It is on rare occasion that there is a man that it is his will to write the truth. Now, you may say that there are many men that want to write the truth... that is true. However, not many men who want to write the truth ever dare to make the attempt. Those that do make the attempt ever want to touch the hard truth. Emile Zola was not only a man who what wanted to write the truth but a man who wanted to expose it. The winner of the 10th Academy Award for Best Picture, The Life of Emile Zola, sheds the light on a man who dared to take on the truth.
Living in Paris in the 19th Century, it was rather hard place to write to the mass public because of the censorship at the time. Zola's aim as a writer was to always write the truth about his topic to tell the people what is really going on and not just what they want to hear. The censor did not like him but he did not care. He knew that people needed to know what was really going on with their government, country, money, and so on. His career kick started when he met a prostitute running from the police and helped her out. He got to know everything about her and wrote about her life, and the "under belly" of the Parisian world, and grave fresh light to people who had no idea what was going on around them. After his great success with his first book, and soon the many he wrote after that, he gained the trust of the French people. In 1896 the French people are suddenly divided because of a trail known as the Dreyfus Affair. When Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly accused of treason, he is imprisoned to Devil's Island. Two years after his imprisonment new evidence came to light that proved Dreyfus's innocents. Instead of letting him go the French Army did not want to admit that they made a mistake and covered it up and let Dreyfus stay on the island and acquitted the man that did commit the crime. With the help of Mrs. Dreyfus, who delivered evidence of a wrong conviction to Emile, Zola wrote an open letter to the army and sent it to newspapers around France accusing the Army of the cover up. After a month of deliberations Zola was found guilty for trying to denounce the French Army and was to be imprisoned for a year. Zola decides to flee to London were he can write for the innocents of Dreyfus, and try to help the reopen the case and be able to come home. When a new administration takes over the Army they find out that they have to admit that there was a cover up and have to reopen the case. Dreyfus is set free and is ready to be exonerated and meet the man that help to save him from his imprisonment. However, that would never be for the night before the ceremony the Emile Zola dies from carbon monoxide poisoning from a stove in his out.
Now, I am not really sure how much this is really true. Movies do tend to bend the truth a bit for the sack of entertainment but Emile Zola's life is very interesting to say the least. A lot of people think so because it was the second biographical movie to win the Best Picture Award. Warner Brother's had beaten out: Columbia's The Awful Truth and Lost Horizon; MGM's Captains Courageous and The Good Earth; Goldwyn's Dead End; 20th Century Fox's In Old Chicago; Universal's One Hundred Men and a Girl; RKO's Stage Door; and the first picture with color to be nominated for a Best Picture Award Selznick International's A Star is Born. The Life of Emile Zola was nominated Ten times of the Awards and won three. This film also did have the honor of being selected by the National Film Registry for preservation in 2000.
This is one of those films for me where I have to say that I see why it won the award but can not full heartedly agree that is should have won. Manly because out of the other nominations I have seen two other: The Awful Truth and Stage Door. My mother and I have a very special place in our hearts for The Awful Truth but I understand that Comedies do not normally win, or let alone get nominated, best picture awards. I think that it should have in this case because it's a wonderfully witty movie but I see why it did not win. Stage Door, however, is a drama that I thought is a well written and has you enthralled in it's story from the very start of the film. I think it would have been a better pick that The Life of Emile Zola. While the film was good enough to watch the one time I will not be temped to watch again any time soon. It's was not that excited of a movie to watch and felt more like a documentary rather than a drama. The fact about how this man helped to change history was interesting enough it was not enough to keep me wanted to watch more.
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