In a special year-end publication, the French newspaper Le
Monde calls the hundred years just ending, 1914-2014, “Un Siecle de Guerre,” a century of war. The editors divide it into four periods of
conflict – World War One, World War Two, the Cold War and Decolonization,
1945-1991, and Separatism and Terrorism, 1991-2014. These hundred years have been, and will be, the
subject of myriad histories.
But a great work of art is worth a hundred history books. In my opinion, if you want to understand the
last century, skip the political and military potboilers, and see just
two great movies: Jean Renoir’s “The
Grand Illusion,” from 1935, and Gillo Pontecorvo’s “The Battle of Algiers,” from
1966. "Grand Illusion” ushers in the
collapse of European civilization from 1914 to 1945. “The Battle of Algiers” is all you need to
know about the clash of civilizations that has roiled the world ever
since.
