MovieChat Forums > The Day of the Jackal (1973) Discussion > Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty

posted 12 years ago by TheLionKingKong
8 replies | jump to latest

I noticed these movies are similar:

1. Both are about the events leading up to an assassination attempt.
2. Both spend 2+ hours building up to the climactic attempt.
3. Both targets were real-life leaders who were controversial in the Arab world.
4. Both are based on true stories (I know TDOTJ was adapted from a novel but Charles de Gaulle survived many attempts in real life).

[–] turtletommy 12 years ago

Bin Laden was supposedly going to be taken alive, if possible. Believe that or not but it was a stated option by the U.S.

Bin Laden was controversial in the Western world, De Gaulle as soon as he took power surprised his backers by working to get France out of Algeria. Seems to me he was much more controversial to the Pied Noirs, French Army and later the OAS.

[–] sdea1974 11 years ago

Zero Dark Thirty wishes it was Day of the Jackal

[–] jdkraus 11 years ago

I agree with that statement. Zero Dark Thirty is just not that good whereas Day of the Jackal kept my interest from start to finish.

[–] darryl-tahirali 11 years ago

De Gaulle as soon as he took power surprised his backers by working to get France out of Algeria. Seems to me he was much more controversial to the Pied Noirs, French Army and later the OAS. - turtletommy

Agree. De Gaulle was a bete noir in France, not in Algeria.

And for a good depiction of why the French were unwelcome in Algeria, check out The Battle of Algiers.
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"This isn't a hospital--it's an insane asylum!" - "Hot Lips" Houlihan

[–] tremas-1 10 years ago

It may amuse you to know that actor Jean Martin, who played the small role of Wolenski in "Jackal," played a key role in "The Battle of Algiers" in 1966: that of French Army colonel Mathieu.

[–] darryl-tahirali 10 years ago

It may amuse you to know that actor Jean Martin, who played the small role of Wolenski in "Jackal," played a key role in "The Battle of Algiers" in 1966: that of French Army colonel Mathieu. - tremas-1

Yes, that amused me several years ago when I discovered that connection after seeing The Battle of Algiers for the first time, but thanks for sharing it with the rest of the board.

Jean Martin served as a paratrooper in Indochina, which surely informed his portrayal of Col. Mathieu in Algiers, and Martin opposed French involvement in Algeria, which later made him an appropriate choice to play Viktor Wolenski of the OAS in The Day of the Jackal (a film I've loved since I was a kid).

Martin's opposition to French involvement in Algeria also earned him a de facto blacklist in France for several years. That fact was, I suspect, not lost on Jackal director Fred Zinnemann: During the making of 1952's High Noon, Zinnemanns' screenwriter Carl Foreman was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but although he admitted that he had been a member of the American Communist Party a decade previously, he refused to divulge the names of any others and was subsequently blacklisted in Hollywood.

Another interesting, if non-political, fact about Jean Martin: He was one of the cast in the original Paris stage production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He played Lucky, Pozzo's slave.
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[–] Hancock_the_Superb 10 years ago

Jean Martin served as a paratrooper in Indochina, which surely informed his portrayal of Col. Mathieu in Algiers, and Martin opposed French involvement in Algeria, which later made him an appropriate choice to play Viktor Wolenski of the OAS in The Day of the Jackal (a film I've loved since I was a kid).

Martin's interviewed at some length on the Criterion disc of Algiers. He's very vocal on that subject, discussing how much he despised the French military for their actions in Algeria and was reluctant to play Matthieu for that reason.

I'm afraid that you underestimate the number of subjects in which I take an interest!

[–] loveagoodstory 11 years ago

I'd say 4 of those could be 'Both are derived from real events'

Oddly enough, I thought ZDT felt slightly further from reality than TDOTJ. This may well be because it has real elements to follow. Reality, oddly, often looks less credible than fiction on the screen. Also, there's a nationalist theme ever-present in ZDT: justice or revenge or however one sees it.

The nationalist motives that also drive the TDOTJ plot are presented by the OAS in the first fifteen minutes. Thereon they're not seen again and the film follows the Jackal's motive: money for his hoped-for luxurious retirement.

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