#090: (Pt. 1) Detroit / Battle of Algiers

The Next Picture Show

Filmspotting

Tv & Film, Film History, Film Reviews

4.6 • 858 Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2017

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kathryn Bigelow’s intense, controversial new docu-drama DETROIT owes no small debt to Gillo Pontecorvo’s intense, controversial 1966 film THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, which covers another volatile historical moment with a potent mixture of newsreel-style realism and expressionistic fervor. In this half of our comparison of the two films, we discuss what makes BATTLE OF ALGIERS such an unsettling and resonant film, debate what point it’s making around the issues of terrorism and torture, and, somehow, find the echoes of Pontecorvo’s film in James Cameron’s AVATAR. Plus, a listener takes us up on our request for feedback on “anything else film-related” with a fruitful prompt on unadaptable adaptations. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, DETROIT, or both by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Adobe Express is the quick and easy create anything out.
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0:10.7	Search for Adobe Express to find out more and use it for free.
0:16.4	It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.
0:20.1	You believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?
0:26.9	We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.
0:33.6	Welcome to the next picture show,
0:35.4	a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film and how it shaped our thoughts in a recent release.
0:40.1	I'm Scott Tobias here with Keith Thubes.
0:42.4	Tasha Robinson.
0:43.3	And Genevieve Gatsky.
0:44.6	Here on the next picture show, we believe that no film exists in a vacuum and that all culture is more interesting in context.
0:50.1	So every other week, we get together to talk about classic film and consider how it relates to a current movie.
0:55.5	This week, we're getting a front row seat to history with two political thrillers that recreate the past with a scrupulous attention to detail.
1:02.8	One is the Battle of Algiers.
1:04.6	The other is a battle at the Algiers.
1:07.5	Tasha, could you tell us more?
1:09.4	Okay.
1:09.8	So Catherine Bigelow's new film, Detroit, is her
1:12.5	latest collaboration with journalist-turned screenwriter Mark Boll, who wrote her last two
1:16.6	movies, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark 30. All three films are fact-based thrillers that use a
1:21.3	journalistic research process and documentary-like immediacy to bring the past to life as vividly as
	...

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