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An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo Author(S): Joan Mellen and Gillo Pontecorvo Source: Film Quarterly, Vol

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An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo Author(S): Joan Mellen and Gillo Pontecorvo Source: Film Quarterly, Vol An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo Author(s): Joan Mellen and Gillo Pontecorvo Source: Film Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 2-10 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211406 . Accessed: 23/09/2013 16:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOAN MELLEN An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo The director of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which has become a classic because of its astonishingly newsreel-like reconstruction of the Algerian independence struggle, spoke with Joan Mellen in English. His remarks have been slightly abridged for publication. As a Marxist, what has attracted you to making Algiers. The fight of oppressed people against films about the colonial revolution rather than colonialism, in any case, interests me because films about struggles in industrialized countries? it's one of the most difficult moments of the I have made so few films that my answer must human condition. And because our entire civili- be "by accident." I make one film every four or zation is constructed within this matrix. On the five years. In all, I have made four films.* I shoulders of colonial people, we draw all our was also supposed to make a film about a sec- strengths. And our manner of thinking and our tion of Fiat called "Confino Fiat," where they culture depend always to a greater or smaller put all the politically active workers during the degree on this fact. Even if you don't have col- Scelba government and the entire series of center onies, your manner of thinking, your culture, governments which brought a great repression derives from the fact that Americans came from to Italy. It wasn't shot for a number of reasons. Europe . I was also going to make a film But I might have done that film instead of last year about Pinelli, the anarchist who "fell" to his death from police headquarters. I was so *The Long Blue Road (1957); Kapo (1959); The Battle stupid, I let someone who had seen Sacco and of Algiers (1965); Burn! (1969) Vanzetti convince me that the theme was too This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions PONTECORVOPONTECORVO 3 close. Now, I'm furious not to have done it. But caused by the young Algerian girl . In the it's too late to make this film because a few days other branches of work we did much better. For ago we had another incident (the murder of instance, we had only one chief electrician and Calebresi, the police officer implicated in the when we arrived we asked people who usually Pinelli death) . One year ago the event put electricity in houses to work with us. Our seemed as if it were finished and you could electrician began to teach them what they must handle it. But now many other things have know to work in films. The Algerians were very happened. clever and very rapid learners. After a short What were some of the difficulties in shooting time we had nearly a normal crew. The same Battle of Algiers? Was it hard to get people to thing was done by Gatti, the photographer, who work with you? Were you assisted by the Bou- chose three young men and worked with them. medienne government? They took notes and made little designs of where Getting people to work with us was more the the lights should be, scene by scene. I can re- achievement of the Algerian co-producer than member the name of a young man who is now a the government. From the government we had good photographer there, Ali Maroc. He was the normal things, but these were more easily working and trying to learn exactly as if he were obtained than anywhere else when you want to in a course of cinematography. And it was very shoot in a street. You must have a permit and easy for Gatti because he likes this kind of situa- they give it very promptly. What was more use- tion. In any case it was very useful that the ful was that they gave us the possibility of using crew was so compact. We did a lot of work that some soldiers in the mass scenes. The Algerian usually presupposes an enormous crew-the and Italian producers were obliged to pay, but mass scenes for example. We saved money be- less than usual. We had excellent collaboration cause we did things in a nontraditional way. with the people who were brought to work with It is clear that you have made a film on the us. Even though they were paid, they partici- side of Algerian independence. But is this un- pated more than the usual extras . it was a dermined in any way by treating the violence most interesting experience because we went committed by Algerians and French in a one-to- there with a very small crew. The Italian pro- one relationship? You show the Algerians kill- ducer to whom I brought this subject told me ing someone, then the French retaliating, then that he would make any film I wanted, but that the Algerians, etc., whereas in the historical sit- this project was impossible. It meant "making a uation the French killed hundreds of thousands film without any meaning, in black and white, more than the Algerians, including women and without actors and without a story." He said children. There is only one moment in the film that "the Italian people don't care about black where we get a sense of this, when Ben M'Hidi people." I told him I am sorry, but Algerians says, "Give us your napalm and we'll give you are white like you. In fact, the Italian people our women's baskets." were very touched by the war in Algeria because This happens in an extremely tense moment both Algeria and France are so close to us. Still, of the film and it creates a proper balance of the they didn't want to make the film. One pro- problem. I thought it was enough. He says it ducer said, "only because it is you, I will give a at the moment toward which all the dramaturgy minimum guarantee of 45 million lira ($80,- has been pointing. Then you see the Algerian 000)"-which is nothing. The film earned this people being tortured and you hear the musical amount in Italy in six days! motif of Ali La Pointe. You feel the difference The crew was so light and we had so little between the French and the Algerians who are money that we began the film without even a defending themselves with anything they have. script girl, thinking we could find one there. There is another more important point. I After one month we had to call a script girl from think it is insignificant to say, "One side killed Rome because of the confusion in the footage ten, the other killed two." The problem is that This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Mon, 23 Sep 2013 16:02:52 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 4 4 PONECRVPONTECORVO they are in a situation in which the only factor the five, ten, fifteen people who were nearest to is oppression. Then they begin to fight and I the cameraand worked only with them. I didn't don't believe that when people fight, some fight even look at the others. I looked to see if the hard and some fight less hard. The Algerians expression on their faces was right. A crowd castrated people and also committed torture. scene can be spoiled if the expression of only You must judge who is historicallycondemned one person is not exactly what you want. It is and who is right. And to give the feeling that the persontwo metersfrom the camerawho con- you identify with those who are right. At the veys the feeling and determines whether the beginning I wanted to call the film by another scene is right or not. In this way you create the name, a biblical term, "to give birth in sorrow." feeling of a stolen moment duringan actualhap- But my associate producersaid, "You are mad, pening. If you don't have this kind of control, no one will go and see it with this dull title." you always have two or three people who are But this title gives an indicationof my intention. looking the wrong way and the scene is spoiled. The birth of a nation happenswith pain on both Were your nonprofessional actors familiar sides, although one side has cause and the other with the actual Battle of Algiers? Were they not . when the torture became theorized participantsin the historicalincidents described and scientific, it became an importantmoment in the film? of the war, and for this reasonwe began the film No, because the complexion of the people of with torture.
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