‘Battle of Algiers’: Liberation, or Counter-Revolution?

Only four years after the fateful Algerian Revolution, Gilo Pontecorvo’s Algerian-Italian production La Battaglia di Algeri graced international screens through film festivals. The film unflinchingly depicts the vestiges of French colonialism in Algeria; at an age of decolonial triumph, the film does not censor the brutal realities of French torture, discrimination, and war crimes. Because of its unquestionable sympathy to revolutionary Algerians, the film was banned in France until 1970, four years after its initial release. In the meantime, the film received praise from American critical audiences, who lauded Pontecorvo’s ability to capture the war in a realistic fashion. Yet, while lauding the film’s technical prowess, critics at the time seemed to have stripped the film of its political potential as a parallel to Black liberation in the US context, paving the way for the film’s counter-revolutionary weaponization against racialized “terrorists.”

To understand the harsh French response to La Battaglia di Algeri, the Italian-Algerian production should be approached through a historical lens. The film arrives only four years after the Algerian War, a brutal conflict claiming the lives of over 300,000 Algerians, and 150,000 French pieds-noir and soldiers (Horne 13). Over a million French pieds-noir in Algeria, at the time resolutely defined as part of France, fled to France in the aftermath of decolonization (Horne 546-567). “Giving up” French Algeria did not simply happen overnight—it left fissures across the French political spectrum, with the defection of the right-wing Organisation armée secrète in angered response to Charles De Gaulle’s decision to withdraw (Horne 467-487). Right in the aftermath of a traumatic national memory, La Battaglia di Algeri dramatizes the war, showing clear sympathy with Algerian rebels (Saadi).

  As a result of these war traumas, France responded to Gilo Pontecorvo’s sympathy with Algeria by banning the film altogether until 1971. The film’s very first screenings in Venice International Film Festival were boycotted by the French delegation, who left the ceremony altogether at the announcement of Pontecorvo’s Golden Lion prize for the film (Bignardi 22). After the film’s ensuing buzz, French authorities reassured pieds-noirs that they would never distribute the film in France (Bignardi 22). Evidently, a depiction of French racial violence against its Algerian colonial subjects troubled the national conscience, particularly angering former pieds-noirs settlers.

In 1971, when the film was finally re-released in France, theater companies received anonymous phone calls from “Rightist organizations,” delaying its scheduled opening night (Freund). These “Rightist” organizations, later listed as “the Veterans’ associations, the national association of former settlers and a few smaller groupings to the political right,” demanded a general boycott of the film because of its “veritable provocation” (Freund). Fresh off the decolonial war, French audiences (especially right-wing ones) did not seem prepared to be shocked by the atrocities committed against Algerians. 

Across the Atlantic, American critics note this controversy as a potential point of marketing for American metropolitan audiences, particularly left-leaning audiences. In a Variety piece, Hawk notes that its “leftwing backing will be assured” (Hawk). Simultaneously, other critics emphasize that La Battaglia di Algeri “neglected the French interests… which might aid in the film’s promotional value” (Saadi). In these responses, American audiences far removed from France and Algiers can enjoy the ensuing political drama from a distance. American left-wing audiences in particular can find a safe-haven to express ideological solidarity through the film’s screenings.

Simultaneously, American critics received the film with overwhelming warmth, noting its innovative documentary aesthetics. Hawk emphasizes how “Grey reel quality gives pic an authentic flavor throughout, and adds to [the] dramatic impact of many of its sequences... there are no stars and there is no glamor” (Hawk). The words “genuinity,” “integrity,” “realistic retelling,” and “impressive re-creation” frequently appear across American critical receptions of the film (Hawk, Saadi, Coe, Crowther). Evidently, American film critics found it easy to consume La Battaglia di Algeri as both a document and a spectacle, as it dramatizes a traumatic war in a technically impressive fashion. Its Italian neorealism aesthetics feed into a purely artistic, de-politicized warmth from critics searching for a well-executed spectacle war film.

However, these characteristics of Italian neorealism mapped onto the Battle of Algiers troubled other critics, who claimed the film as “turning unreality into seeming realism” (Coe). Because the film does not use any actual newsreel or documentary footage, Richard L. Coe argues, “What is to keep anyone from using such a documentary style to recreate history as it didn’t happen?” (Coe). While clearly still impressed by the film’s mise-en-scene and realistic quality, American film critics still utilized the categories of “political propaganda” and “pseudo-documentary war film” to speak about La Battaglia di Algeri (Saadi). Because of its impressive technique, American critics seemed to have amplified worries about the film’s political power.

Critics also seemed to point out the film’s inability to break box office records or to be accepted by the mainstream due to its political connotations. Yacef Saadi et. al argue that the film has “traditionally a limited market and a severe obstacle to overcome” due to its political markers (Saadi). Hawk calls the film “important,” before going on to say “one can’t see it breaking box office records… its sales points are political… it will need plenty of sell [sic] to move it into ampler fields” (Hawk). Though the film holds powerful political implications, critics seemed eager to relegate it to a margin of left-wing ideological purism, or de-politicized artistic appreciation of its neorealism aesthetics. 

By accepting the film’s marginal status in America due to its “political” implications, critics miss making a meaningful connection between violence against black and brown bodies in French Algeria and in the United States. Only one reviewer makes such a connection: in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther writes, “And this being so, one may sense a relation in what goes on in this picture to what has happened in the Negro ghettos of some of our American cities more recently” (Crowther). As previously mentioned, other American film critics note the film’s affinity to “the left,” but there are no explicit parallels drawn to the Civil Rights Movement. While American audiences could consume French political turmoil surrounding racial issues, they simultaneously rejected the implications this film had on domestic affairs.

By failing to take a liberationist stand through La Battaglia di Algeri and siphoning it off

as a vaguely “leftist” movie, American audiences indirectly paved the way for the film’s counter-revolutionary potential. In 1970, an American attorney played the film at a courtroom in a case against Black Panther activists, accusing them of using the film for training purposes (Asbury). The New York Times author emphasizes how the defendants “snickered” twice during the movie “when French authorities offered a rebel “a fair trial” if he would cooperate with them” (Asbury). In this example, the film is not simply utilized by Black Power activists, but more importantly, against them in a court of law. Because of the film’s aforementioned “documentary-like” quality, it can convincingly be argued to have been utilized as “training material” by “terrorists.” As a de-politicized “document” of war, La Battaglia di Algeri could easily be weaponized against any challenger of hegemonic power.

By 1970, American and French racial issues ironically spoke to one another through La Battaglia di Algeri; in France, the film’s first screening provoked right-wing and military audiences, while in America the film became a weapon against the Black Panthers. Evidently, as a document of a battle for liberation, La Battaglia di Algeri could take on celebratory left-wing potential just as much as it could be institutionally co-opted. Its documentary-like quality, while a critically-acclaimed celebration of neorealism aesthetics, allows for the film to be “useful insight” to counter-revolutionary institutions. 

These institutional, counter-revolutionary screenings of La Battaglia di Algeri continued way after the film’s initial reception. In fact, the film went on to be screened at the Pentagon during the invasion of Iraq (CNN), as well as by the Argentinian ESMA during the counter-revolutionary Argentine Dirty War (Verbitsky). Evidently, a pattern emerges out of 1970: anti-revolutionary audiences viewing the film in order to learn about and strategize state repression in response to “terrorists.” This pattern makes sense given the film’s initial reception: while French audiences rejected the film altogether, American critics received its “realistic” aesthetics warmly while relegating the film’s politics to the wayside. As a result, the film’s sharp agenda for global decolonization and liberation dulls into an a-political “document” of a moment of the past, conjured back up by hegemonic power at moments of crisis.

Works Cited

Asbury, Edith Evans. “‘Battle of Algiers’ Is Presented At Black Panthers’ Trial Here.” The New York Times, 6 Nov. 1970, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/11/06/archives/battle-of-algiers-is-presented-at-black-panthers-trial-here.html?searchResultPosition=1.

Bignardi, Irene. “The Making of ‘The Battle of Algiers.’” Cinéaste, vol. 25, no. 2, 2000, pp. 14–22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41689226. Accessed 10 Feb. 2020.

Coe, Richard L. "'the Battle of Algiers'." The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973), Mar 13, 1968, pp. 1. ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/143561438?accountid=14667.

Crowther, Bosley. “Screen: Local Premiere of Pontecorvo’s Prize-Winning ‘Battle of Algiers’:Gripping Re-Enactment Opens Film Festival Two Italian Comedies at Local Theaters.” The New York Times, 21 Sept. 1967, https://www.nytimes.com/1967/09/21/archives/screen-local-premiere-of-pontecorvos-prizewinning-battle-of.html?searchResultPosition=14.

Freund, Andreas. "THREATS IN PARIS CANCEL WAR FILM: VIOLENT REACTION PUTS OFF 'BATTLE OF ALGIERS' OPENING." New York Times (1923-Current file), Jun 04, 1970, pp. 45. ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/118890464?accountid=14667.

Hawk. "Film Review: La Battaglia Di Algeri." Variety (Archive: 1905-2000), vol. 244, no. 3, Sep 07, 1966, pp. 6. ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1032439917?accountid=14667.

Horne, Alistaire. A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. New York Review of Books, 1977. 

“Re-Release of ‘The Battle of Algiers.’” CNN - Transcripts, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0401/01/i_dl.01.html. Accessed 9 Feb. 2020.

Saadi, Yacef et al. "FOREIGN LANGUAGE FEATURE REVIEWS: The Battle of Algiers." Boxoffice (Archive: 1920-2000), vol. 91, no. 24, Oct 02, 1967. ProQuest, https://proxy.lib.umich.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/1705122954?accountid=14667.

Verbitsky, Horacio. “Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the “Dirty War.” openDemocracy, 28 July 2005. https://web.archive.org/web/20061122064808/http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf