The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition) William Dieterle Digital Life DVD

The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition)
starring: Paul Muni, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Gloria Holden, Donald Crisp
directed by: William Dieterle

List Price: $19.98

Amazon.com's Price: $17.99

You Save: $1.99 (10%)
Prices subject to change.

Used Price: $10.64
Collectible Price: $19.98
Third Party New Price: $11.78

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 9780790793078
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
ISBN: 0790793075
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: February 01, 2005
Running Time: 116 minutes
Sales Rank: 45586
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 02, 1937

Digital Life
Related Items:

Digital Life
Editorial Review:

Product Description:
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 distinguished film is a must-see portrait of a life that's a moment of the conscience of man. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture! Year: 1937Running Time: 116 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569692527

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

Digital Life Reviews

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- "Truth is marching on and will not be stopped"
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!

Rating:

- May be the first "accidental" death of a government gad fly?
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.

Rating:

- Made me want to read his books.
This is a superbly acted, fantastically written, and impressively staged production about an enormous humanitarian subject. Look far and wide and there are not many films that deal with justice and human callousness with quite as much conviction as this excellent film. Paul Muni, as usual, is spectacular. This, along with "I was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang", are MUST SEE films that will reinvigorate your faith in the validity of American cinema!

Rating:

- Muni at his best in classic barnstorming period biopic
'The Life of Emile Zola' is more about the Dreyfuss affair than the author's life - only 'Nana' is given more than a passing nod ('Germinal' gets 30 seconds of screentime while the rest of his novels are dismissed in a montage of covers) while his demise is signposted from the very first scene - and it does fall prey to the usual biopic problems ("Nana, pull up a chair next to Cezanne"), but it's such terrific entertainment, who cares? Muni is great value as Zola, much like the offscreen young Chaplin in the early scenes before becoming the great man of letters, where he walks the tightrope between over and underplaying, and he's given two great setpiece speeches - J'accuse and his address to the court - that are foolproof crowdpleasers that he handles with relish and aplomb. It's like one of Warners' crusading social issue pictures that just happens to have been set in the late 19th century and shot on an epic scale, ... Read More

Digital Life

Digital Life is all about
CD's DVD's Music Video Concerts Movies and Software

DVD : The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition)
Digital Life Average Rating:

Digital Life is all about CD's DVD's Music Video Concerts Movies and Software

DVD : The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition) Digital Life Average Rating:

Digital Life is all about
CD's DVD's Music Video Concerts Movies and Software

DVD : The Life of Emile Zola (Special Edition)
Digital Life Average Rating: