Guerrillas In Our Midst: The Battle Of Algiers
Gillo Pontecorvo changed cinema forever with his Academy Award-nominated docu-drama. But the Italian filmmaker also shaped the future in ways he couldn't possibly have predicted...
A version of this article appeared in The New European.
From illuminating the human condition to raking in millions of dollars, films can do many things. But can cinema actually change the world we live in?
For the most part, the answer would seem to be 'no'. Okay, when Oliver Stone's JFK came out, it caused such a palaver that Congress rushed released certain documents pertaining to the assassination. But as the paperwork in question revealed little of interest, so it would be another 25 years before the bulk of the Kennedy files would be made available to the public. And while Braveheart might have given the Scottish independence movement fresh impetus, it was Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon rather than Mel Gibson and William Wallace who were responsible for leading to the push for a referendum.
The bottom line is, while movies might be a useful vehicle for raising issues and awareness, they don't shape the world we live in. That is, with a notable exception. For there is, to my mind at least, one motion picture that it still influencing the most chaotic aspects of 21st century living. The picture in question is The Battle Of Algiers and its director is Pisa's Gillo Pontecorvo.
Shot in 1966, The Battle Of Algiers sought to capture the horror of the Algerian War of Independence that had ended only four short years before. Through the use of documentary film techniques, Pontecorvo - a hugely experience non-fiction filmmaker - so realistically brought to life the struggle between the occupying French forces and the Algerian Independence Movement (aka the FLN) that the film began with a disclaimer pointing out that the picture didn't contain so much as a foot of newsreel footage. Even when The Battle Of Algiers is seen today, the abundance of handheld camerawork together with the almost entirely amateur cast mean the film feels more like a historical document than a work of fiction.
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