Gillo Pontecorvo

Gillo Pontecorvo (November 19 1919 – October 12 2006) was an Italian filmmaker, best known for "La battaglia di Algeri" ("The Battle of Algiers") although he directed several movies before its release in 1966, such as the drama "Kapò" (1960), which takes place in a World War II concentration camp. His 1969 film, "Burn!", starring Marlon Brando and loosely based on the Haitian Revolution has also been increasingly celebrated in recent years.

He was nominated for the Best Director Oscar in 1969 and in that same year won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, both for "The Battle of Algiers". In 2000, he received the Pietro Bianchi Award at the Venice Film Festival.

He was also a screenwriter and composer of film scores.

Life and work

Pontecorvo, born in Pisa, was the son of a wealthy non-observant Italian Jewish businessman, and the younger brother of Bruno Pontecorvo, an internationally acclaimed physicist.

He studied science in school and attended the University of Pisa, earning a degree in chemistry. It was there that he first became of opposing political forces, coming into contact with leftist students and professors for the first time. In 1938, shortly after his graduation and faced with growing anti-Semitism, he fled to France, where he was able to find work in journalism as a correspondent for the Italian newspapers "La Repubblica" and "Paese Sera", and as a tennis instructor.

In Paris in 1933, Pontecorvo immediately involved himself in the film world, where he made a few short documentaries. He became an assistant to Joris Ivens, the Dutch documentary filmmaker and a well known Marxist, whose films include "Regen" and "The Bridge". He also assisted Yves Allegret, a French director known for his work in the film noir genre whose films include "Une Si Jolie Petite Plage" and "Les Orgueilleux". In addition to these influences, Pontecorvo began meeting people who broadened his perspectives, among them Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and Jean-Paul Sartre. It was during this time that Pontecorvo truly developed his political ideals. He was particularly affected when many of his friends in Paris packed up to go fight in the Spanish Civil War.

Pontecorvo joined the Italian Communist Party in 1941. He traveled to northern Italy to help organize anti-Fascist partisans and going by the pseudonym Barnaba, becoming a leader of the Resistance in Milan from 1943 until 1945. Pontecorvo broke ties with the party in 1956 after the Soviet intervention in Hungary. He didn't, however, renounce his dedication to Marxism and has said, “I am not an out-and-out revolutionary. I am merely a man of the Left, like a lot of Italian Jews.”

After World War II and his return to Italy, Pontecorvo made the decision to leave journalism for filmmaking, a move that seems to have been in the making for some time, but was set in motion after he saw Roberto Rossellini's "Paisà". He bought a 16mm camera and shot several documentaries, mostly funded on his own, beginning with "Missione Timiriazev" in 1953. He then directed "Giovanna", which was one episode of "La rosa dei venti" (1956), a film made with several directors. In 1957 he directed his first full length film, "La grande strada azzurra" ("The Wide Blue Road"), which foreshadowed his mature style of later films. It deals with a fisherman and his family on the small island off the Dalmatian coast of Italy. Because of the scarcity of fish in nearby waters, the fisherman, Squarciò, is forced to sail out to the open sea to fish illegally with bombs. The film won a prize at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Pontecorvo spent months, and sometimes years, researching the material for his films in order to accurately represent the actual social situations he commented on. In the next two years, Pontecorvo directed "Kapò", a drama set in a Nazi death camp. The plot of the film is about an escape attempt from a concentration camp by a young Jewish girl. In 1961 the film was nominated by the Academy Awards for an Oscar for best foreign-language film. Also in this same year the film won two awards: the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists awarded Didi Perego a Silver Ribbon for best supporting actress, and the Mar del Plata Film Festival awarded Susan Strasberg for best actress.

"The Battle of Algiers" was Pontecorvo's masterpiece and is widely viewed as one of the finest films of its genre ever made. Its portrayal of the Algerian resistance during the Algerian War, follows in the footsteps of neorealist pioneers such as de Santis and Rossellini, employing the use of newsreel-style footage and non-professional actors and focusing primarily on the disenfranchised population that seldom receives attention from the general media. Pontecorvo was clearly reading Frantz Fanon while making "The Battle of Algiers", as many of Fanon's notions are echoed in the film, though often simplified. When the film achieved mass screening in the United States, Pontecorvo received a number of awards, and was also nominated for two Academy Awards for direction and co-writing. The film has been used as a training video by government strategists as well as revolutionary groups. It has been and remains extremely popular in Algeria, providing a popular memory of the struggle for liberation.

Pontecorvo's next major work, "Queimada!" ("Burn!", 1969), starring Marlon Brando, is another anti-colonial film, this time set in the Antilles. This film also depicts an attempted revolution of the oppressed, with strong anti-colonial message

Pontecorvo continued his series of highly political films with "Ogro" (1979), which addresses the occurrence of terrorism at the end of Francisco Franco's dwindling regime in Spain. He continued making short films into the early 1990s and directed a follow-up documentary to "The Battle of Algiers" entitled "Ritorno ad Algeri" ("Return to Algiers", 1992). In 1992, Pontecorvo replaced Guglielmo Biraghi as the director of the Venice Film Festival and directed the festival in 1992, 1993 and 1994.

In 2006, he died from congestive heart failure in Rome at age 86.

Trivia

*He was a close friend of the Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
*Pontecorvo played a cameo role in John Landis's movie "The Stupids".

Selected bibliography

*cite book|last=Bignardi|first=Irene|authorlink=Irene Bignardi|title=Memorie estorte a uno smemorato. Vita di Gillo Pontecorvo|publisher=Feltrinelli|year=1999
*cite book|last=Celli|first=Carlo|title=Gillo Pontecorvo: From Resistance to Terrorism|city=Lanham|publisher=Scarecrow Press|year=2005
*cite book|last=Fanon|first=Frantz|title=Pour la revolution africaine: Essais politiques|city=Paris|publisher=La Decouverte|year=2001
*cite journal|last=Mellen|first=Joan|title=An Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo|journal=Film Quarterly|volume=26|issue=1|date=Autumn 1972|pages=2–10|doi=10.1525/fq.1972.26.1.04a00030
*cite book|last=Mellen|first=Joan|title=Filmguide to "The Battle of Algiers'|publisher=Bloomington|publisher=Indiana University Publications|year=1973
*cite book|last=Said|first=Edward W.|chapter=The Quest for Gillo Pontecorvo|title=Reflections on Exile and Other Essays|city=Cambridge, Massachusetts|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2000|page=282-292
*cite book|last=Solinas|first=Franco|title=Gillo Pontecorvo’s "The Battle of Algiers'|publisher=PierNico Solinas|city=New York|publisher=Scribner’s|year=1973

Filmography as director

*"Firenze, il nostro domani "(2003, documentary)
*"Un altro mondo è possibile" ("Another World is Possible", 2001)
*"I corti italiani" (1997, segment “Nostalgia di protezione”)
*"Nostalgia di protezione "(1997)
*"Danza della fata confetto "(1996, short)
*"12 registi per 12 città" (1989, segment “Udine”), documentary
*"Addio a Enrico Berliguer" (1984, documentary)
*"Ogro "("Operación Ogro", 1979)
*"Queimada "("Burn!", 1969)
*"La Battaglia di Algeri" ("The Battle of Algiers", 1965)
*"Paras "(1963)
*"Kapò" (1959)
*"Pane e zolfo" (1959, documentary)
*"La grande strada azzurra" ("The Wide Blue Road", 1957)
*"Cani dietro le sbarre "(1955)
*"La rosa dei venti"(1955, segment "Giovanna")
*"Festa a Castelluccio "(1954, documentary)
*"Porta Portese" (1954, documentary)
*"Missione Timiriazev "(1953, documentary)
*"Gillo Pontecorvo's Return to Algiers" (1992, documentary)

External links

*imdb|name=Gillo Pontecorvo|id=0690597
* [http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/pont-j09.shtml Interview with Gillo Pontecorvo at the World Socialist Web Site]