Director: William Dieterle
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Top Billed Actors: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut
Won 3 Oscars:
Outstanding Production - Warner Bros.
Best Supporting Actor - Joseph Schildkraut
Best Adaptation - Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg, and Norman Reilly Raine
Nominated for 7 more:
Best Director - William Dieterle
Best Actor - Paul Muni
Best Original Story - Heinz Herald and Geza Herczeg
Best Scoring - Warner Bros. Studio Music Department
Best Sound Recording - Nathan Levinson
Best Art Direction - Anton Grot
Best Assistant Director - Russ Saunders
Plot: Emile Zola writes a bunch of books and accuses a bunch of military guys. He then gets a front row seat for some juicy courtroom drama.
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Top Billed Actors: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut
Won 3 Oscars:
Outstanding Production - Warner Bros.
Best Supporting Actor - Joseph Schildkraut
Best Adaptation - Heinz Herald, Geza Herczeg, and Norman Reilly Raine
Nominated for 7 more:
Best Director - William Dieterle
Best Actor - Paul Muni
Best Original Story - Heinz Herald and Geza Herczeg
Best Scoring - Warner Bros. Studio Music Department
Best Sound Recording - Nathan Levinson
Best Art Direction - Anton Grot
Best Assistant Director - Russ Saunders
Plot: Emile Zola writes a bunch of books and accuses a bunch of military guys. He then gets a front row seat for some juicy courtroom drama.
Its only fitting that the 10th Best Picture winner, The Life of Emile Zola (1937), is also the first film to receive ten nominations. Suffice to say, this was the big winner on the night with both the most nominations (at ten) and the most wins (at three). This is also the second Best Picture winner in a row that is a biopic - the previous year was all about Ziegfeld and this is all about Zola. Over the course of two hours we see the French author go from rags to riches to on the lam, all the while a courtroom drama nestles its way into the story. Its a monumental film by any means but it has come under scrutiny in the last decade. The 1930s witnessed an extremely fragile moment in time politically speaking. What with the rise of the Nazi party overseas and the ongoing Great Depression on the home front, Hollywood walked on broken egg shells to keep outside parties from entering its productions. By now, we are aware of the Hays Code, which sought to set decency and other subject matter parameters so the government wouldn't have to. Through many instances of self-censorship, this film failed to point out the main reason Alfred Dreyfus was convicted for treason. His innocence becomes a rallying cry for Zola and his wont for justice, but the reason he was convicted in the first place is simply (or perhaps with great complications) Anti-Semitic prejudice against the officer. Jack Warner, Jewish himself, did not want the word "Jew" used in the film. The only indication we get that Dreyfus is a Jew is a written statistic as the Army is reviewing his files. It was a defining aspect of the Dreyfus Affair and its interesting to look back at how a 1930s film handled this.
Despite this lack of key information in the case, there's still a lot to be praised for. Paul Muni acts his ass off yet again and he shines in two long take speeches. One speech is essentially him reading the "J'accuse" letter and the other is a riveting and blood-pumping courtroom monologue. I know he just won the Best Actor award the year before for The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) but he probably should have won again. And this is coming from somebody who thinks Muni is pretty bad in his other 1937 film, The Good Earth (1937). As with most successful biopics, the passage of time needs to be presented in engaging ways. This film pulls off this aspect with aplomb. Without the need for over-explaining where we are at in Zola's life, there are time leaps that naturally happen in the first third. We can roughly tell how much time has passed based on Muni's facial hair and makeup but I also like the home-life cues like how he was suddenly married without too much fanfare (the wedding is not shown) and he progressively gets wealthier and wealthier. The rags to riches storyline is everlasting and this movie progresses it well.
The acting other than Muni are a mixed bag. Joseph Schildkraut won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but I didn't see much that indicates a great performance. He's not actively bad as Dreyfus but he does exactly what I would expect his character to do. Its no better than above-average but the statuette says otherwise, I guess. Despite my praise for the passage of time in the first third, I was jolted to see Zola so old with two thirds left to go. The Dreyfus Affair takes up the majority of the runtime. I do think the courtroom scenes are among the best this movie has to offer, but taking the focus off of Muni's Zola seemed uneven at best and foolish at worst. The case is interesting enough to craft a story all on its own but this just feels like two separate movies.
Overall, Paul Muni excels at a biopic yet again and courtroom proceedings will get your heart racing and your blood boiling. The Dreyfus Affair deserves its own movie rather than nestling within a Zola life story so the film is an askew experience; it also deserves the main reason of Dreyfus' conviction to be explicitly explored.
My Score: 7/10
Despite this lack of key information in the case, there's still a lot to be praised for. Paul Muni acts his ass off yet again and he shines in two long take speeches. One speech is essentially him reading the "J'accuse" letter and the other is a riveting and blood-pumping courtroom monologue. I know he just won the Best Actor award the year before for The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) but he probably should have won again. And this is coming from somebody who thinks Muni is pretty bad in his other 1937 film, The Good Earth (1937). As with most successful biopics, the passage of time needs to be presented in engaging ways. This film pulls off this aspect with aplomb. Without the need for over-explaining where we are at in Zola's life, there are time leaps that naturally happen in the first third. We can roughly tell how much time has passed based on Muni's facial hair and makeup but I also like the home-life cues like how he was suddenly married without too much fanfare (the wedding is not shown) and he progressively gets wealthier and wealthier. The rags to riches storyline is everlasting and this movie progresses it well.
The acting other than Muni are a mixed bag. Joseph Schildkraut won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar but I didn't see much that indicates a great performance. He's not actively bad as Dreyfus but he does exactly what I would expect his character to do. Its no better than above-average but the statuette says otherwise, I guess. Despite my praise for the passage of time in the first third, I was jolted to see Zola so old with two thirds left to go. The Dreyfus Affair takes up the majority of the runtime. I do think the courtroom scenes are among the best this movie has to offer, but taking the focus off of Muni's Zola seemed uneven at best and foolish at worst. The case is interesting enough to craft a story all on its own but this just feels like two separate movies.
Overall, Paul Muni excels at a biopic yet again and courtroom proceedings will get your heart racing and your blood boiling. The Dreyfus Affair deserves its own movie rather than nestling within a Zola life story so the film is an askew experience; it also deserves the main reason of Dreyfus' conviction to be explicitly explored.
My Score: 7/10