J'Accuse

A banner year for silent-film enthusiasts, 2008 has witnessed—among other treats—the DVD releases of two masterpieces by the great French director Abel Gance from Flicker Alley: first La Roue, and now this dynamic two-disc set featuring a pristine restoration of the ambitious 1919 anti-war film J'Accuse. Not to be confused with Emile Zola's history-making 1898 open letter to a newspaper about the infamous Dreyfus affair in France, this J'Accuse was Gance's cinematic breakthrough, bowing to rave reviews and box-office triumph. Technically innovative for its time (introducing techniques that Gance would later refine in La Roue and his grand opus Napoleon), the original French-titled version of J'Accuse remained unavailable for nearly 90 years until the completion of this stunning restoration through the joint efforts of Lobster Films in Paris and the Nederlands Filmmuseum. Widely considered to be the first major pacifist film, J'Accuse, which is set in France during World War I, focuses on a devastating love triangle between the unhappily married Edith (Marise Dauvray), her older husband Francois (Séverin-Mars), and the man Edith truly loves—pacifist-poet-turned-reluctant-soldier Jean Diaz (Romuald Joubé). Gance interweaves their tragic stories into a grand-scale indictment of the horror and human waste of warfare, as Francois and Jean find themselves on the frontlines, and Edith is captured by German forces. Preeminent silent-film historian Kevin Brownlow, who was closely involved in the restoration, recently observed that 'the absence of J'Accuse from the list of classics for all these years has been deplorable, and its appearance on DVD can only be regarded as a triumph.' An accompanying booklet features an excellent essay by Brownlow about the film, as well as a piece analyzing the influence of J'Accuse on the anti-war novels of Virginia Woolf, and detailed notes about the film's restoration (which includes a new symphonic score composed and conducted by silent film music specialist Robert Israel). Rounding out the DVD extras here are two short films: 'Paris During the War' (1915) and 'Fighting the War' (1916), featuring the astonishing frontline photography of adventurer Donald C. Thompson. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (J. Shannon) [Blu-ray Review—Jan. 1, 2019—Flicker Alley, 166 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $19.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1919’s J’Accuse features a fine transfer with DTS-HD 2.0 audio. Extras include Henri Diamant-Berger’s 1915 war comedy short 'Paris During the War' (31 min.). Bottom line: this silent classic sparkles on Blu-ray.]