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Kubrick was obsessed with this masterpiece of war cinema

March 30, 2026 by usatoday24

Stanley Kubrick one of the most demanding directors in the history of cinemawas unable throughout his life to stop talking about a film, to the point that he “spoke enthusiastically about it until shortly before his death.” It was not his, but from an Italian filmmaker practically unknown to the general public. It was filmed in 1966 with non-professional actors and on the streets of Algeria: ‘The Battle of Algiers’. Says who knows. Anthony Frewin worked as Kubrick’s personal assistant between 1965 and 1999, except for short interruptions at times in the 1970s. No one knew the director’s cinematographic tastes better than him, as demonstrated in an interview where he states that Kubrick “was generally very disappointed with Hollywood cinema.” What interested him was something else: international directors who questioned the conventions of the medium and sought new forms of expression. Your favorite. Among all those films, one occupied a separate place. According to Frewin, Kubrick was “excited” by it for decades ‘The Battle of Algiers’by Gillo Pontecorvo. The first time this assistant started working for him, Kubrick already told him that it was impossible to understand what cinema could really do without having seen that film. And he continued saying it until shortly before he died, in 1999. What is ‘The Battle of Algiers’. Winner of the Golden Lion in 1966 at the Venice Festivalreceived three Oscar nominations. Gillo Pontecorvo filmed it in black and white, on the real streets of the Casbah of Algiers, with thousands of local extras and a handful of non-professional actors. The result was so convincing that the film’s advertisements warned that the images did not come from documentary archives. The film reconstructs the most intense years of the Algerian conflict against French colonization, between 1954 and 1957. Pontecorvo based it on the memories of FLN commander Saadi Yacef, who also acted in the film itself, playing a character inspired by himself. The director spent an entire month testing before shooting a single scene, using multiple cameras to make the crowds appear larger, and even repeating some takes more than twenty times to exhaust the actors. The music, signed by Ennio Morricone, flirts with traditional North African percussion and traditional military marches. And finally, the film stands out for its refusal to offer a clear moral perspective: both FLN guerrillas and French paratroopers commit atrocities, and no one plays the role of unequivocal hero. What did Kubrick see in him? In an interview included in the aforementioned article, Kubrick commented that “all films are, in a sense, mockumentaries. You try to get as close to reality as you can, but it is not reality. There are people who do very intelligent things that have fascinated and completely deceived me. For example, ‘The Battle of Algiers’. It is very impressive.” Frewin added a detail: the director went so far as to say that ‘The Battle of Algiers’ and Andrzej Wajda’s ‘Danton’ were the only two films he would have liked to have directed. Parallels with his cinema. Above all from a thematic point of view, the influence of ‘The Battle of Algiers’ on Kubrick’s cinema is indisputable: ‘Paths of Glory’ examines the mechanics of military hierarchy and the corruption it generates, and ‘Full Metal Jacket’ divides its story into two almost incompatible points of view to show that war does not have only one face. In none of these films is there a protagonist who triumphs morally, and in that sense, Pontecorvo and Kubrick shared that war films should not generate catharsis but rather discomfort. At the Pentagon. The influence of ‘The Battle of Algiers’ exceeds the cinematographic sphere. In August 2003the Pentagon’s Directorate of Special Operations organized a screening of the film for senior military and civilian officials. The invitation brochure said: “How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. (…) The French have a plan. It works tactically, but it fails strategically.” The background was the occupation of Iraq: the US army was looking for clues to understand why military victories did not translate into political stability. They weren’t the only thing: the Black Panthers used the film as training material in the 1960s. The IRA also studied it. Argentine intelligence used it in the seventies, for radically different purposes. And today, is screened regularly at West Point, at the Naval War College and at the Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center. In the world of cinemaNolan cited him as an influence when he released ‘Dunkirk’ and (2017) and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. In Xataka | ‘2001: Flashes in the Dark’: An HBO Max immersion in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece that surprises with its visual inventiveness

If your renovation is a pain, think about the house that cost 120 times more than its original cost: a masterpiece

March 1, 2026 by usatoday24

Renovate a house It is usually an exhausting experience: budgets that skyrocket, structural unforeseen events, provisional solutions that end up being permanent. Now imagine that this home is not just any apartment, but one of the great icons of the 20th century, visited by millions of people and examined to the millimeter by historians, engineers and conservators. Then the reform stops being a domestic problem and becomes a continuous battle against time. Thus an icon was born. The assignment that changed a career The year was 1934 when Edgar J. Kaufmann commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright a weekend house next to a waterfall in Bear RunPennsylvania. The architect then took an unprecedented decision: He decided not to look at the water from afar, but to literally build on it. The work, built between 1936 and 1938, almost immediately became in a manifesto of organic architecture: concrete terraces that float over the waterfall, local stone walls that sprout from the rock, spaces that open to the forest as if the house were an extension of the landscape. By January 1938 he already occupied the same cover of time and critics proclaimed it one of the great masterpieces in the history of architecture, one capable of reconcile modernity and nature in an unforgettable image. It happens that there is always a “but” in a work, and one like this was no different. Yes. That perfect image had a disproportionate price from day one. The original cost exceeded the planned budget almost four times and reached approximately $155,000 of the time, a figure equivalent to about 3.3/3.5 million current dollars. Added to this were Wright’s own fees and the expenses derived from a complex execution in a unique but remote environment, so that the project was born already financially stressed. What should be a weekend country house became a total commitment, technical and economic, to materialize a radical vision. And we come to the material that has given the work its name, although it almost took everything away. The gesture that made Fallingwater world famous, its large columnless cantilevers over the waterfall, was also its Achilles heel. During the work, the engineer in charge of concrete warned that only eight reinforcing bars had been placed on a main beam and that, for a span of that length, it should have been duplicated steel. However, Wright rejection the objections, arguing that adding more reinforcement would damage the structure and demanding absolute confidence in their judgment. The contractor, without warning, decided to increase the steel anyway. Even so, when removing the formwork the first cantilever deformed more than four centimeters and was left with a permanent arrow that today translates into a visible slope close to two degrees. And the cracks came before inhabiting it The problems were neither theoretical nor late. Even before the Kaufmann family moved in in 1937, there were already documented leaks and cracks on the concrete parapets. As the decades passed, some balconies began to sink. more than 20 centimeters with respect to its original position, and in the nineties engineers found that the cantilevers they had failed technically and required urgent reinforcements to avoid greater risk. The house that seemed to defy gravity rested on a more fragile balance than the iconic photograph suggested. If the waterfall was the soul of the project, the rain and snow were its nightmare. Flat roofs, terraces that function as roofs for lower rooms and masonry walls holes filled with rubble They made it easier for water to find invisible paths into the interior. So much so that since the 1940s the house was nicknamed with irony by its owners for the number of buckets needed to collect leaks, and almost ninety years later an intervention of 7 million dollars intended to seal covers, inject more than a dozen tons of grout on the walls and improve waterproofing. It didn’t matter the crazy price that had been used previously, many leaks they returned with time. The overhang of the living room seen from the bridge leading to the house At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, a structural restoration was undertaken that would be decisive: the beams were drilled and introduced steel cables post-tensioned to “pull” the concrete and recover part of its original position. That operation prevented the sinking will progressbut it did not eliminate the need for ongoing maintenance. To give us an idea, from 1937 to today, the preservation of Fallingwater has already exceeded 19 million dollars, a figure multiplied by about 120 times the initial cost of construction and which illustrates the extent to which keeping the icon standing has been more expensive than its own creation. In 1963 the Kaufmann family donated the house to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, which opened it to the public the following year. Since then, more than 6 million of people have visited it, and its status as a National Historical Monument and UNESCO World Heritage Site consolidated his status as one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. Paradoxically, the same audacity that generated the cracks, deformations and leaks is what gave it its symbolic force: Fallingwater, or The Falling House, embodies the rhetoric of the American dream of merging with nature and dominating it at the same time, even when that ambition required paying an enormous structural and economic price. The history of this icon shows that architectural genius is not exempt material risk. Wright’s possibly exaggerated authorship, his conviction towards engineers and contractors, and his willingness to take concrete further of prudent limitsproduced a work that was both sublime and problematic. If you will, it is also an imperfect building that has needed decades of disagreements, revisions and reinforcements to remain standing. And precisely for that reason, more than a frozen postcard over a waterfall, Fallingwater It is proof that great works are born from the tension between vision and reality, and that even masterpieces can always be, literally, at the edge of the … Read more

It is a masterpiece of the Spanish comic, but they had to discover ‘Paracuellos’ in France so that we would pay attention here

June 29, 2025 by usatoday24

It is unanimously considered one of the masterpieces of the Spanish comic: ‘Paracuellos’ by Carlos Giménez is genuinely (for his tone, for his graphics and, of course, for his theme) from here. However, It was not easy to find a hole in our bookstores. As if one of the stunted children of the work were, ‘Paracuellos’ was the result of an initial misunderstanding that forced Giménez to seek space in other markets. And then he returned in style. ‘Paracuellos’ is one of those capital works of the Spanish comic that is simple to find in any bookstore. He coda in that sense with ‘Maus’, with ‘Watchmen’, and within the national space, with Mortadelowith Superlópez and with few more, because the editorial world of comic in Spain is a continuous recycling of successes. But finding ‘Paracuellos’ is, for years, very easy: in fact, Penguin Random House has launched a total edition on the occasion of its 50th anniversary that collects all the volumes of this work in giant format. Their virtues are obvious From the first moment: above all, the exquisite drawing of Giménez, supernaturally endowed to provide overwhelming personality to his creatures, is already in 1975, when he began to create it, absolutely extraordinary. A lot of Children dressed all the same, but each with a very important personality Thanks to the looks, sad and naive, but very distinctive, with which they receive the designs of adults (educators, wardens, nuns, inspectors, family members, members of the phalanx). As a good heir to the tradition of the Españo and the Spanish Berlanguian cartoon, it is the portrait of a terrible situation but without humor disappearing completely from children’s lives. Children marked by fears of very diverse type (to be abandoned, to be beaten, to lose the few privileges that scratch among their peers -because they know how to draw, because they have a toy, because they know how to play football -), but at the same time they are unable to lose their innocence, which turns their adventures into experiences halfway between the endearing and terrible. And, of course, above any other value, there is the ruthless portrait, in the first person (We are not, yes, before a strictly biographical comicalthough in part it is) of an atrocious reality: The life of admitted children in social assistance homes during the Francoist postwar. Children of defeated in the civil war, orphans or families in extreme poverty, educated under the yoke of nationalcatolicism and the Falangist discipline. Hunger, punishments, loneliness, institutional violence … A portrait that, despite its crudeness is not lacking hope and tenderness. Liked more in France The first episodes of the series were published from 1975 in several Spanish magazines such as ‘Thank you very much’, ‘El Papus’ and ‘Yes’. They had a very limited success, so Giménez was forced to leave the work after the publication of only two albums. He told so For rtve.es: “No Spanish editor of the time wanted to publish them in their magazines. They were horrified to see those pages full of familic and sad children with those disproportionate eyes and those most disproportionate ears yet yet.” The absence of eroticism or humor for adults in ‘Paracuellos’ closed the doors in Spain, but In France he found an alternative route in the legendary magazine magazine ‘which began to publish it in 1976. A much more prone market to recognize the talent in the cartoon made it a success and from there jumped to other countries in Europe, similar success. 20 years later, in the late 90s, Giménez resumed the work with four more albums. In 2016 he would return to her again coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the series, with three albums that Finally they would conclude it. ‘Paracuellos’ remains, despite the wide parenthesis over time, and thanks to the integrity and quality of Giménez, as a total work, of a caliber that has made that Your candidacy is presented on some occasion to the Princess of Asturias de las Artes. It is an essential piece of our comic that, however, had to be recognized outside to start appreciating in your country of origin. Header | Penguin Random House In Xataka | The most famous superlupez has not long since existed: how Jan transformed him from parody to adventure

‘The Eternaluta’ is a masterpiece of science fiction. But the story of its creator gives him an absolutely unique background

May 4, 2025 by usatoday24

Netflix’s new science fiction series, ‘El Eternalauta’, has a very emotional story for comic fans: not only is it based on a legendary cartoon whose adaptation to cinema and television has been frustrated on countless occasions, but its creator owns a biography that makes its humanistic background, but tragic. This is the story of ‘The Eternaluta’ and its creator, Héctor Germán Oesterheld. The production that opens Netflix is an Argentine series, such as the original comic, and has the prominence of an international fame actor like Ricardo Darín. It has occurred under the supervision of one of Oesterheld’s grandchildren and is the end point of a long list of attempts to adapt a comic that in Argentina has an extraordinary fame. Hence the prestige of the directors who tried to adapt it on previous occasions. In 1998, he assumed the Adolfo Aristarain project (‘A place in the world’, ‘Martín (Hache)’) among other directors such as Gustavo Mosquera (which ended, yes, embarking on a long journey to stand up a biopic of Oesterheld, which has not yet curdled). The project was frustrated due to lack of financing. In 2008 the possible adaptation was reactivated, in a film that would direct Lucrecia Martel (‘The Holy Girl’). Martel distanced himself from the project due to conflicts with the Oesterheld family and the adaptation was canceled. Finally, Netflix began the production of its ‘eternalauta’ in 2020although the filming was interrupted by the pandemic. THE IMPORTANCE OF ‘THE ETERNAUTA’ With a very modern point of view, the story of Oesterheld, drawn in its first phase, in 1958, by a superb Francisco Solano López, tells an extraterrestrial invasion that begins when a mysterious lethal snow on contact with the skin annihilates most of the human beings. The offensive will increase with the appearance of insectoid beings, cascarudes, servants of higher intelligences that will unleash a mixture of intrigue and action where we will have even walks through parallel dimensions. Cascarudos are not the last border of the alien invasion: the protagonist and an impromptu land resistance group will face an alien disturbing who has numerous fingers around the hand (which wins his appeal of hand), and that It is only the servant of even superior and unknown aliens. It would be said that Oesterheld senses an alien presence in the way of Lovecraft, with entities for those who do not assume the slightest threat, but nods them at our level and injects them very understandable intentions. This stage is published in Spain By comic planet. ‘The Eternaluta’ Illustrated by Solano López The adventures of ‘The Eternaluta’ would not end there. A decade later, in 1969, and with Radicalized Oesterheld in his political commitment, the author would script By Penguin). It essentially tells the same story, but with explanations for the invasion much more politicized. Later, in 1976, an official sequel would arrive, set in a desolate and apocalyptic future, a consequence of the ravages we saw in the first installment. I would draw her again Solano López. After her, with missing Oesterheld, we would see multiple sequelae, often with the participation of the original cartoonist. But … What does ‘the Eternaluta’ have to have become an absolute classic of the Argentine comic? When Oesterheld did not know what his destiny would be, the first ‘eternauta’ can be read as a local version of ‘The War of the Worlds’, but with bulls references to the policy of the moment: In 1955 Perón had been expelled from the Argentine government in a coup d’etat led by military. This first version of history is more humanistic than politics, and as Roberto Bartual details In your newsletter on comics And he launches the message that “there are good and bad on all sides”, allowing even demonstrating some compassion for the villains. It has all the meaning that this white and harmless version is the one that takes the Netflix series as a reference. ‘The Eternaluta’ Illustrated by Breccia However, the authentic combative content of ‘The Eternaluta’ would come in the second version that Oesterheld would re-guide and illustrate Breccia: in it, invading aliens have reached a pact with foreign powers. In the 1969 version, the villain of history is imperialism that a few years later would cause coups in Chile in 1973, and later again in Argentina, in 1979. The humans of this version of ‘El Eternalauta’ are the countries of Latin America fighting for their independence. And there is more. The sequel ‘El Eternalauta II’, again with Solano López to the drawings, tells how men and women live in caves to escape the invasion. It is impossible not to think about the authentic oesterheld, which This second part of ‘The Eternaluta’ ended in hiding. The end of the story is absolutely bleak and turns the iconic eternal, with his diver glasses to protect himself from lethal snow, an anti-authoritarian resistance symbol. Even much later, in the demonstrations against the Financial Corralito at the beginning of this century, posters were seen with the images of the Eternaluta remembering their rebel spirit and, above all, denouncing the leaders of any sign that betray their own. ‘El Eternalauta II’, illustrated by Solano López Oesterheld’s fate The radicalization of the creator of ‘The Eternaluta’ would start shortly after the publication of the first version of the story: Oesterheld would begin to fill their stories of criticisms of capitalism and colonialism, reaching a script to political sign as clear as a biography of Che in 1968, before his collaboration with Breco. In the seventies he would join the Montoneros (the second part of ‘El Eternalauta’ ended in hiding, dictating the scripts he later received Solano López, exiled in Spain), and the last thing that was learned of him is that he was arrested in 1977 by the military dictatorship. It was last seen in a clandestine detention center, and as happened with so many other Argentines, from that moment to be part of the list of arrested and missingvictim of Argentine state terrorism. … Read more

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