Battle of Algiers – next up

The Battle of Algiers


The creative guys just finished tweaking this remarkable film – The Battle of Algiers, and today it goes to the encoding geeks. They will run the first encoding passes today – and let the computers crunch over the weekend. We hope to have the movie up for our users by Monday or Tuesday next week. I put a link to search Battle of Algiers on the pic and the title… but it will return empty, until it gets added to the media library and database… just a few more days.

So why is this film so cool? Well…. it is perhaps the best war movie ever made… and no doubt inspired Speilberg when he put together Saving Private Ryan, another great war themed film. In the movie – the French colonialists are pitted against the local Islamic Algerians, seeking independence from French rule. The conflict lasted a long time… mid to late 50s thru the early sixties… and the French Foreign legion was just coming off a defeat in Vietnam (and we know how that worked out for the Yanks, who tried their hand at liberation during the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. Anyway – there are no heros in this film – the French are brutal, and are skilled at torture… meanwhile the Islamic “freedom fighters”… are terrorists – who regret that innocent children (and their own people) are killed in suicide bomber attacks (oh.. I forgot, these are now called homicide bombers… sorry ’bout that). In any event – no one wins, and humanity loses its heart. It is very realistic movie – though no archive news footage was used in the creation… a remarkable piece of film editing and direction – and the B&W cinematography is stark and stunning. Likeelevision got a terrific print of the film to work with as source… and it even looks better after our creative guys did some digital post tweaks. You really need to watch this movie – as it will shed a lot of light on your understanding of the current problems facing Israel – and the daunting task ahead for colalition troops and political operatives in Iraq. What is a political operative? Just curious.

Another interesting trivia tidbit – In the last British Film Institute poll (2002, they provide the poll every 10 years… it is really a great poll)… antiwar activist Tim Robbins – the actor, director… and now imfamous “hollywood type” dissenter- put Battle of Algiers as his favorite movie of all time! (after watching the film, you will gain an insight as to why he is so outspoken on the war)… but it sheds no light on why he married Susan Sarandon or why he was so good in the Shawshank Redemption (the second best prison movie).

In any event – this is a remarkable film, and offers a clear non-biased view of the horrors of war. And you betcha – it is very timely.. or as we say here at LikeTelevision… everything old is new again! And you will probably get a better understanding of the French were bitterly opposed to the Iraqi liberation (… ummm besides all the secret money deals with Saddam). oooops… my bias is showing. But hey – I never claimed to be a journalist, I am just a faceless 3-D animation in LikeTelevision’s control room. What do I know? To be honest, I am really thankful I don’t have to make these decisions.