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French Cinema and the Algerian War: Fifty Years Later: Decades later, the savage conflict and its political and human repercussions are at last being seriously examined by French filmmakers.

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Today, during the early years of the twenty-first century, the relationship between French society and the legacy of the Algerian War continues to fluctuate. To be precise, this dynamic entails the relationship between French society and the war, which took place from November 1954 to summer 1962, pitting the French army (2.7 million soldiers over the course of eight years) against the Algerian populace (for whom the war was a unifying factor accelerating the development of a national consciousness). In October 1997, Cinema-Action magazine (www.cinemaction.net) published a remarkable issue entitled The Algerian War Onscreen, which may be considered a companion piece to this article.

We will consider only films that deal directly with the war. The numerous films which address the relationship between French society and its citizens of immigrant Algerian origin (from colonial times to the present day)--films sometimes known as "beur cinema" ("beur" is a slang word for Arab, created by inverting the syllables of the word) or incorporated into "banlieue" (suburban ghetto) cinema--are not part of our brief. Likewise, films that investigate the relationship between the Algerian immigrant community and their homeland, the "bled," are outside out sphere of concern.

French cinema has never displayed much of an interest in films about war. Timidity, censorship, or pressure put upon producers by those in power have had remarkably consistent results--no films were made about World War I during World War I, no films were made about World War II during World War II, no films were made about the Indochina War during the Indochina War and, obviously, no films about the Algerian War were made until long after the war was over. Despite the passing references to the Algerian War--which can be found in films made after 1962--the first two features to deal directly with the war and the moral quandaries it posed--finally made it to the screen a decade later, and then not without difficulty. Rene Vautier's Avoir vingt ans dans les Aures (To be Twenty in the Aures) was released in May 1972, and Yves Boisset's RAS arrived on French screens in August 1973.

About the same time (in March 1972), a feature-length documentary by Yves Courriere and Philippe Monnier premiered in four cinemas in Paris. Entitled simply La Guerre d'Algerie (The Algerian War), it was a montage of materials taken from French and foreign news programs of the period, organized chronologically, which told the story of the war as seen by the press (cinematic or otherwise) between 1954 and 1968. In other words, the "news" from Algeria since, officially speaking, there was...

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