The Life of Emile Zola

In 1862 Paris, struggling writer Paul Muni (as Emile Zola) is happy working with a book publisher. Because he writes about corrupt officials, Mr. Muni is called a "muckraker" and loses his job. However, fame and fortune are around the corner. Muni meets sad prostitute Erin O'Brien-Moore (as Nana) and writes her story. The book "Nana" is the first of many best-sellers. Years later, Muni sacrifices everything to defend Joseph Schildkraut (as Alfred Dreyfus), a Jewish man made a scapegoat by French authorities...

Led by Muni's carefully constructed lead performance, "The Life of Emile Zola" was a huge success with audiences and critics. Muni won a "Best Actor" award from the "New York Film Critics" and Mr. Schildkraut received an "Academy Award" as "Best Supporting Actor". Those organizations named "Zola" best film of the year; adding its #1 placement on the annual "New York Times" and "Film Daily" lists, it was clearly the consensus winner for 1937. Disney's "Snow White" was the only real challenger...

The Dreyfus affair is almost the whole film, making the title seem inappropriate. Also, the film seems shy about naming Schildkraut's character as Jewish. If you blink, you'll miss the piece of paper listing "Religion - Jew". Considering the looming World War, filmmakers likely wished the point was made more clearly. Despite its flaws, the production is excellent, with great roles from the cast and crew at Warner Bros. Sometimes overlooked among the more well-known names are outstanding art director Anton Grot and supporting actor Vladimir Sokoloff as Muni's drafty attic apartment roommate (acclaimed painter Paul Cezanne).

******* The Life of Emile Zola (8/11/37) William Dieterle ~ Paul Muni, Joseph Schildkraut, Vladimir Sokoloff, Gale Sondergaard

I only watched this because it won an Academy Award for best picture (1937). I didn't expect it to be very good, so my intention was to watch it over two nights, but I watched it in one sitting, because it was quite immersive.

The movie could be described as being comprised of two parts - the first, a snapshot of who Emile Zola was, and the second, his involvement in the Dreyfus Affair (which I knew nothing about until I watched this movie).

I thought this movie was immersive and historically interesting. I enjoyed it.

Handsomely mounted in the Warner Brothers style of the 30's, and topped off with a stirring Max Steiner score, "The Life of Emile Zola" (***) remains a passionately engrossing experience. Refreshingly, the film admits upfront right after the opening titles that it's a fictionalization, something that isn't done nearly as often it should be in today's purportedly "true story" docudramas. (These days, this disclaimer is often buried in the fine print at the very end of the credits after nearly everyone has left the theater.) Even so, "Zola" remains remarkably true to the facts. It skips lightly over the author's early years in the first 20 minutes and then soars to gripping dramatic heights in the outrageous libel trial that Zola underwent after he published his celebrated "J'Accuse" which condemned the hypocrisy and corruption of the military establishment as it falsely accused high-ranking Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason and then attempted a massive cover-up when it realized it had made a mistake. The movie has been criticized for underplaying the anti-semitic aspects of the Dreyfus prosecution, but it's implied quite neatly in the scene where the camera pans down Dreyfus's resume to his religion while one of his superiors marvels how "someone like that" could became an officer. The film does indulge in some pretty fancy compression towards the end. It implies that Dreyfus was reinstated in the Army right after returning from Devil's Island and on the same day as Zola's tragic accidental death. However, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the real facts are even more disturbing and incredible. In 1899 after his return, Dreyfus was retried and found guilty again by a court tribunal! However, he was pardoned by the President. He was finally cleared of all charges and reinstated in the service in 1906, four years after Zola's death in 1902. Interesting sidelight: Zola and his devoted wife had no children but he did carry on a 14-year affair with one of his housemaids that produced 2 children. I guess there's no way the Warner Brothers were going to complicate the image of their hero as a saintly crusader for truth and justice by including this spicy little domestic tidbit.

Émile is like the Julian Assange of 19th Century France, though certainly less dramatic. He comes under intense criticism as his books gain popularity and the censors are under pressure from the government and the French Army to stop them. The Dreyfus Affair was still well-known at the time of the film's release, but as a person watching for the first time 75 years later I got a little lost. I failed to see the connection between the two seemingly unrelated sub-plots and the ensuing period where there was little to no appearance of the film's namesake. This was eventually cleared up for me but the reliance on assumed knowledge was not very forward-thinking. One quibble is that the women did not seem to age, I had a similar complaint watching Cimarron; throughout the decades covered by the film Zola got older and cuddlier, Dreyfus aged even more...yet their wives hardly aged a day. I wish I knew their secret. Snaps for Joseph Schildkraut whose portrayal of Captain Alfred Dreyfus scored him an Oscar® for Best Supporting Actor. It was a good film and certainly highlighted the level of corruption in France at that time, as well as rooting for the underdog. I must procure one of Zola's books and check him out.

... and I've seen a lot of them, in particular the precodes.

Warner Brothers did make heavy use of Paul Muni in the 1930s, particularly in their prestige pictures, capitalizing on his ability to completely physically transform into a role, and he uses that talent here, where he plays Emil Zola. The odd casting includes two actors well known as portraying villains - Joseph Schildkraut and Gale Sondergaard - as Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the wrongly accused and convicted member of the French army and his faithful wife, trying to find somebody who will help him, even after he is shipped out to Devil's Island. They are the only two completely likeable characters in the film, with the images of other treacherous characters they had portrayed somehow erased by their performances.

Even Zola is not likeable through the entirety of the film. He starts out likeable, shown in his youth, looking for, finding, and writing about topics on injustice, but then he grows complacent as he ages, to the point that when Mrs. Dreyfus comes to him for help when he is late in life at first he resists her plea. But her case is compelling and he quickly changes his mind.

The other thing I noticed in this film - It sure is good to be an American and have protections for free speech. Throughout his career Zola comes up against state censors who try to suppress his writings if they make France look bad. Then whenZola takes up Dreyfus' case he is prosecuted for "criminal libel" which is basically a law against making France look bad, with even the judge in the matter seeming to be in cahoots. No wonder the officers involved felt free to keep Dreyfus imprisoned even after they found out who the actual spy was.

I'd recommend this film as a worthwhile watch, but I'm not sure it was the best film of 1937. I'd probably give that honor to The Awful Truth.