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

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.

I highly recommend "The Life of Emile Zola" for the brilliant performances of Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, and Joseph Schildkraut. (Although I still must admit I'm surprised by Schildkraut's Oscar victory...although he certainly does a good job as Alfred Dreyfus, the role doesn't really give him much opportunity to demonstrate his talents. Dreyfus is not shown in any depth; his role consists almost entirely of protesting his innocence and languishing in prison.)

Strong performances aside, though, I do have some problems with the film. It strikes me as very odd that a film that makes such a big deal about "the truth" is so hesitant at actually depicting it. One of the key issues of the Dreyfus affair, anti-semitism, is never even brought up. The only reference to Dreyfus' Judaism is a passing glimpse on his personnel papers. The filmmakers' reluctance to address such an important part of the story does a disservice to history.

This well-crafted film is a worthwhile memorial to Émile Zola, one of the finest writers of his era, and one who deserves to be better-known today outside of his own country. It seems likely that Zola, a naturalistic writer who always used lifelike, genuine characters who had both strengths and weaknesses, would probably have been satisfied with the way he is portrayed by Paul Muni and by the screenplay. Zola is shown not as a flawless hero or as a larger-than-life icon, but as a real person with a talent for writing, who was willing to struggle both to establish himself and to remain true to his principles.

The movie makes a good selection of events from Zola's life, looking both at his earlier years, when he was struggling to establish himself, and at his later years, when as a respected member of society he had to fight his own reluctance to remain true to his ideals. The supporting cast have smaller parts, but they generally do quite well. Vladimir Sokoloff has a couple of nice scenes as Cézanne, and his interactions with Muni are quite helpful in defining the main character, especially as he changes once attaining personal success. Joseph Schildkraut makes good use of his scenes as Dreyfus.

Zola's lifetime was also an interesting and often tumultuous period in France's own history, and the movie provides at least a small taste of that.

There was, for example, even more to the Dreyfus situation than is shown here, but it and other historical events are shown mainly as they involved Zola himself - otherwise, to do justice to the events in themselves, the movie would have had to be several times as long. There's plenty here as it is to make it worthwhile, both as a good drama and as a believable portrait of Zola.

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.