J'accuse
About J'accuse
In a Provençal village in 1914, the poet Jean Diaz and the farmer François Laurin both go to war after François sends his wife Édith to Lorraine. German soldiers capture and rape her, and she later returns with a daughter, Angèle. At the front the two men become friends, then fight on leave, and François is wounded and dies. Shell-shocked, Jean tells the villagers of the dead rising from their graves to ask if the living were worth it, then dies as the light fails.
Cast & crew
More about J'accuse
Abel Gance wrote and directed. Charles Pathé produced, Pathé released the film in France on April 25, 1919, and shooting ran from August 1918 to March 1919. Andrée Danis and Gance edited.
Themes
Background
Gance began the film while the war was still on. Henri Barbusse's Le Feu was one of the books that pushed him to make it.
Reviews
The Times, in May 1920, wrote that the war incidents were set down with more conviction and bitterness than before, and that the waking of the dead left the audience thinking.
Audiences
London saw it in May 1920 at the Philharmonic Hall, with a 40-piece orchestra and a professional choir. It was not shown to the British Board of Film Censors.
Look
Marc Bujard, Léonce-Henri Burel, and Maurice Forster shot the film, including battlefield footage with the United States Army at Saint-Mihiel in September 1918.
Music
Arthur Honegger wrote the score.
Preservation
Lobster Films restored it in 2008 with the Nederlands Filmmuseum and Flicker Alley, drawing on the Lobster collection, the Czech Film Archive, the Cinémathèque Française, and the Nederlands Filmmuseum.
Notes
- Romuald Joubé plays Jean Diaz. Séverin-Mars plays François. Maryse Dauvray plays Édith. Maxime Desjardins plays her father, Maria Lazare. Angèle Guys plays the child. Angèle Decori plays Marie, the servant.
- The original release was 5,250 meters, in four episodes, later cut to 4,350 meters in three. A 1921 version for American audiences, titled I Accuse, runs 3,525 meters in the 2008 restoration.
- About 2,000 soldiers on leave played the dead rising, filmed in the south of France.
- Blaise Cendrars, who had lost an arm in 1915, was assistant director and appeared as one of the dead.
- By 1923 the film was reported to have taken in 3,500,000 francs.
Scenes
- The dead rise and march to the village to face the living.
- Jean denounces the sun and dies as the light fails.
Influenced by
- Le Feu, by Henri Barbusse
Also available
- Internet Archive (j-accuse.-1919)
- Flicker Alley DVD (2008 restoration)
