Abstract
In November 2004 Pontecorvo's controversial film, The Battle of Algiers, was shown on prime time French television for the first time, nearly forty years after its original release. Using newspaper articles from the time to discuss the film's initial reception, this article traces the history of its invisibility and explains how, unlike other films produced about the Algerian War, The Battle of Algiers was in fact never subject to official censorship. Instead, its absence from French screens can be attributed to two factors: in the 1960s and 1970s cinema owners were deterred from showing the film by threats from veterans’ organizations and pied-noir groups in the context of what Stora terms the ‘memory wars’. And more recently the film has been subject to a more subtle kind of censorship: the disinterest of spectators unwilling to be confronted with this painful episode in French history. Thus even on its recent re-release and despite the controversy surrounding the film, it failed to attract a substantial audience. [MS]
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