In the Year of the Pig

In the summer of 2018, with a delay of 400 months German magazine “Filmkritik” published their last issue, dedicated to Emile de Antonio, director of IN THE YEAR OF THE PIG. On its cover the publication quotes De Antonio: “The USA is a gigantic monster but it is the country I love.” Throughout his life De Antonio worked on a critical chronicle of US politics. In the spirit of an engaged historian his films are furious and confrontational. In his 1968 film about the preceding years of the Vietnam War the director’s political militancy and historical precision leads into one of the strongest courtroom dramas in cinema history. The plaintiff is De Antonio, the defendant are the USA. Like every courtroom drama the film is also a form of theatre, “political theater” as De Antonio called it. Instead of using a voice-over to give his opinion, the director juxtaposes archival footage and creates some irrevocable evidence about the immorality of a war that cannot be won. When he began working on the film in 1967 De Antonio’s purpose was revelation before public opinion was formed. Later he won an Oscar for the film and remembered Fred Astaire opening the envelope “as if he was holding shit in his hand.” (Patrick Holzapfel)