Saadi Yassef, a revolutionary leader who fought French rule in Algeria in the 1950s and then came into motion – and starred in “The Battle of Algiers”, dies in Gilo Pontecorvo’s acclaimed 1966 anti-colonial struggle film 10 Happened in September. in the capital Algiers. He was 93 years old.
His daughter Zafira Yasef, who confirmed the death, said she had heart problems.
Mr. Yasef Kishor became involved in opposition movements while in power and in 1954 joined the Front de Libération Nationale, FLN, a major nationalist organization during the freedom struggle. The war lasted from 1954 to 1962, ending with the country’s liberation from France.
He became the organization’s military chief in Algiers in 1956, ordering bombings and other guerilla attacks, until his arrest the following year by French paratroopers in the part of the city known as Kasbah. He was sentenced to death.
“When I was in prison, the executions always took place at dawn,” The Sunday Herald of Glasgow, Scotland said in 2007, “so when I saw the sun rise from the prison bars I knew I was in another Tha I’m going to live the day… but I was pretty sure I’d be killed.”
Charles de Gaulle, who was elected President of France in 1958, eventually freed Mr. Joseph. This marked the beginning of an entirely different chapter in the life of Mr. Yasef. While in prison he wrote “Souvenir de la Batelle d’Alger” (“Memories of the Battle of Algiers”) in his account of part of a particularly violent three-year war.
Once Algeria became independent, the FLN, which ruled the country, sought to make a film about the freedom struggle, with Mr. Yassef leading the effort.
“At that time,” he told Le Monde in 2004, “everyone swore by Italian neorealism. So I went to Italy to look for a screenwriter and director for ‘The Battle of Algiers.
With a script based on his book, he met Mr. Pontecorvo, who was said to be considering his own film about the Algerian War, which he hoped would draw Paul from a French paratrooper. Newman was. Must become a journalist. Mr. Yassef and his supporters rejected that idea, and Mr. Pontecorvo found Mr. Yassef’s script public, but he continued to speak. Mr. Yassef arranged to bring Mr. Pontecorvo and his screenwriter, Franco Solinas, for an extended stay in Algiers so that they could study the revolution, see the places where the fighting took place and meet the people who fought. .
ns result movieFilmed in Algeria with Mr. Yassef as a producer, it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and created a sensation for its shocking realism. Some scenes, particularly of the bombings, seemed so authentic that the film’s early repertoire was preceded by a disclaimer that no newsreel footage was used.
“There are some scenes that seem too dangerous,” director Steven Soderbergh said in a video for Criterion Collection when it released a new version of the film in 2004. “I don’t know if you can do them now.”
Mr. Pontecorvo, Joe died in 2006, almost exclusively used non-actors, including Mr. Yasef, who played a character largely based on himself.
“Pontecorvo insisted that I appear in the film,” he told Le Monde. “I had the opportunity to play in moments from the movies that I lived in seven years ago. The war, the prison, the torture – it was all still fresh in my memory.”
Saadi Yasef was born on January 20, 1928, in Algiers to Mohamed and Keltoum Yasef, a baker. His schooling was interrupted by World War II when the Allies ordered his school to be used as a barracks.
Saadi was also trained to be a baker after the war. He also played football for the Union Sportive de la Medina d’Alger, one of Algeria’s top teams, from 1952 to 1954. By then he had also joined the growing anti-colonial movement.
In addition to his daughter Zafira, Mr. Yasef, who lived in Algiers, has his wife, Baya Boudzema Yasef, whom he married in 1965; four other children, Salima, Saida, Umar and Amin; and nine grandchildren. .
The revolution that Mr. Yassef helped was known for its atrocities on both sides, and Mr. Pontecorvo’s film, which focused on the fighting in Algiers from 1954 to 1957, did not proceed.
“Other than Orson Welles, no one has ever so imaginatively copied the look of a newsreel,” film critic Stuart Klavones wrote In The New York Times in 2004, “While Wells only did the trick for the ‘March of Time’ segment of ‘Citizen Kane’, Mr. Pontecorvo maintained his illusion for 123 minutes.”
The film won the Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize in Venice, and was selected in 1967. New York Film Festival begins. It was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Screenplay and Director.
The film has been studied over the years by extremist groups such as the Black Panthers and the Pentagon. Mr. Yassef, who later served as a senator in the National Assembly of Algeria, readily admitted that the orders issued by him resulted in many deaths, but he praised the work done for the liberation and recent groups. not appreciated. differentiated tasks. exporting terrorism. He had a special disdain for suicide bombings, a tactic that his resistance fighters had not employed.
“Fight gave meaning to our lives,” he said in 2007. “We weren’t in this to die.”