May. 20, 2002 - 5:16 pm
it was Best Picture for 1937. starring Paul Muni, it's the story of Emile Zola, a French muckraking author around the turn of the century. based on a true story. it is displayed as one of Warner Bros.' biography pictures that it often did in the 30s. Warner Bros. often ended up doing its best work when it focused on plots which "challenged the system." that's the story of Zola's life, so it's perfect for their standards. another film i've seen in this vein recently was I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), which also starred Paul Muni. see the Cool Hand Luke (1967) entry for more discussion of that film.
well this film was ok. i think it gets a 6/10. it didn't really wow me in any way. it was interesting in a few scenes, but mostly it was just mediocre. there was this one very cool shot where there were hundreds of French people standing out in the rain and all of them had black umbrellas. it was a high angle shot, so all you saw was a sea of umbrellas being pounded by the rain. no faces, no real movement, just rain on the umbrellas. it was really beautiful.
i thought that for a bio pic this film was really not that focused on establishing his character very thoroughly. probably 2/3 of the film revolves around one incident in Zola's career in which he tried to prove the innocence of a French army officer that was convicted of treason unjustly. i guess they just didn't cover the many events of his life equally, so i thought it was weird to call it "The Life of Emile Zola."
i hope everyone likes the new graphic. now instead of just emailing me for no reason whatever, which resulted in a grand total of 1 email since last month, people can email me to suggest a film that i need to see. please don't do it too often though. oh i know i'm just asking for it here...