Watch The Life of Emile Zola For Free

Best movie of this year hands down!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

. . . was cleverly disguised as a general interest Bio-Pic--THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA. This movie glosses over most of Zola's biography, doing the bare minimum to establish him as one of France's most famous and beloved citizens (with no particular affinity for Jewish people). Then he blows the whistle on all the top generals of his country's anti-Semitic Army, which has framed a random Jewish Army captain (Alfred Dreyfuss) for the treasonous espionage crimes of a Christian colonel. Though the colonel is a bitter malcontent turned German spy caught red-handed, the French Army refuses to admit its general incompetence in overlooking such an obvious and damaging traitor so high up on its general staff for so long. Instead, it rips uninvolved bystander Alfred away from his family to an all-but-certain death-by-torture on Devil's (Prison) Island. Just as many if not most Americans, when polled, say they now believe two Texas oil men then in the White House allowed if not facilitated the 9-11 Attacks, Hollywood's non-Christian elite knew that France in the late 1930s was so anti-Semitic that they would welcome any Nazis crossing the French border with open arms, helping them to herd French Jews to whatever form of doom German brains formulated. This, of course, actually came to pass as feared within a few years of ZOLA's release, as the French took a full measure of revenge against their Jews for being so embarrassed internationally by the so-called Dreyfuss Affair. I own copies of Readers' Digest Magazine from this period containing articles which predict most if not all of the main events of WWII, including the "sneak" attack on Pearl Harbor (let me emphasize these warning stories were published in many of America's leading magazines months and years before the Nostradamus-like predictions came true!). Obviously, the non-Christian segment of Hollywood moguls--as well as the Academy (which voted ZOLA "Best Picture" of 1937) read their Readers' Digests. ZOLA is even gassed to death himself at the end of this warning cry, showing that the screenwriters knew Germans would prove too cheap to eradicate their millions of victims with individual bullets. As history teaches us, Hitler controlled the oddly nicknamed "Grand Old Party" in the U.S. Congress, making European Jews "toast"--despite Hollywood's brave efforts to save millions (for which these same Fascists punished most of the Hollywood heroes the minute WWII ended, with the infamous American "Blacklists," as well as a long string of suspicious and shockingly premature deaths among Tinsel Town's human rights sympathizers as names like Wayne, Heston, Kazan, and Reagan came to control American culture and the White House for nearly a century to come).

This Movie remains elusive in two regards. Paul Muni, one of the most exalted and honorable Actors of the Thirties (hardly a name mentioned or even recognized among Cinema goers Today) and Emile Zola a Crusader for Human Rights and "The Truth" who was very popular and influential in late Nineteenth Century France (is virtually unknown, unread and forgotten).But not in 1937, just a few decades after His Death, His Legacy was much more in the Public Conscientious. So, Muni was given the Role (Won the Oscar the Year before as Louis Pasteur) and Zola was given the Royal Hollywood Studio treatment and managed to garner many Oscar Nominations and did Win for Best Picture of the Year.It is a straightforward, Low-Key presentation that is glossy and finely Produced with all the Studio Craftsman contributing to accessibility and appeal as Social Commentary Entertainment. Viewers Today may opine with such things as overrated, unremarkable, slow, stodgy, hammy, and lacking in what has become an ever increasing, over the Years, reliance of less nuance and more crackling and crisp Cinema.But the Message is the Medium here and without doubt it is delivered with intelligence. That is the remaining residue of this Film. A no frills introspection of one Freedom Fighter that used a Pen as His Weapon. It is just as Mighty coming from the Heart and in the hands of Zola and this Hollywood Ography.

You really have to like these Warner Brothers biographical movies from the 1930s. They're in black and white, true, and they may gloss events and invent speeches a little differently from the way you and I might, but they're -- well -- they're EDUCATIONAL. You can learn basic historical facts from them. This isn't an achievement to be taken lightly, not in a country in which 28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, or in which a substantial number of students think Watergate took place before 1900.I don't mean that the Warners' biopics were academic studies. Far from it. As here, we generally see a hero (or heroine) perform some socially disapproved of act and then being redeemed. He usually dies at the end, either with a peaceful smile on his face, his work on earth now being complete, or with a pen or a pistol in his hand, full of fight. Zola gets the pen treatment.Emile Zola, author of any number of infrequently read French novels ("Nana" may be his best known), was a famous figure at the time of this story, the end of the 19th century, when he decided to take up the cause of Alfred Dreyfus, an innocent army officer who had been convicted of treason, partly because he was Jewish.Zola and his big mouth intervene after Dreyfus is sent to "a living death" on Devil's Island. Zola writes an inflammatory newspaper article -- "J'Accuse," which the movie helpfully translates as "I Accuse" -- and provokes a suit for libel. The French Army is mostly a proud and cohesive group and although the evidence against Dreyfus was rigged, nobody wants to admit it. Do Zola's strenuous efforts pay off at the end? If they didn't, Warners wouldn't have made this movie.The formula usually remained the same, with some variations. (Sometimes the resolute hero alienates a former friend, and so forth.) Paul Muni starred in more than one of them. He overacts, but that's part of getting the MESSAGE across. When he gives a rousing speech at the trial, he huffs and puffs, he waves his hands, his chin snaps up and down like a traveling block on an oil rig, and when he's not shouting, he's hissing his lines."The truth is on the march -- and nothing will stop it!", he says confidently. I don't think Emile Zola ever said any such thing. I have doubts that anyone, at any time in the course of human history, has ever said such a thing, although they might have written it in a pamphlet or as a line of dialog in an entertaining and educational movie.Some may notice some irony in the fact that the Army convicted Dreyfus partly because of anti-Semitism but never wanted to admit it, while the movie hardly even mentions it because the studios didn't want to bring up the edgy subject.

Okay, before I begin my review, here's a quick little correction I have to make regarding my Great Ziegfeld review...twice: This film is not a Musical. I apologize for the mix-up; they have 2 things in common: A similar-sounding title (I always got them mixed up), and a specific genre they supposedly share (again, I always got them mixed up). And that genre is the Biopic, or Character Study as it were.And speaking of which, it was actually better than I thought going into this thing, but I don't know if I'd call it good. I'd certainly watch it over Cavalcade or The Great Ziegfeld, but how many times? What is it about? Well, the title is quite self-explanatory in that light, only trimmed down for our benefit (unlike Ziegfeld), but the question one should ask in this case is, who is Emile Zola? Well, Emile Zola was a French Author and his prolific writing career, including his friendship with French painter Paul Cezanne, and his involvement in the Dreyfuss Affair in which (an espionage-related scandal during the Militarized state of 19th Century France) he plays a part in until his untimely death. There's more to the story, obviously, but if you're curious, you could do one of 2 things: Research on the matter yourself, or see the movie.Now is it worth seeing? Well, I'll get to that later. The movie is written okay, it is directed okay, heck, even the acting is pretty darn good for its time. I can at least see why it won Best Picture in 1937, and it is a rather important film in the Biopic genre as it led to the Academy's recognition of the genre in a serious light. The cinematography and art direction is pretty good too (for the time), but it at least does well in the most important elements of the Character Study: The acting and the writing. However, the film, while important, is quickly dwarfed 4 years later by a film regarded as the Best ever made (which I'll cover later).With all that said and done, I would probably only recommend this film to hardcore film buffs, fans of character studies as a whole, and those who might be interested in, in more ways than one, the actual life of Emile Zola. This film does have an audience to this day; in fact, back in 2000, it was one of 25 films selected by the National Film Registry for immortalization in the Library of Congress. So it's not like the film is awful or unwatchable. Personally, it's not my thing, but people like it okay, so why ruin it for others. Take it for what it's worth; I'll give it a 6 out of 10.