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The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition) |  | Director: William Dieterle
Actors: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden, Donald Crisp
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
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Rating:  17 reviews
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 116 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 66925
ISBN: 0790793075
UPC: 012569692527
EAN: 9780790793078
Theatrical Release Date: October 2, 1937
Release Date: February 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | The Life of Emile Zola episodically explores the career of the novelist who championed the cause of France's oppressed. Zola (Paul Muni) is a hugely successful French author who risks all his success and comfort to come to the defense of the unjustly jailed Capt. Dreyfus (Oscar winner Joseph Schildkraut). Winner of three Oscars overall - and of immense critical and popular success - his distinguis |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Still as potently relevant today as it was in 1937, The Life of Emile Zola is a marvelously entertaining slab of Hollywood social issue-mongering. The life of the French writer is broadly sketched in the early going, but the film settles into its groove with the Dreyfus affair: the scandalous railroading of a military captain for treason, which shook France to its foundation in the 1890s. The elderly Zola's gradual involvement in the case, climaxing with his electrifying "J'accuse!" essay and subsequent trial for libel, is the heart and soul of the picture. Warner Bros.' version of this story, directed by William Dieterle, carries over the passion (and hokum) of the previous year's Story of Louis Pasteur. It also retains that film's leading man, Paul Muni, who turns in an elaborately theatrical performance. The result was a box-office smash and three Oscars, for best picture, script, and supporting actor (Joseph Schildkraut, who plays Dreyfus). While the film occasionally creaks with Hollywood artifice, the clarion call of truth and outrage come through surprisingly strongly--indeed the film looks prescient as a warning about governments closing ranks to cover up mistakes. Mostly sidestepped is the anti-Semitic vitriol of the campaign against Dreyfus (his Jewishness is referenced only in a written report glimpsed for a moment). This is an old-fashioned barnburner that encourages the viewer to fan the flames. --Robert Horton
Product Description
Episodes in the career of the famous French writer who took up the cause of the unjustly jailed Capt. Dreyfus.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 1-FEB-2005
Media Type: DVD
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
 the life of Emile Zola November 24, 2009
Barbara May Gillespie
This is a very old classic. It is for people that enjoy inspirational themes, and history. It was WB's first academy award winner, and it also won the film critics award. Because the modern films are so full of sensationalism, special effects, and lack of dialog, I think this film should be kept alive as an example of great works. It is a wittness as to what could be done with a hint of intelligence, and discretion.
 Vive la France! October 27, 2009
Margaret S. Moga (Terre Haute, IN USA)
If you don't know who Emile Zola is, you should! See this movie and learn! And Paul Muni never fails to deliver! A wonderful movie!
Worlds collide! September 1, 2009
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
William Dieterle ( who also directed the cult movie "The Devil and Daniel Webster" ) translated to the screen the life of this emblematic French writer, the great author of the Naturalism genre.
Along his life he portrayed and pictured like any other of his contemporaries, the dramatic and multiple social injustices of a society who still had not recovered from the several ethic injures of the bloody consequences of 1789.
The Dreyfus affair was for Zola, vehicle for him to demonstrate his social sensibility around this resonant event that shocked the whole civilized world by then and now.
The reckless boldness through which Dreyfus was accused in order to preserve the integrity and the status quo's high command's official institution about a visible case of internal espionage aroused a scandal that overcame all the imaginable boundaries. It was a true slap on the face of the legality corpus. The arduous defense assumed by Zola is the central nerve of this memorable film.
Paul Muni -one of my twenty greatest American actors ever- is overwhelming in this role as well as the rest of the cast. The excellent recreation of a shameful true life drama!
"Truth is marching on and will not be stopped" June 11, 2007
R. Swanson (New Mexico)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was amazed at the power of this "old" movie. Made in 1937, in black and white, obviously, and acted in the over-the-top style that was in vogue in those days (pre-Actors Studio). Yet, dated though some of the aspects of the film are, the message is timeless and certainly is apt for this moment. I won't retell the story, as others here have done a good job and many readers will already know the events on which the film is based. It's certainly worth seeing and pondering how the message applies to today. Zola said, in the end, "Truth is marching on and will not be stopped." Let's all drink to that!
May be the first "accidental" death of a government gad fly? February 27, 2007
R. Bagula (Lakeside, Ca United States)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
What struck me was the closeness of the death of Emile Zola to
the release of Dreyfus. In more modern terms this fellow Zola reminds one of Upton Sinclair in America who was called a muck raker
and hated by many companies for his exposing horrible practices in the meat packing industry.
For showing the corrupt underbelly of French society Zola was loved by the poor and downtrodden and hated by an upper class of extreme wealth and influence.
The existence of a widening class structure in America would say that we need men like Zola to be appreciated as they were in 1937.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 17
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