I indict (1919)

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Movie
German title I accuse!
Original title J'accuse
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1919
length 3525 meters, at 20 fps 156 minutes
Rod
Director Abel Gance
script Abel Gance
production Charles Pathé
music Robert Israel (2008), Philippe Schoeller (2013/2014)
camera Marc Bujard, Léonce-Henri Burel and Maurice Forster
cut Andrée Danis, Abel Gance
occupation
  • Romuald Joubé: Jean Diaz
  • Madame Mancini: Jeans mother
  • Maryse Dauvray: Edith Laurin
  • Maxime Desjardins: Lazare, Edith's father
  • Séverin-Mars: François Laurin
  • Angèle Guys: Angèle
  • Angèle Decori: Marie, maid
  • Nader: Cook
  • Paul Duc: Orphan

also: Elizabeth Nizan, Pierre Danis, Blaise Cendrars

I'm complaining is the German title of the French silent film J'accuse , which Abel Gance realized in 1917/1918 from his own script, the draft of which he had already started in 1917. The film then premiered on April 25, 1919 in Paris, five months after the armistice that ended the First World War was signed .

The title is borrowed from the headline of an open letter published by Emile Zola in the French press in 1898 on the Dreyfus affair . The film plot was based on the pacifist play “Miracle à Verdun” by Hans Chlumberg about a woman between two men.

"J'accuse - I accuse" by Abel Gance is considered a classic of pacifist film.

action

“Edith, who genuinely loves her husband Franz Lorenz, also raved about the poet Paul Diaz and this sparked her husband's jealousy. When the war broke out, both had to enter, they met in the field and became friends. Edith, who fled to his parents at the request of her husband, was raped by marauders on the way and gave birth to a child. After returning home, she asked Paul to take care of the child, but her husband, who had come on vacation, would have killed the child (because he thought Paul was his father) if Edith had not confessed her disgrace to him. Franz, who wanted to avenge her, fell and Paul, who went mad, accused all of humanity that they were responsible for all the misery that the war brought. "(Paimanns Filmliste No. 185 (from October 3rd to 9th 1919 ))

background

Filming began in France as early as August 1918, when World War One was still ongoing, and ended in March 1919. It took place on the battlefields of Saint-Michel, Haute-Garonne and Saint-Mihiel, Meuse, France. Marc Bujard, Léonce-Henri Burel and Maurice Forster were responsible for the photography, Andrée Danis for the editing and the director Abel Gance himself. The producer of the film was Charles Pathé . His company also took on the rental.

J'accuse premiered in France on April 25, 1919. The film was also shown in Germany, Spain and Italy, Poland and Hungary. In an edited version, it also came to the United States on October 9, 1921. There it was awarded by United Artists , in Europe by Pathé Frères .

The cost of production was 525,000FF, which was a substantial sum at the time. By 1923 the film had grossed 3,500,000FF.

reception

Paimann's film list No. 185 judged in October 1919: “The subject is highly dramatic, and so is the game. The photos and the scenery excellent (a hit of the first order) "

When it was first shown in France in April 1919, the film met with broad audience approval. When it was shown in London in March 1920 in the Philharmonic Hall , accompanied by an orchestra of 40 musicians and a choir, the enthusiasm continued. It was not submitted to the British Board of Censors . Gance received a telegram from the Pathé's London agent claiming his name was currently better known in England than David Wark Griffith's .

Initially, Pathé was unsuccessful in selling the film to the USA, because the pacifist references there took offense. Gance then traveled to America in person in 1921 to screen the film in New York in a gala screening with prominent guests such as DW Griffith and Lillian Gish . Griffith was deeply moved by the film and arranged for United Artists to distribute it to the United States. The version for the USA, which was shown there under the title I accuse in 1921, had been cut again, had less anti-war and more anti-German tendencies, and on top of that had a happy ending .

criticism

“J'ACCUSE (I accuse) tells a story from World War I and is not only one of the most technically innovative and elaborate films of its time, but also went down in film history as one of the first pacifist works. Abel Gance, who had served in the First World War, filmed real war scenes that were re-enacted in 1919. [...] The film is moving and shocking. The melodrama of a three-way relationship is told in the midst of the madness of war. [...] In 1922 the film was shortened and recut, in 2009 the original version of the film could be reconstructed. "(KoKi Freiburg May 20, 2014)

Working alongside French soldiers, Gance was able to film real battlefields such as the one near Hattonchâtel near Verdun, and for the famous final sequence he was able to fall back on 2,000 soldiers - doomed soldiers who had a week's leave from the front and were to be burned after the shooting in Verdun. Such documentary recordings give the melodramatic core of the film a realistic basis. The German soldiers, recognizable by their spiked hoods, appear as silhouettes on the wall: In the film, the only direct swipe at the enemy who otherwise remains almost invisible. In the famous final sequence, in which the fallen soldiers rise to march, Abel Gance's talent for creating great moments is shown between apocalypse and enlightenment. (Ralph Trommer, FAZ November 11, 2014)

Lore

J'ACCUSE was shown in many different versions until the 1930s, some of which were made by Gance himself. The first was completed in March 1919 and, according to the script, consisted of four parts or "epochs". It was only performed as a trial. The version published at the end of April was shortened to three parts, perhaps by the director himself, but hardly voluntarily. In 2008 the company "Flicker Alley" presented a reconstruction of this three-part version on DVD.

In 2008 Lobster Films Studios, Paris created a restored version using material from the film archive of the Czech Republic in Prague, the Nederlands Film Museum and the Cinemathèque Française . With a length of 3525 meters, it comes closest to its original state.

At the Silent Winter of the San Francisco Film Festival in December 2009, Robert Israel accompanied the performance of J'accuse on the Mighty WurliTzer cinema organ.

The cultural broadcaster Arte broadcast the film on Tuesday, November 11, 2014 at 11:25 p.m. in the restored version, accompanied by a film symphony by Philippe Schoeller for large orchestra and virtual choir, on German television. The Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France played under the baton of Frank Strobel.

literature

  • Ralf Georg Bogner (Ed.): Internationales Alfred Döblin Colloquium Saarbrücken 2009: Under the Spell of Verdun: Literature and Journalism in Southwest Germany on the First World War by Alfred Döblin and his contemporaries (= yearbook for international German studies: congress reports. Volume 101). Verlag Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 978-3-0343-0341-5 , p. 273.
  • Kevin Brownlow: pioneers of film. From silent films to Hollywood . Basel / Frankfurt am Main 1997, pp. 597-648, especially pp. 611-618.
  • Friedrich Feld: Fritz Rosenfeld, film critic (= proletarian cinema in Austria. Volume 2). Filmarchiv Austria Verlag, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-902531-27-8 , p. 315.
  • Ulrich Gregor, Enno Patalas: History of the film. Volume 1, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek / Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-499-16193-1 , p. 65.
  • Hilmar Hoffmann: 100 years of film: from Lumière to Spielberg, 1894–1994: German film in the field of tension between international trends. (= Econ non-fiction book 26162). Econ Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-612-26162-2 , pp. 66 and 394.
  • Roger Icart: Abel Gance ou Le Prométhée foudroyé. Editions l'Age d'Homme, Lausanne 1983. (French)
  • Norman King: Abel Gance. British Film Institute BFI, London 1984. (English)
  • Thomas Koebner : This side of the "demonic canvas". Edition Text + Critique, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-88377-732-3 , p. 207.
  • Verena Moritz , Karin Moser, Hannes Leidinger : Kampfzone Kino. Film in Austria 1918–1938. Verlag Filmarchiv Austria, 2008, ISBN 978-3-902531-49-0 , p. 260.
  • Michael Strübel (Ed.): Film and War: The Staging of Politics between Apologetics and Apocalypse. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg / Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-322-95044-4 , p. 41.
  • Rüdiger Voigt: War in the film (= war of the media - media in war. Volume 1). Lit Verlag, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-8406-6 , p. 22.

Web links

items

  • Essay about J'accuse by Robert Byrne at silentfilm.org (English)
  • TV review “J'accuse”: The dead soldiers return, by Ralph Trommer in: FAZ Feuilleton v. November 11, 2014, on line at faz.net

Illustration

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ But not only that. “In 1915, Payot publishes an anonymous pamphlet with the title 'J'accuse!' appeared, allegedly 'by a German'. With the help of numerous documents, the attempt is made to prove that 'Germany and Austria are guilty of having, knowingly and willingly, started the European war on their own'. This strange opus, which at the time caused an enormous sensation, was not limited to accusing Prussian militarism and beyond all imperialism; it contained a fiery appeal in favor of peace and a 'world republic', as Kant had already demanded in the 18th century, as the only guarantor of progress and civilization. ”(Icart: Abel Gance, p. 102). The German-Jewish lawyer and writer Richard Grelling (1853–1929), who had been head of the German Peace Society for a number of years, is known today as the author of the pamphlet “J'accuse!” , Cf. hathitrust.org . In a text for the film premiere, Gance mentions both Zola and the anonymous book from which he borrowed the title.
  2. ↑ cf. Trommer, FAZ November 11, 2014.
  3. ↑ cf. paimann 1919/20  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; in this version the names were "Germanized", François Laurin became Franz Lorenz, instead of Jean Diaz the poet was now called Paul.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / nano.reizfeld.net  
  4. ↑ cf. Trommer FAZ November 11, 2014.
  5. ↑ cf. A. Rapeño movie poster
  6. ↑ cf. IMDb release info
  7. ↑ so Georges Sadoul: Dictionnaire des films. Paris: Seuil, 1983, p. 153.
  8. ↑ cf. paimann  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / nano.reizfeld.net  
  9. ↑ so Kevin Brownlow in the booklet accompanying the DVD edition of J'accuse through "Flicker Alley", 2008, p. 10: "Your name in England is, at present, more famous than Griffith's"
  10. ↑ cf. Robert Byrne, Essay December 2009.
  11. ↑ koki-freiburg.de
  12. ↑ “Gance has revised and re-edited the film several times. Originally it should consist of four parts with a total length of 5250 meters; but then it was cut into three parts with a total of 5350 meters ”, cf. Norman King: Abel Gance, pp. 237-238.
  13. ↑ cf. silentfilm.org
  14. ↑ cf. arte.tv/de ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Review by R. Trommer in the FAZ Feuilleton on November 11, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv