Jean Martin's particular gift is making authority sound matter-of-fact. We rate the dry precision of his work in The Battle of Algiers: he makes the colonel credible, and leaves us uncomfortable with what we have heard.
Fi1m perspective
In The Battle of Algiers (1966), Jean Martin's Colonel Philippe Mathieu makes military reasoning sound like something that can be explained carefully and understood. His delivery is dry, precise and faintly ironic; he gives the officer credibility without making a display of his own skill. We found him unnerving because the calm explanation gives us so little opportunity to dismiss the man doing the explaining. Gillo Pontecorvo's documentary manner needs that restraint, and Martin supplies it.
The route to that work was through small film parts under Maurice Tourneur, then a substantial stretch on stage. With Roger Blin, Martin originated Lucky in Waiting for Godot (1953) and Clov in the French premiere of Endgame (1957). His screen career expanded into supporting roles in the mid-1960s, and The Battle of Algiers brought international recognition. The contrast is worth noticing: an actor entrusted with major Beckett roles could also make a long passage of military explanation feel like ordinary speech.
Being the sole professional actor in that film might have made him conspicuous. Pontecorvo worried that his acting would clash with the non-professionals, but what we see is a convincing fit: Martin's restraint belongs beside Brahim Hadjadj's watchful Ali La Pointe and Yacef Saâdi's El-Hadi Jaffar. The limitation is the film's habit of moving away from individuals whenever the campaign needs explaining. We sometimes want longer with a person, Martin included, before attention moves elsewhere. His authority holds us through the explanations, though it cannot provide all the human detail the film leaves out.
Officers, police commissioners, doctors and clergymen recur among his parts, so the danger of being used simply to supply authority is clear. His supporting work included Sullivan in My Name Is Nobody (1973) and Victor Wolenski in The Day of the Jackal (1973). He also voiced the bird in The King and the Mockingbird (1980), a reason to look beyond the officials. Start with The Battle of Algiers, but do not expect much comfort from the man explaining things so clearly.
Biography
Jean Martin (6 March 1922 – 2 February 2009) was a French actor of stage and screen. He originated the role of Lucky in the first production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953) and later played Clov in Endgame.
In 1960 Martin was a signatory of the Manifesto of the 121 against the Algerian War; the action led to his dismissal from the Théâtre National Populaire. He is best remembered internationally for his performance as Colonel Philippe Mathieu in Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966), the only professional actor in the film.
Martin appeared in more than eighty films and television productions. Among his other notable screen roles are Sullivan in My Name Is Nobody (1973) and Victor Wolenski in The Day of the Jackal (1973).
