J'accuse! (1919 film)

Infobox Film
name = J'accuse!


caption = Theatrical poster
director = Abel Gance
producer = Charles Pathé
writer = Abel Gance
starring = Romuald Joubé
Séverin-Mars
cinematography = Marc Bujard
Léonce-Henri Burel
Maurice Forster
editing = Andrée Danis
Abel Gance
distributor = Pathé Fréres
United Artists
released = April 25, 1919 (FR)
October 9, 1921 (US)
runtime = 166 min.
country = France
language = Silent French intertitles
imdb_id = 0010307

"J'accuse!" is a 1919 silent war film directed by Abel Gance. Romuald Joubé stars as Jean Diaz, a poet-soldier who survives the First World War. A pacifist epic, the film features the dead soldiers of the war rising from their graves to confront the living. Jean Diaz asks the terrified population how they have profited from the war, shouting "J'accuse!" ("I accuse!").

Gance remade "J'accuse!" with sound in 1938.

A new restoration of the film was produced by Lobster Films Studios, Paris, working in collaboration with Netherlands Filmmuseum and Flicker Alley. They culled materials from the Lobster Collection, the Czech archive in Prague, the Cinematheque Francaise, and the Netherlands Filmmuseum to make the best possible and most complete edition of the original 1919 edit of the film.

Plot

The story of two men, one married (Romuald Joube), the other (Severin-Mars) the lover of the other's wife (Maryse Dauvray), who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.

Cast

* Romuald Joube as Jean Diaz
* Severin-Mars as Francois Laurin
* Maryse Dauvray as Edith Laurin
* Maxime Desjardins as Maria Lazare
* Angele Guys as Angele
* Mancini as Mrs. Diaz
* Elizabeth Nizan
* Pierre Danis

Trivia

* Filmed in part on the battlefield of St. Mihiel, during battle.
* The soldiers in the March of the Dead sequence were real soldiers on leave from the front. Most of them were killed within the next few weeks.
* Re-edited into a shorter version entitled "I Accuse", released in 1921, intended for American audiences, with a less universal anti-war slant and a more anti-German stance, and with a happy ending.
* While filming a pivotal scene in which the dead stand together to form the word "J'accuse", a French general asked Gance who he was accusing. Gance answered, "I am accusing war. I am accusing man. I am accusing universal stupidity."

References

cite video
people = Gill, David; Brownlow, Kevin (Producers / Directors)
title = Cinema Europe: The Other Hollywood
medium = Documentary
publisher = Photoplay Productions, Inc
url = http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115134/
year2 = 1996
accessdate = 2007-10-05
time= 54:30 in Ep. 1: "Where It All Began"

External links

*