From Criterion's site...

The Battle of Algiers 3-DVD Set Coming in Autumn

Criterion’s upcoming release of Gillo Pontecorvo’s landmark 1965 film The Battle of Algiers will be a three DVD set. This special edition will include a new transfer supervised by cinematographer Marcello Gatti and a number of features created specifically for the Criterion release, including new interviews with writer/director Gillo Pontecorvo, producer/actor Saadi Yacef, actor Jean Martin, Marcello Gatti, composer Ennio Morricone, and historians Benjamin Stora and Alistair Horne. Also featured will be filmmakers speaking to the film's importance, including directors Steven Soderbergh, Julian Schnabel, and Spike Lee. Look for Criterion’s The Battle of Algiers this autumn.

Excellent. I'm looking forward to seeing this film for the first time and i'm sure Criterion will provide a great presentation.

Great film...I just hope the supplements don't feature a lot of celebrity directors making a lot of the same kind of imagined parrallels between the film and our current war in Iraq that a lot of history illiterate commentators have been making of late.

I also wonder why this is going to be 3 disc. 1 disc for the film and it looks like everything else is interviews. 2 whole discs of interviews!? Wow

Its a great film but the third disc sounds dodgy - unless there's going to be a feature-length documentary on Algeria/French Colonialism.

There's not a parallel to the Iraq situation, but I would say this film is at a tangent. A muslim populace engaging in terrorist activities to fight a stronger occupying force. There's a lot of other elements that are different.

Are you on crack? Outside of geography, there ain't much more difference.
And the Pentagon certainly thinks so, otherwise why would they have screened it?

The Hell you say! There's a HUGE difference! The FRENCH were involved in the earlier battle.

I can't wait for this. I watched this recently in the theater and was very impressed with it.

Let the bashing begin....with a capital B!!! Now let's see how many will respond with clever remarks about the French (why not all Europeans) and hijack this thread completely.


For once let's just stay on track and discuss the Criterion release....not the war in Iraq (for this purpose PLEASE head to the "other" forum).

Now....I am also curious what the 3 discs will offer. Great news regardless!!

Pro-B

Sorry pro-bassonist I'm going to have to jump in here because there are too many arm chair intellectuals who keep regurgitating this stuff.

In as few words as possible the singular difference between the French/Algerian conflict and the current Iraq war is that Algeria was a colony of France. The french had semi-hostily occupied Algeria for 60 years. The US did not occupy Iraq previous to the war, we did not claim Iraq as a colony, and we have openly admited to our lack of colonial interest from the very begining (ie. 1991).

The biggest hurdle thrown up that blocks people from approaching Battle of Algiers objectivly is that somebody made it the feature of some Pentagon Movie Night back in October. I'm glad they watched it, just as I'm glad I saw it, and that others will get to see it now too on DVD, but the assertion by a lot of alternative liberal news sources that this is some aknowledgment by the government that the similarities between the two military engagements are a one for one match is rediculous. They simply aren't.

No. Why? Are you buying?

There's some differences, some of which Pants pointed out. There's some similarities like I mentioned. I don't think this is the forum to debate it. I would be happy to participate in an apolitical comparison in the movie talk section, but I stay away from the Otters. I don't like rabies shots.

The infamous Pentagon screening was no doubt to examine the ramifications of urban warfare. This film, by reputation, did a very good job of re-enacting the actual events, so much so that a lot of people think some of the footage is from the real riots.

Saw this in its recent theatrical rerelease and can't wait to pick it up.

ALCON!

1. Look at my Location.

2. The kind of warfare depicted in BOA is Fourth Generation / Guerilla warfare in an urban landscape. The enemy is indigenous to the battlefield and can easily melt into the local neighborhoods without effort.
It is the kind of warfare the US military is currently engaged in and while looking for some historical basis with which to plan future operations, BOA was screened.
The historical reasons behind each conflict (Algiers and Iraq) are quite different but the methods of the combatants are not.

That said, I can't wait for this release. I hope they include info on what the performers ended up doing after the movie. Might also be cool to have a bit on urban combat then and now (how is Algiers different from Mogadishu or IED Alley in Bahgdad).
3-discs. Cool.

Well....i knew it was coming sometime this year but quite suprised to find it's going to be a 3 disc set....great news nonetheless and yet another Criterion to consider adding to the collection.

Can we talk about Indochina ?
Remember the sequence at the plantation in Apocalypse Now Redux when the Frenchman is saying that the Americans are fighting for the biggest "nothing" in history ?

I have a question for those how have seen this. Is it blatant anti French pro Muslim? I would assume so since it was sponsored by the Algerian government.

While i'm extremely excited by this announcement on one hand - it is my most anticipated release of the year (that i know of anyway ) - I too find the fact that it is a 3 disc set kind of...i don't know...suspect. I'm having a hard time figuring out what could possibly take up 3 discs.

Is there a cover yet?

No it is not, which is one of the reason that I really liked it. You go from the atrocity of bombing a cafe, to the atrocity of torturing a prisoner for information. You actually feel sympathy for both sides of the conflict, which is amazing.

By the time you reach the end of the film it has become pro-"freedom fighter" (read: "terrorist" if you are so inclined) because they end up winning their independence, but most of the way through it is very even handed. It's documentary approach is just that. It shows both sides fairly, what they do right and what they do wrong. It doesn't flinch at the brutality of violence inflicted by both sides. It doesn't depict the Algerian bombings of public places as heroic, it depicts it honestly, as a brutal, terifying thing.

And while in the end the Algerian independence might be called a victory, one need only look at the state of that country today to see that there's nothing about modern day Algeria that anyone would mistake as victorious.

La bataille d'Algeri

I'd say the film is about freedom fighters, not terrorists. The film was banned in France (along with the other 'war' film, Kubrick's Paths of Glory)

There's already a good DVD of this in the UK and Italy. I might take a look at the Criterion if it it special.

People interested in this might want to take a look at the equally good 'Z' from Wellspring and reviewed by DVDSavant here

France had no business in Algeria and have paid (and still paying) for it. Will the present invaders (USA/UK) in Iraq learn from Algeria? No, of course not because they send other people's children to kill and be killed.

No, no need for that. As Pants said, there's a bit of difference between the two. Algiers was a French colony, hell Syria was a French colony at one time, imagine that! Part of America was a French colony once.

The thing that makes me the most ill about when self-righteous Europeans claim that America's wars are all imperialist and/or all out for colonization, when it was their countries who practically invented colonialism during the Exploration age. America has *never* fought an imperialist war. We liberate land and give it back to the rightful owners. Did we stay and govern Kuwait? No. We liberated them, and left. Just as we will in Iraq when the job's done.

How long did did the British Empire last? And we went to war against the Third Reich? And both were in someways probably as brutal as each other.

But anyway, I'm sick and tired of Europeans practically getting a free pass on America-bashing, when there's even just a slight hint of Euro-bashing, everybody screams foul. Enough of the PC crap. They can take as good as they give.


======================

Now as for this movie, it actually sounds interesting. I might pick it up. Could be as good as Black Hawk Down.

Oh, you mean just like the leaders of the Palestinian terror groups.

Freedom isn't free, bub. It has to be fought for. Fortunately, because the USA and the UK has strong militaries, they're willing to go fight for other people's freedom as well. And if the Palestinian people were smart, they'd overthrow their corrupt leadership who is hording millions of dollars in Swiss and French bank accounts. Did you know Yasser Arafat is one of the richest people in the world?

Mike Lowrey: Oh, you mean just like the leaders of the Palestinian terror groups

The only terror group in Palastine are the Israeli army with their USA funded tactics and missles.


Freedom isn't free, bub.

Yeah, and your (not you) countrymen and woman are paying for it and then come back to a place where they can't afford a doctor or the medical 'insurance'.


It has to be fought for

Like the USA has done in several countries in South America and Vietnam and helped slaughter 100,000s of people?


Fortunately, because the USA and the UK has strong militaries, they're willing to go fight for other people's freedom as well.

LOL, how ignorant. If there's oil or cocaine involved, then yes I admit it, the USA is interested. Your country can't afford a strong 'military'. You have lots of your own poor people you should be looking out for instead of a 99c gallon of 'gas' and funding terrorists (Usama bin Laden) in Afghanastan for 10 years when he was your friend and the Russians weren't.


And if the Palestinian people were smart, they'd overthrow their corrupt leadership who is hording millions of dollars in Swiss and French bank accounts. Did you know Yasser Arafat is one of the richest people in the world?

If there's any corruption you should be concerning yourself with is all that money George W. Bush has to fight his next election (and hanging chads of course).

God save America.

Great news - expected, but nice to finally have confirmation.

Now really? Who attacked whom first in that conflict? Say it with me now...the Arabs did. The Israelis are DEFENDING themselves. Just because the Israelis are better at defending themselves than the Arabs are at attacking, doesn't change the fact that what the Palestinians are doing is by definition labeled as terrorism. The Israelis don't strap bombs on their children.

Get a clue, sir.

Besides, I find it funny how people can label uniformed professional national militaries as terror groups, while calling non-uniformed, un-professional, illegal combatants as legitamite fighters.

When American colonials fought for their freedom from the British Redcoats, at least they wore uniforms. Go figure.

Oh wait a minute, I've heard this argument before. Just the other day in fact. Socialists, like yourself, apparently equate FREE health care with FREEDOM.

Not the same dude. Not even remotely the same. "Free" health care isn't free. It forces EVERYBODY to pay for EVERYBODY'S medical bills through exhorbant taxes. That is NOT freedom. Freedom is the ability to choose. Socialized health care is not a choice. It is forced on everybody.

Communism has only killed 100 Million people. Let's say we give it another change, eh?

Muslims have killed more muslims than any any western power to date.

Five words, "UN Oil for Food program"

You're right, the war *was* for oil. It was for the UN, France, Russia, and China.

And considering that oil is at an all time high price now, I think that fact pretty much shoots down any theory that Bush was out for oil.

Corruption? If anything, it's the Democrats and John Kerry who are breaking the campaign finance reform laws that THEY wanted in the first place. Groups like MoveOn.org are giving Kerry free advertising.

And considering that Kerry just broke single quarter fund raising records in the neighborhood of $58 million. But just because Bush didn't have to run a Primary election, of course his "warchest" is going to be bigger. I donated $30 myself. Got a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker on my truck even.

Oh yeah, Bush lost New Mexico by less votes than he won Florida by. -300 in NM, 540+ in FL.

Get your facts straight, sir.

God....