"I'm Not a Man; I'm a Cause"--the Story of Alfred Dreyfus in I Accuse*
Jun 30 '01 (Updated Jul 01 '01)
The Bottom Line History repeats itself--the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
The reason that we need to remember the Dreyfus Affair now is that we failed to remember it the first time. We, the citizens of the world, did not pay attention to what was happening to the Jews in Nazi Germany because we were convinced that nothing so atrocious could really transpire in the modern world. Our faith in the press and our ability to communicate almost instantaneously across vast distances led us to imagine that no large-scale injustice could go undetected for long.
We lied to ourselves then. And we lie to ourselves whenever we say that we learned our lesson from Hitler's attempt at genocide. We lie because history has demonstrated that we never learn anything. Marx may have been wrong about a number of things, but he was not wrong when he said that history repeats itself--the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. The reason that so many of our great human mistakes are farcical is that we really should have known better than to make them. We started the 20th century with a highly publicized case of anti-Semitism: the Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish officer in France's General Office (the only Jewish officer ever to have been admitted to that office) was scapegoated for treason even though the army knew who the real turncoat was.
Convicted on specious testimony and exiled to Devil's Island, Dreyfus was eventually pardoned for a crime that his superiors knew he hadn't committed. Only years later, when it became financially advantageous for the real spy to confess to his crime, was Dreyfus exonerated. His case was manipulated into an international scandal by the French press (not to mention the personal attention of famed novelist Emile Zola), and the world had an opportunity to come to terms with the fact that anti-Semitism was positively flourishing in the highest offices of a nation that prided itself on an ideology based in liberty, equality, and fraternity.
Make no mistake about it: The civilized world watched as France came to terms with its deeply embedded anti-Semitism. And then, in the 30s, we told ourselves that the stories of Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany were "exaggerations," "misrepresentations," even "impossibilities."
Some of us imagine that we as a species will never be able to forget the great crimes of this century--the purges of Mao and Stalin, the holocaust in Germany. Unfortunately, however, it is our nature to forget. That is why we must study not only the purges and the holocaust, but the events that warned us that such things were possible to begin with. And since I have learned through hard experience that no one believes in studying anymore, perhaps the best I can do is to direct people towards an entertainment that has done our studying for us.
Without attempting to be a genuine documentary, Gore Vidal's screenplay for I Accuse covers the most important points about the Dreyfus Affair in a way that is accessible and dramatically satisfying. The scenes that are contrived (as when the letter establishing Dreyfus' innocence is delivered to a key government figure just as a protest on Dreyfus' behalf erupts outside the building) are not positively misleading. And the dialogue is often even better than Vidal's somewhat stock characterizations (a general who can't bear being contradicted, a flamboyant artist figure who races about meddling in other people's affairs) might lead us to expect.
The best sequence in the film shows Dreyfus (Jose Ferrer) being publicly disgraced as unfit to bear arms for the nation of France. He stands perfectly still as a French officer rips off his epaulets and the buttons of his uniform and breaks Dreyfus' sword over his knee. When this public humiliation is complete, Dreyfus begins to shout, over and over again, "I am innocent! Long live France!"
The fact that Dreyfus feels he must support the nation that has wronged him brings up a question that is central to I Accuse, the question of the social contract. What do citizens owe their nations? Can they owe more to one another than to their homeland? Doesn't Major Picquart (Leo Genn) owe Dreyfus his assistance more than he owes the French army his silence? Intriguingly, Picquart's negotiation with what he owes his nation and an officer that he knows to be wrongly accused is resolved (to his satisfaction at least) by a negotiation with a lawyer. He writes a report explaining why Dreyfus should be released, but does not turn it over to the press. Instead, he leaves it with his lawyer, who is to do with it as his conscience dictates or to release it to the press upon Picquart's death. The scene in which Picquart and the lawyer negotiate this pact is an interesting (albeit frightening) interrogation into the ways in which we as individuals can try to negotiate between our duties to ourselves, other individuals, and our civilization.
Another incredibly profound and moving scene in the film occurs when we see how Dreyfus attempts to handle solitary confinement on Devil's Island. "When you live without clocks or mirrors or someone to talk to," he says, "you grow old." Since even the guards are forbidden to talk to Dreyfus, he resorts to the practice of composing letters to his wife--letters that he is not allowed to write, but that he must simply dictate into the emptiness of his cell.
The film is less adept in its handling of the place of mass media in a modern society. Although Dreyfus' exoneration appears to be the result of a publisher's willingness to pay handsomely for the confession of Major Esterhazy (Anton Walbrook), the real spy, we hardly come away with an abiding faith in the power of free markets to produce "justice." After all, when an anti-Semitic editor of a French newspaper whips the Paris citizenry into a fury against Dreyfus, the maid who works in Dreyfus' household annnounces her intention to quit.
"But you know Captain Dreyfus," objects Mrs. Dreyfus (Viveca Lindfors), "you know [the accusations aren't] true."
"I know what I read," says the maid tersely.
While it's true that intellectuals such as Zola can use the media to appeal to public opinion, it is also true that there are other forces at work in the modern world that also have access to mass media. And there are people (plenty of them) like the maid who accept reality as whatever it is that is depicted in newspapers (or, these days, on the television screen).
The real lesson of I Accuse, in other words, does not simply concern the dangers of anti-Semitism. It is even larger than that--and concerns our responsibilities towards one another as individual agents within a society so monstrously large as to make the concept of individualism laughable. We didn't think for ourselves during the Dreyfus Affair. We let the anti-Semitic editors and Emile Zola do our thinking for us. We didn't think for ourselves again during Hitler's rise to power. And now, if anything, we're worse off than we were before. We've deluded ourselves into imagining that holocausts can't happen anymore. And we believe that our media moguls are more interested in making money by providing the news than they are in telling us what to think.
History repeats itself--the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. It's tragic when the maid says, "I know what I read." How does it sound when you say it?
_____________________
*Because the film I Accuse is not listed in the epinions database, I have opted to review it here, in the "10 Best Biography Movies" category. Although it is one of the ten best biography movies I have seen, it is not the best. In order to conform with the requirements of the category, however, I'll include my top ten list here (not that I can imagine anyone being interested):
#10-Basquiat-this story of the celebrated grafittist-turned-painter and friend of Andy Warhol is worth seeing if only for David Bowie's portrayal of Warhol.
#9-Patton-though bloated and occasionally jingoistic, Patton offers an astonishing look at one of America's most enigmatic military minds. George C. Scott, an actor who is touted but not touted nearly enough, is spectacular.
#8-Lawrence of Arabia-the story of a neurasthenic-looking young man who captures our attention the moment he refuses to drink more water than the Bedouin who leads him through a desert, Lawrence of Arabia offers us an astonishing glimpse into the abilities of the English (and particularly Peter O'Toole) to pat themselves on the back.
#7-I Accuse-please see the review above.
#6-Amadeus-even if you're the sort who would take Beethoven over Mozart any day of the week, the soundtrack of this film alone is worth the price of admission. The fact that we have a rather typical portrait of the tortured artist and his mortal enemy is not so important as the inspired performances all around, particularly that of F. Murray Abraham as Selieri.
#5-Malcolm X-Spike Lee is not only inconsistent between movies, but often within movies. He has a harder time resisting an opportunity to lecture the audience than anyone except Oliver Stone. It is a testament to his appreciation of the subject matter here that he manages to allow the film to speak for itself (for the most part) instead of stepping forward every five minutes to tell us what to make of the story of one of the most rhetorically gifted men in American history.
#4-Ed Wood-as good as Johnny Depp is, he has never been better than he is in the title role of this film. And as gifted as Tim Burton is, he has never directed a film so perfect in its mood and execution. This hilarious look at one of the worst filmmakers in history is both insightful and unmalicious.
#3-Raging Bull-though it's impossible to say which of DeNiro's many excellent performances is responsible for his near-legendary status, it is likely that the extent to which he manipulated his own physique for this film has earned him a special place in the heart of most cineastes of my generation. Why there are so many watchable boxing movies is beyond me, but Scorsese's story of Jake Lamotta is arguably the best of them all.
#2-In Cold Blood-this extraordinary adaptation of Truman Capote's extraordinary book of the same name tells the story of two men who slaughter a Kansas family for a few dollars and then face death sentences. How the film manages to capture the detachment of Capote's narrative is a complete mystery to me, and all the more impressive because I cannot understand it.
#1-Gandhi-Ben Kingsley's performance as history's single most articulate and effective spokesman for passive resistance is nothing less than riveting. People who say the film is too long are simply wrong and should be shot. I've seen this film more times than I can count, and it always feels as if it lasts about half an hour.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Sloucho
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Mike Davis
Location: Philadelphia
Reviews written: 199
Trusted by: 247 members
About Me:
Read my reviews in order to heal the sick and control the weather. Seriously.
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.