Abstract
On December 22, 1895 Alfred Dreyfus was convicted by the Court-Martial of the Paris Military Government for high treason and deported to solitary confinement on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Although he received a pardon on September 19, 1899 (after a retrial in Rennes where his sentence was reduced to ten years imprisonment), it was not until July 12, 1906 that the French Court of Cassation declared him innocent and ended Dreyfus's tragic Calvary.
This essay focuses on one of the films about the Dreyfus Affair, The Life of Emile Zola (1937) produced by Warner Brothers. The film's analysis shows how The Life of Emile Zola promotes individualism, liberty, freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, tolerance, "true" patriotism" and heroism and transposes the Affair into an American context.
On the one hand, the anti-Dreyfusard movement is decontextualized and depoliticized, rendering its political motives incomprehensible by reducing them to the self-interest of the army or the irrational behavior of the mob. Thus, the economic, political, religious, and social motivations of the anti-Dreyfusards are forgotten.
On the other hand, the heroic individual reunites the French nation, generating closure on the violent times of the Affair. The organized and activist nature of the Dreyfusards is ignored as the film shows Zola leading France back to justice, liberty, and truth.
Though these mechanisms, the film optimistically demonstrates how rationalist and enlightened ideologies can overcome militarism, propaganda, and mob passions. By showing how the nation comes to its senses after the crisis, the movie projects the deep-rooted but illusionary hope that totalitarian regimes will eventually vanish and world conflict will be avoided.