The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 American biographical film about the 19th-century French author Émile Zola starring Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle.
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. L'Affaire Dreyfus has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world; it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry from Alsace whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus' complete exoneration.
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor. He is known for starring in popular films during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including American Graffiti (1973), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), The Goodbye Girl (1977), The Competition (1980), Stand by Me (1986), Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Stakeout (1987), Nuts (1987), Always (1989), What About Bob? (1991), and Mr. Holland's Opus (1995).
Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy was an officer in the French Army from 1870 to 1898. He gained notoriety as a spy for the German Empire and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason of which Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted of in 1894.
While Alfred Dreyfus was serving his sentence on Devil's Island, in France a number of people began to question his guilt. The most notable of these was Major Georges Picquart.
After Major Georges Picquart's exile to Tunisia others took up the cause of the Alfred Dreyfus.
Marie-Georges Picquart was a French Army officer and Minister of War. He is best known for his role in the Dreyfus affair, in which he played a key role in uncovering the real culprit.
Hubert-Joseph Henry was a French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell. He was considered a hero by the Anti-Dreyfusards.
"J'Accuse...!" is an open letter that was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L'Aurore by Émile Zola in response to the Dreyfus affair. Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for libel and found guilty on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.
Dreyfus is a 1930 German drama film directed by Richard Oswald and starring Fritz Kortner, Grete Mosheim, and Heinrich George. It portrays the Dreyfus affair and is based on a novel by Bruno Weil. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Franz Schroedter and Hermann Warm. It premiered at the Gloria-Palast in Berlin. In the United States the film was released under the alternative title The Dreyfus Case.
Dreyfus is a 1931 British film on the Dreyfus affair, translated from the play by Wilhelm Herzog and Hans Rehfisch and the 1930 German film Dreyfus. It features George Zucco in his film debut.
I Accuse! is a British 1958 CinemaScope biographical drama film directed by and starring José Ferrer. The film is based on the true story of the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish captain in the French Army was falsely accused of treason.
Charles Armand Auguste Ferdinand Mercier du Paty de Clam was a French army officer, an amateur graphologist, and a key figure in the Dreyfus affair.
Auguste Mercier was a French general and Minister of War at the time of the Dreyfus Affair.
Auguste Scheurer-Kestner was a chemist, industrialist, a Protestant and an Alsatian politician. He was the uncle by marriage of the wife of Jules Ferry.
George Gabriel de Pellieux was a French army officer who was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in which a Jewish officer was convicted of treason on the basis of a forgery.
An Officer and a Spy is a 2019 historical drama film directed by Roman Polanski about the Dreyfus affair, with a screenplay by Polanski and Robert Harris based on Harris's 2013 novel of the same name. The name J'Accuse has its origins in Émile Zola's bold article in l'Aurore in January 1898 in which the famous author accused many persons of France of continuing to support the increasingly blatantly erroneous accusations against Dreyfus.
