LGM Film Club, Part 346: The Battle of Algiers

As the third film in my post-birthday favorite film series, I chose what is probably my favorite film of all time, Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 masterpiece The Battle of Algiers. There is no greatest film in history, or rather, there are like 100 greatest films in history or even more. But we all have our favorites and this is mine. There’s just no reason this film should have been so great. Pontecorvo really wasn’t some great master in the rest of his career. Even Burn, his second most well-known film, and also a leftist anti-colonial film starring Marlon Brando, feels more like a spaghetti western in production than some perfect production. The Algerians really wanted propaganda. Pontecorvo said no. And then he made the best political film possible. I cannot imagine a film that so perfectly presents both the revolutionary AND the counterrevolutionary position in a classic Marxist way that does not really condemn either side, exactly. Because HISTORY is an thing, an inevitable progression, even the actions of the French are just them playing their role in the larger struggle.

Moreover, while there is no greatest scene in history, there are my favorite scenes. And quite possibly my favorite scene of all time (perhaps tied with the robbery scene in Rififi) is the bombing scene in The Battle of Algiers. I know we’ve talked about this before around here, but the sheer bravery and trusting of the audience in showing that, yep, the baby and the teens, and the random people in the cafes, they are all going to die. And that it is necessary for them to die to push forward the revolution. They are also just playing their roles in History. But to do that with a baby licking ice cream. To force everyone–the viewers, the revolutionaries, the French–to confront this and what revolutionary violence really means, just stripping away the romance and hitting you in the face for what this means and then also continuing to make it clear that we should be rooting for the Algerians, my God, what amazing film making.

Oh, and also Ennio Morricone’s masterful soundtrack.

Anyway, if I had a vote in the Sight and Sound Best Films poll, I think it would like this, at least today:

1. The Battle of Algiers
2. The Wild Bunch
3. Once Upon a Time in the West
4. The Seven Samurai
5. The Passion of Joan of Arc
6. Tokyo Story
7. The Big Lebowski
8. The Seventh Seal
9. The Big Sleep
10. The General

Could look totally different tomorrow, but The Battle of Algiers would still be on top.