The Life of Emile Zola

1937 saw a couple of firsts that would be repeated many times over Oscar's history--it was the first time that a Warner Brothers film won the top prize, and it was the first time that a biopic, which would become an Academy favorite, won. The winner was The Life of Emile Zola, directed by William Dieterle.

To be accurate, though, this is not so much a biopic as a courtroom drama. The main character is the French novelist and social critic Emile Zola, but after a prologue of sorts, which deals with his days as a starving artist, rooming with the painter Paul Cezanne, the bulk of the film depicts his involvement in the Dreyfus affair, in which a captain of the French army is wrongly convicted of treason and sentenced to imprisonment on Devil's Island.

Paul Muni plays Zola. He went from the Yiddish theater of New York City to playing gangsters to finally establishing a reputation for playing famous men of history (he won an Oscar the preceding year for The Story of Louis Pasteur). Here he is a writer of absolute integrity, who writes novels exposing the social ills of the age. We see how he meets a young prostitute that inspires him to write his first novel, Nana. He then goes on to openly criticize the government and the military, and though told my censors to desist, his fame allows him to write what he wants.

He is fat and complacent when a young Jewish captain, Alfred Dreyfus, is accused of writing a letter exposing military secrets to the Germans. The film very subtly implies that his arrest is prompted by anti-Semitism, and he is railroaded into a conviction. Even when evidence of the real culprit surfaces, it is suppressed due to potential embarrassment to the military command. When Dreyfus' wife, Gale Sondergaard, goes to Zola for his help, he is at first resistant, but he remembers his ideals and throws himself into the case. He writes an open letter to the French president, which became known as "J'accuse!" (I accuse). Zola's intention was to be tried for libel, so he can reopen the Dreyfus case, and that's what happens, although the French court makes it almost impossible to present evidence.

There's a lot to admire about this film, though it suffers some from a certain stuffiness. There's lots of speechifying and airing of lofty ideals, the kind that impresses those who look for intellectual chops in film. There's some good acting. Joseph Schildkraut, as Dreyfus, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, but I liked Donald Crisp as Zola's attorney. Dieterle's direction is economical, as a lot of ground is covered in under a two-hour time frame. It's an impressive movie, if not necessarily one that stays with you for years to come.