THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
Category: Cinema > Films
| Original title: | La battaglia di Algeri |
|---|---|
| Director: | Gillo Pontecorvo |
| Release date: | 1966 |
| Country of origin: | Italy | Algeria |
| Genre: | Drama | War |
| IMDb: | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058946/ |
Censorship incidents
| 1968-03-22 | Ban on the film THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)
|
Description
The Algerian War (1954-1962) was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the post-war decolonization era. After its defeat in Indochina (1954), France attempted to suppress the independence movement of Algeria –a country which had been colonized by France since 1830 and was considered a part of its metropolitan territory. During the Algerian War, the resistance against the local French forces was so fierce, and the Algerian guerilla war tactics were so difficult to face, that the French military had to be deployed. The French forces extensively committed torture against the Algerians, and those acts were covered up for decades until recently. Although French forces were superior from a conventional military view, the continuation of the country’s occupation was impossible, so Algeria won its independence in 1962 after a ceasefire initiated by the French President, Charles de Gaulle.
In 1966, the Algerian government asked Gillo Pontecorvo, an Italian communist director, to adapt the Algerian forces leader’s, Saadi Yacef, book into a film. The director used almost exclusively amateur actors –including Yacef himself– and employed a style resembling a black and white documentary, although no real footage was used. The film was almost unanimously praised by critics, and it has been cited as a major influence by prominent directors until today. However, the Algerian War was a traumatic and divisive matter in France, mainly due to the damage it inflicted on France’s image as a Great Power. Initially, French authorities banned the film for three months, but they later extended the ban for another four years. Officially, the ban was implemented due to death and violence threats against the director and the public order by extreme-right individuals and groups; in reality, it was the frustration of the French state that stood at the core of the ban. Due to its realism, the film was also used as military training material against guerilla warfare in the USA and in Argentina.
In Greece, the film was banned by the military dictatorship for a number of reasons. First, its depictions of torture defamed both the French troops and military officers in general; second, the Algerian guerilla warfare could set an example for enemies of the Greek regime. In fact, the censorship committee compared the assassinations of police officers by the Algerians, as depicted in the film, to similar acts committed by the Greek communists in the 1940s, evoking one of the main anti-communist commemorative discourses in the country. Consequently, the film had to be banned, because it contained an array of elements which were deemed harmful for both the country and the regime.
Christos Triantafyllou
Sources – Bibliography
- Caillé, Patricia, «The Illegitimate Legitimacy of The Battle of Algiers in French Film Culture», International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 9/3 (2007), pp. 371-388.
- Noussis, Giorgos, «Η νύχτα που ο Σηκουάνας βάφτηκε κόκκινος: Η σφαγή των Αλγερινών στο Παρίσι του 1961», ΣΚΡΑ-punk, 17/10/2020.
- Noussis, Giorgos, «Αποικιοκρατία και τραυματικό παρελθόν: Η δολοφονία του Maurice Audin και η αναγνώριση των βασανιστηρίων του γαλλικού στρατού στην Αλγερία», ΣΚΡΑ-punk, 7/10/2018.
- Stora, Benjamin, “Still Fighting. The Battle of Algiers, Censorship and the ‘Memory Wars’”, International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 9/3 (2007), pp. 365-370.
