Abstract
Throughout contemporary history, the film documentary has been at the heart of people’s conflicting conceptions when it comes to the Algerian struggle for independence. The two former belligerents waged a veritable war of images that began in 1832 and kept going beyond July 1962.
The representation of contemporary history (in particular when related to the national liberation war) is a central question that raises controversial debate in Algerian cinema. All the more so because this debate implies contrasting and often conflicting perspectives between filmmakers and the public from the different parties concerned: Algerian filmmakers, French filmmakers but also the producers living in Europe who represent a bridge between the two countries.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Today, it has become Establishment of Communication and Audio-Visual Production for Defense—France (ECPAD).
- 2.
It was in this center that the OAS assassinated Mouloud Feraoun and his companions, a few months before.
- 3.
Révolution africaine (April 18, 1964).
- 4.
The film was banned in France and in Algeria, but obtained the main prize at Leipzig Festival in 1965.
- 5.
Ahmed Bedjaoui, Réalités et perspectives du cinéma en Algérie (Paris, IDHEC, 1966).
- 6.
Le Peuple (May 2, 1965).
- 7.
Future producer of Nahla, made in 1979 in Beirut.
- 8.
It should be noted here that official French historiography at the time used the term “events of Algeria.” The term “Algerian War” was not adopted until 1998, by a vote in the French Parliament.
- 9.
In Pierrot le Fou by Jean-Luc Godard , Samuel Fuller describes the cinema in two words: motion and emotion.
- 10.
Benjamin Stora , “Interview with Caroline Venaille ,” Le Monde (May 21, 2010).
- 11.
“We Counted Seven Deaths, a Frenchman and Six Algerians,” L’Algérie libre (October 3, 1953), quoted by Ali Haroun , La 7ème wilaya, la guerre du FLN en France, 1954–1962, ed. du Seuil (Paris, May 1986).
- 12.
Mohamed Zaoui , Retour à Montluc, sixty-two-minute film (2012).
- 13.
Pierre Vidal-Naquet , L’Affaire Audin, Éditions de Minuit, 1958, new enlarged edition (1989), Preface by Laurent Schwartz .
- 14.
Florence Baugé, “Le meurtrier, un tortionnaire décoré de la Légion d’honneur?,” Le Monde (June 21, 2007, anniversary of the disappearance of Maurice Audin ).
- 15.
André Charbonnier , lieutenant at the time. He apparently tortured and strangled Maurice Audin .
Roger Faulques , captain at the time. He apparently tortured Maurice Audin . Faulques served as a model for certain characters of colonial novels by Jean Lartéguy , Les Centurians and Les Prétoriens.
- 16.
Extract from Un mathématicien aux prises avec le siècle, ed. Odile Jacob (1997), 397–8.
- 17.
Henri Pouillot , summary of the book by Jean-Charles Deniau , La vérité sur la mort de Maurice Audin, appearing on the online site of H. Pouillot , updated on October 1, 2014, and copied on the site of Mediapart.
- 18.
Mouny Berrah , “Histoire et idéologie du cinéma algérien sur la Guerre,” CinémAction, No. 85 (Paris, 1997), 183.
- 19.
Ibid., 183.
- 20.
Ibid., 183.
- 21.
Ibid., 183.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bedjaoui, A. (2020). Documentaries and Liberation War Cross-Perceptions. In: Cinema and the Algerian War of Independence . Palgrave Studies in Arab Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37994-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37994-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37993-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37994-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)