repeated claims about its use as an insurgent and counterinsurgent instruction manual. The film retells the history of an urban conflict between the FLN (National Liberation Front) militants and a
TSPDT
(1919-2006) Born November 19, Pisa, Tuscany, Italy
Top 250 Directors
Key Genres: Drama, Political Drama, War, Historical Film, Docudrama, Crime
Key Collaborators: Franco Solinas (Screenwriter), Marcello Gatti (Cinematographer), Mario Morra (Editor), Ennio Morricone (Composer), Sergio Canevari (Production Designer)
The Battle of Algiers achieved great success and influence. It was widely screened in the United States, where Pontecorvo received a number of awards. He was also nominated for two Academy Awards.
Pontecorvo's next major work, Queimada! (Burn!, 1969), is also anti-colonial, this time set in the Antilles. This film (starring Marlon Brando) depicts an attempted revolution of the oppressed. Pontecorvo continued his series of highly political films with Ogro (1979), which addresses the occurrence of terrorism at the end of Francisco Franco's dwindling regime in Spain.
In 2006, he died from congestive heart failure in Rome at age 86.A Movie Stoked Political Movements Across the Globe