The Life of Emile Zola (1937)

Paul Muni as Zola

'The Life of Emile Zola' is a biographical movie about the famous French author Émile Zola, focusing in particular on his involvement in the Dreyfus affair. The movie was directed by William Dieterle and was a follow-up to his earlier, highly successful film biography, 'The Story of Louis Pasteur' made in 1935. The movie stars Paul Muni, who also featured in, and won a Best Actor Award for 'The Story of Louis Pasteur', and also stars Gale Sondergaard, and Joseph Schildkraut.

The movie was a resounding critical success and performed well at the box-office. It received an an incredible ten Academy Award nominations and won three Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut), and Best Screenplay.

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In 2000, 'The Life of Emile Zola' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The story is a fictionalised account of the life of best-selling author, Emile Zola, who writes a celebrated editorial called "J'Accuse" in defense of a Jewish French army officer convicted on false evidence and sent to Devil's Island. Although it is a story of the fight to free a Jew who was the victim of anti-Semitism and a massive military cover-up, there is no direct reference to Jews onscreen. It has been suggested that the Jewish movie moguls had no wish to bring undue publiciity onto Jews at the time that Hitler's actions in Europe were beginning to be publicly known.

Zola's defense of Dreyfus makes him wide open to criminal prosecution and although he delivers a brilliant self-defense in court, which males for compelling cinema, he is found guilty. He flees to England, and continues railing against the corruption of the military establishment. He is successful in eventually forcing a retrial of Dreyfus, but dies in a freak accident due to a faulty stove the night before the public ceremony in which Dreyfus is exonerated.

'The Life of Emile Zola' deserves its status as a classic due mainly to Paul Muni's magnificent performance, most notably in the unforgettable courtroom summation scene and there are outstnding contributions too from Joseph Schildkraut as Dreyfus and Gale Sondergaard as his grief-stricken, faithful wife.