Watch J'accuse For Free

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Blistering performances.

I don't watch silent films quite as often as I should, but this one reminds me I should try harder once more. Most praises I've read about (this one), go out to the third and final act, which is absolutely understandable, but I was very impressed with the hour and fifty minutes before that also. How the relationship between Jean and François changes was most impressively done, both by story and by acting (especially Séverin-Mars, who plays the latter, while Romuald Joubé deserves special credit for his part in act three, when he loses his mind).This war- and love-story works on many levels. It deals with the horrors of war, but also how man (and woman and child) can overcome - though obviously not without scars. The part of the child that was conceived through rape is especially harrowing, but the love of Jean and Edith helps even the raging soldier François to gain understanding of true love - though the scene in which the child must play a German soldier with the French kids is again hard to watch.The words 'J'accuse' return many times in the film, but who is really accused in the first part of the film? The war ministers in their safe retreats, one would say? When we witness one them being struck personally by a (war) tragedy, we must conclude no. The words 'I accuse' are more likely the perfectly logical way of expressing one's desire to blame someone - anyone - for all miseries that may come about in life; in war, ánd in love. When finally Jean looks out his window and blames the sun, this seems to substantiate that idea; it is an angry, desperate rant against a 'thing' which will burn no less when it is addressed. Of course I do not mean to dismiss here the part just before that, in which the returning dead army ghosts accuse their close ones of betrayal in various ways, but their accusations are instantly cathartic to all, and both the survivors and the dead may carry on. So, I'd like to doubt the reviews I've read about this film being anti-war, Abel Gance 'simply' seems to say that horrors of these kind had better be worth the while...? Just my two cents after this first viewing.Then there is an owl (symbol of the night) who acts as the prophet of war, someone resembling 'Astérix le Gaulois' as a symbol of bravery on the side of the French soldiers, beautiful visualizations of a book of poems called 'Les pacifiques', and so on. I can't say I fully understood all of it, but I did enjoy pretty much all of it; who is then really bothered when someone looks into the camera now and then (accidentally, I presume) or when there seem to be some wrongly cut short bits here and there (again, accidentally, I presume)? And, perhaps strangely, but it worked somehow, there is room for some humourImpressive, to say the least. A big 8 out of 10.

This film by Abel Gance was lost for many years but has now been restored from a number of sources and made available for viewing by the Nederlands Museum. Gance's later silent spectacular Napoleon is rightly revered for its innovation and inventiveness - but is the same true of his war epic, J'accuse? In three parts, this film is first a conventional love triangle between the tiresome and bullied Edith, her drunken husband Francois, and dreaming poet Jean. But when the great war strikes, it will affect them all in ways they can't imagine.With some great images, especially in parts one and two, and for the most part, restrained acting, J'accuse is a powerful plea against the waste of war. For a film made ninety years ago, it has a modern feel with numerous close-ups, overlays, and other camera tricks. Although a bit ponderous in places it does not flag and is still extremely watchable, and relevant in a world where war has not yet become a thing of the past.J'accuse deserves to be regarded highly, and shows Gance to have been a skilled and ahead-of-time filmmaker in the silent era.

The only attempt to make a peace film during the war was in France, by the great Abel Gance... 'J'accuse' is almost as large in scope as 'Intolerance'. The director said that: 'It was intended to show that if war did not serve some purpose, then it was a terrible waste. If it had to be waged, then a man's death must achieve something.' "J'accuse" is a triangle story of Edith (Marise Dauvray), her husband François Laurin (Severin-Mars) and Jean Diaz (Romould Joube), a poet who is in love with Edith... The three, however, are puppets in the hands of war...Edith is taken captive and returns with a child... François and Jean... Well you have to see the film! All this now seems excessively melodramatic and not entirely impartial, but visually "J'accuse" is an extremely powerful film and it certainly had an impact on contemporary audiences...The film was remade by Abel Gance in 1937 in an attempt to warn against the impending World War II...

It's hard to describe the images you will see in this film. They cut to the very core of the most horrific results of war. It is a fantasy which will leave you with images that will not leave you.Any mention of the particulars here might spoil the experience of this great silent offering.