The Battle of Algiers

(1966, directed by Gillo Pontecorvo)

- inducted 2017 –

“The legendary stature of The Battle of Algiers is hardly in question. From the infamous stories of Black Panthers taking notes during screenings on how to stage a revolution, to its showing at the Pentagon just before the invasion of Iraq (obviously more than a few lessons were ignored), the relevancy and potency of its message has perhaps only gotten stronger as the film approaches the 50th anniversary of its U.S. premiere. However, the message would mean very little indeed without a form, and Gillo Pontecorvo provides a truly remarkable one, full of anger, passion, and most of all humanity.

“The circumstances of production are perhaps even better known than the impact of the film itself: the cast almost entirely comprised of non-actors, the handheld documentary realism so convincing that US theaters ran a disclaimer before each showing stating that no real newsreel footage was used. Even more striking is the marriage of these gestures towards realism with the general framework of a thrilling procedural, worked through both sides of the conflict. The much-vaunted even-handedness of the whole venture, refusing to paint either Algerians or French as angels or devils (though it is clear Pontecorvo and company side with the Algerians), only makes the carnage inflicted on both individual and crowd all the more discomfiting.

“But more than anything, though there is an easily definable protagonist (Ali la Pointe) and antagonist (Colonel Mathieu, almost certainly among the most noble villains to ever grace the screen), The Battle of Algiers belongs to the masses, to the faces that, when glimpsed even just once, imprint themselves onto the shifting fabric that defines the material of a revolution. It is this revolution that is paid tribute to and given life anew through celluloid that forms one of the great political films of all time.

~ Ryan Swen