The Life of Emile Zola by Norman Reilly Raine, Heinz Herald Geza Herczeg was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1938 and won three of the most important: Best Picture, Paul Muni, Best Actor in a Leading Role, also Paul Muni, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Joseph Schildkraut, Best Writing, Original Story – it is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made…you find thousands of notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Life of Emile Zola by Norman Reilly Raine, Heinz Herald Geza Herczeg was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1938 and won three of the most important: Best Picture, Paul Muni, Best Actor in a Leading Role, also Paul Muni, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Joseph Schildkraut, Best Writing, Original Story – it is one of The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made…you find thousands of notes on films from The NYT 1,000 and other lists on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

8 out of 10

 

I have seen another excellent motion picture, J’accuse https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/jaccuse-aka-officer-and-spy-written-by_28.html which deals with the same subject, although J’accuse had Roman Polanski at the helm, and thus it was controversial, though I found it radiant

 

The Life of Emile Zola leaves the climax, The Dreyfuss Affair for the last part, while we find more about Emile Zola in the rest: he was a rebellious man, good friend of Paul Cezanne, one of the most important painters, he made the transition between the Impressionists and the Abstract, Post Modernist painters, encouraged by Zola

Captain Alfred Dreyfuss is Jewish and ergo he would become a target for antisemitic mobs, and the scape goat for a scandal involving the General Staff of The French Army: they find this note from a spy and they argue that Dreyfuss, being Jewish, must have an allegiance elsewhere, he is not ‘really native, a French man’

 

Marcel Proust, my favorite author, has written https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/12/albertine-disparue-by-marcel-proust.html about The Dreyfuss Scandal, how it divided society between those who supported him, and the others, who loathed him and his race, it was a disgrace, for as long as the man was persecuted

The trial was a moquerie, and the honest, loyal captain is stripped of his rank, humiliated and sent to prison, only Emile Zola takes up his cause, writes about it, and then the journalist and writer himself is put on trial, because he has ‘tarnished the honor of the French army and its commandment, the General Staff’

 

In court, the defense is not allowed to say, well, almost anything, questions are rejected, on grounds of national security, The Dreyfuss case is considered closed, and hence no mention is permitted, indeed, Kafka comes to mind https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-trial-by-franz-kafka-is-in-21st.html and The Trial

eventually, Emile Zola is found guilty of slander, calumny and he is himself sentenced to spend more than one year in prison, and he thinks of staying, like Socrates, when he is condemned in ancient Athens, but then his friends convince him that he would serve the cause better from exile, across the Channel, in Britain

 

a new Minister of Defense is named – I think of how horrible this fellow is in America, and all that bunch of MAGA creatures – and the generals that were in command of the French army have to confess to their abominations, to cover up, they allowed Esterhazy, the real spy, to stay free and sent Albert Dreyfuss and Zola to prison: they would be rehabilitated

 

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