Battle of Algiers- A Sheep in Fox's Clothing

In approaching director Gillo Pontecorvo to direct the 1966 Battle of Algiers, the Algerians made a smart decision. Pontecorvo, being an Italian native, had been influenced by the Italian Neo-Realism movement, which was built around many of the same aspects as documentary. It developed from the invention of equipment that was lighter but still linked audio and visual when taken out to the streets. It also dared to expose the challenges faced by everyday people in the war stricken environment that had left the studios to be shelters rather than homes for films to be made. The movement and it's new style of story telling was so powerful that "even as Italian Neo-Realism began to falter in Italy, its ideas began to be picked up elsewhere" (Nowell-Smith 437).

Documentary after the 1920s began to show "a new emphasis on social, economic, and political concerns" (Musser 322). As it grew, it became "a form that reached and influenced mass audiences for purposes beyond entertainment or art" (Musser 322). These philosophies mirrored those of the Italian Neo-Realism movement with the only difference being that the Italians chose to dramatize reality while documentarians chose to find it happening in the real world.

During war times documentary did move towards the role of propaganda, with people like Reifenstahl and Vertov providing the examples. The genre "assumed a crucial propagandistic role, to instill domestic audiences with the will to preserve and win" (Musser 327), an identity taken on because of the demand that rose from the people. American, Germans, French, people of all nations were looking for a moral booster, something to tell them that whether or not their sons and neighbors came home, their fight would have been valiant and nobel.

Once WWII ended, however, documentary was back on track to becoming a social entity aimed at exploiting injustices. "Portable, synchronous sound equipment around 1960 provided a decisive leap forward in documentary filmmaking" (Musser 527), much like it had with Italian Neo-Realism. As a result of this new freedom, Cinema-Direct and Cinema-Verite rose as legitimate methods for documentary filmmakers to employ.

There are subtle but still recognizable differences between Cinema-Direct and Cinema-Verite. The terms "Cinema-Direct suggests a more observational method, and Cinema-Verite a more confrontational approach" (Musser 527). It can also be noted that in Cinema-Verite it is obvious that the "film-maker is operating as a participant observer" (Musser 527), which means that he/she manipulates the film to convey a specific view point.

The Battle of Algiers is narrative film that is dressed to look like a documentary and succeed due largely in part to the fact that documentary had begun "moving away from the illustrated lecture and looking toward the sync-sound fiction film as a model" (Musser 323). Audiences had become accustomed to documentaries that mirrored narrative films, and therefore easily accepted a narrative film that mimicked the documentary.

Pontecorvo's masterpiece was very dependent on the feeling of authenticity to be powerful, otherwise it would have become another fiction film with characters that were not real and therefore not as connected to audiences. No matter how well done a fiction film is, there is still a fake quality that allows the audience to stay separated from autarchies that appear on screen, when they believe the story is told in images from actual events, however, they become emotionally involved with the character because they know they are real and have suffered real pain.

One of the smartest choices made by Pontecorvo in making the film was to approach it in a Cinema-Direct fashion instead of a Cinema-Verite style. By remaining an objective observer, the director was able to make a statement on violence without glorifying either side. He made the film relevant to everyone by making it speak to no specific nationalism, and its statement was therefore felt on a much more universal scale by more audiences. It also helped audiences believe the realism of the film because they were not being preached at by someone supporting either side, but instead being told the story of actual events that happened with no clear statement other than this violence is unnecessary in any culture.

Word Study

I felt that the word "observer" was very important when reading about documentary and thinking about the success of Battle of Algiers, so I decided to take a closer look at its definition.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Observers means:

1. One that observes: an observer of local customs; observers of religious holidays.

2. A delegate sent to observe and report on the proceedings of an assembly or a meeting but not vote or otherwise participate.

3. 1. A crew member on a military aircraft who makes observations.

b. A member o an armed force who watches and reports from an observation post.

The second definition here stands out the most to me as one that applies to documentary filmmakers. Essentially when filming a subject for a documentary, the filmmaker's goal should be to report their subject but not affect it. The realistic ability to do this is one that has been up in the air for a long time, because it can be argued that camera is always going to effect a subject, but the point I'm trying to make is that a filmmaker should do his or her best to film a subject without manipulating it to get a desired result. If a director is interested in a specific result, then they should utilize narrative filmmaking and leave reality to those able to observe without interacting. The point of documentary is to show reality, narrative has been created to show visualized stories, and while narrative may imitate documentary, documentary should never be twisted to mimicked narrative.