Holocaust filmography struggles with a fundamental
issue: What does it mean to “recreate” the hell of concentration camps? Is the
director seeking to be factually accurate or suggestively metaphoric?
Recreations are judged by their capacity to reproduce the real; metaphors and
emphathic audiences. Neither strategy
ultimately matches the complexities and experiences of history as it was
endured by the victims or prosecuted by their oppressors.[i]
Neither the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) nor the Beylis Affair (1911) match
in extensiveness or uniqueness the overwhelming enormity of the evil that is
the Shoah, and in a sense it is
depressingly correct to say, as Eli Wiesel once did, that there can be no
poetry after the Holocaust: that no amount of artistic or poetic skill and
insight can reproduce in a controlled aesthetic form the essence of what
happened. But as the survivors pass on,
their children also grow old, and new generations appear who can only know
about the past through fading memories and written documents, some photographs
and a few ruins, how do we ensure that the truth is not lost, that those who
were slaughtered are not forgotten and those who participated in this greatest
of all crimes do not find the peace and oblivion of the grave? Moreover, can we forbid the new generations
trying to imagine, feel and understand what happened by using their own minds
and hearts? Unlike the epistemological
and aesthetic conundrum that comes up always when we consider artistic
representations of the past, especially persons and events to which we still
feel strong emotions and consider deeply part of our own defining reality,
there is something different about the monstrous past of the Holocaust. It is partly a moral obligation not to treat
the Shoah objectively, to take it as one of many crimes against humanity or to
handle it so gingerly that it becomes a meaningless icon or metaphor or index (or whatever jargon
term that may be fashionable), that is, a mere cipher into which any content
may be poured. It is also an artistic
challenge, with art taken in its highest meaning, as the fullest and most meaningful
we have to describe and explore the meanings of our own history. It is not just unique, sui generis, beyond
comparison with anything else: it is the touchstone by which we know anything
else.
Scene 30[ii]
Georges Clemenceau’s
office at L’Aurore [The Dawn],
he was then editor and soon to become Prime Minister of France. Lucie is there with other Dreyfusards. Zola enters and reads out the text of his J’accuse. Lucie has a smile of hope and
determination. Again, though this is nice
attempt to make Lucie seem strong and active,
the normative version of history makes Mathieu Dreyfus and other member
of the early Dreyfusard group responsible for the events that lead to Alfred’s
return from Devil’s Island for a revision of his court martial. The way the directors have set up this
condensed scene, however reduces to the whole Affair to a near melodrama.
Everything is too simplistic.
Scene 31[iii]
On the screen
there are images of printing presses at work with J’accuse on front page
of L’Aurore. Out in the streets of Paris, crowds buy and
read the newspaper. Everything seems to
be more of an American version than a French event thanks to these cinematic
clichés.
Scene 32
The generals of
the High Command read J’accuse in the
newspaper and angrily decide to get even with Zola for this latest affront to
their gloire. It is a reprise of Scene 12, with the
villains more clearly identified and the whole opposition to Dreyfus become a
set of caricatures.
Scene 33
More ominously,
anti-Dreyfusard mobs gather at the offices of L’Aurore, riot, break
windows of newspaper, and burn Zola’s books in the street. Zola observes the riot but when the crowd
sees him he races home in a carriage.
This is an allusion to Nazi street thugs in Germany in the 1930s. But unless the audience knows better, the anti-Semitism
is lost.
Scene 34
Emile Zola
escapes from the crowd to hide in his house.
There he receives a subpoena to appear in court on libel charges. This is a reprise of Scene 6, with Zola now
playing the role of escapee that was the prostitute Nana’s. The structure of
the film seems more like a melodrama than a tragedy.
Scene 35
Here is the one
libel trial against Zola, all the other preliminary hearings and trials are
condensed into this one dramatic scene.
Chief judge announces the evidence to be presented will be limited to
the slander of the court martial officers in Esterhazy case. No mention of Dreyfus case can be allowed. In other words, everything about the
proceedings is stacked against the accused.
What makes the action even more like a kangaroo court is the way the
room is packed with army officers vociferously hostile to Zola. Mobs organized outside to boo Zola and shout
down his witnesses add to the failure of the judge to maintain both decorum and
adhere to the rules of justice. When
Col. Picquart takes the stand and denounces his fellow officers, there is a great
commotion, including interference by military officers, and obvious hostility
in the ruling of the Chief Judge. Shouts
of “Long live the Army.” This the
centrepiece of the whole film and the trial extended through several separate
scenes. It is fairly accurate, except
for the issues not raised. Mostly the
procedures of this trial lack any context.
Scene 36
Then,
simultaneous with the court room scene where Zola is made to feel the
indignities and humiliations of the prejudiced society he thought he was trying
to save from itself, Dreyfus is seen on Devil’s Island. The heat, the isolation, the
silent-treatment, the humiliations. Suddenly
a brown paper packet thrown into Dreyfus’s cell. Inside there is a copy of Zola’s latest novel
Paris and the Works of Shakespeare, as well as a heavily censored
letter from Lucie. Wearing his rimless
glasses, Dreyfus reads the letter and kisses it. Though again based on the
staged reproductive film documentaries of Georges Méliès, this is a mixture of painful
accuracy and total fantasy. It condenses
too many events in the five years incarceration. Dreyfus would not have been allowed to read
Zola’s novels or any book dealing with issues relating to his Affair, and he
never mentions reading any of Zola’s books subsequently.[iv]
Scene 37[v]
Return to the Zola
Trial. Lucie is called as witness. All questions by Master Loubet the lawyer for
the defendant are dismissed by the Chief Justice; she is told to stand
down. Then the evil Esterhazy is called
to the witness stand. In an inner chamber, Col. Henry and other officers
encourage him to keep cool and not to bring a gun into the courtroom, knowing
he is a hothead, what is called these days “a loose cannon.” Before the court, he is questioned about
secret documents, and exposes his arrogant and cocky attitude. Various generals answer for him that the secret
documents are true and cannot be presented to court on grounds of national
security. Then Picquard asks the judge to
be heard: he confirms documents are forgeries.
Maître Loubet protests at proceedings of the court. The scene breaks up in commotion. This continuation of Scene 35 not only
reports the actual absurdities of the proceedings, but loads the presentation
with near farcical caricatured participants and spectators.
Scene
38
Outside
courthouse, unruly crowds boo Zola as
he departs in carriage. Again, while close to the historical truth, the
anti-Semitism has been deleted and too many important contextual details have
been elided.
Scene 39
Crowds with
umbrellas up on a rainy day are seen waiting for the summing up by the judge
and lawyers. This scene is a cinematic
embellishment, and recalls the earlier scene when Zola cannot afford an
umbrella. It is nevertheless an interesting impressionist image of the tensions
before the verdict will be announced.
Scene 40[vi]
Zola Trial again. Summing up by Chief Judge, who outrageously calls
on the jury of middle-class and workingmen to find Zola guilty. Then Zola if finally allowed to speak. He makes speech on Truth. He says he and they know that the jury were
called only by the government and by the court to find him guilty. But what is important is the Truth. “My person is of no account,” he says.
Then he appeals to the jury’s humanity, their sense of duty to
France. He exhorts them: “A great nation
is in great danger of forfeiting her honour.”
Then he adds “I swear that Dreyfus is innocent.” The crowd of officers shout him down. In a sense, this is a nice rendering of the
court records. Surprisingly, the film may even understate the ridculous
abrogation of proper What is not explored is how the Dreyfusards stand up for
ideals and the collective honour of France, while the anti-Dreyfusards, while
they claim to be concerned about the reputation of the Army and the security of
France, acts as selfish, vain individuals.
Scene 41[vii]
Now we see Dreyfus on
Devil’s Island in one of those stylized scenes reminiscent of Méliès’ silent
films that would regularly reproduce events of the Affair. The prisoner is shackled to his bed. He reaches under for his books and letters
and despairs because they are eaten away by tropical heat, humidity and worms. This
is a nice scene that deserves to be expanded into a much fuller examination of
how Dreyfus survived his five year ordeal.
Scene 42
Capt. Henry
comes to Esterhazy’s apartment and tells him the game is almost up, and the
traitor is afraid to appear before generals.
He asks for Esterhazy to help since it was on his behalf that he forged
the documents. Esterhazy tells him to be
cool and not admit anything, and that he will be waiting for him. When Henry departs, Esterhazy quickly packs
and runs off to exile. The relationship between Henry and Esterhazy is not as
clear cut as the film shows. Moreover
there is the melodramtic dumbing down: Henry comes off a kind of idealistic
fool and Esterhazy a nasty ingrate, but they were both probably caught up in
their own lies.
Scene 43
Before the
Minister of War and High Command, Henry breaks down and admits his guilt. “I did it for the sake of the Army,” he
whimpers. He is put under arrest and sent to prison. Minister asks for the resignation by all the
generals, who try to resist, nut then they give in. This is somewhat of a
whitewash, to put it mildly. When Dreyfus
was pardoned, there was an amnesty granted to all the military officers
involved, who retired to undeserved peace.
Some of them, along with their supporters, returned to power in the late
1930s and helped form the Vichy government.
Scene 44
Henry in prison,
found dead in cell, assumed to be by suicide.
Whether Henry killed himself or was murdered by some paid assassin is
conjectural. A proper inquest into his
death was never held. The full extent of
the conspiracy against Dreyfus thus remains unexplored by the film. The main themes are clear, but not the
reasons why Dreyfus and his wife were able to persevere,
[i] Jacques Adler, “The Burden of
the Past and the Obligations of the Future” a review of Alvin H. Rosenfeld, The End of the Holocaust (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 2011) H-Net
Reviews (September 2013) online
athttp://www.www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=37087
[ii] Instead of these scenes with
Clemenceau, the radio play gives sounds of music, crowds exclaiming as they
read J’accuse, then breaking glass.
This ends the Second Act of the radio production. There is a station identification, an
advertisement for Lux soap, and an interview with the movie’s director William
Diekele. He is asked to explain why films such as this take liberties with
historical accuracy. He answers that,
while he gives more credit to the intelligence of audiences than many others,
nonetheless the new medium requires that the script show events in a logical
sequence; and that, more important than historical accuracy, is the need to get
the idea across. The world is in a
dangerous state and people must remember the lesson of the Dreyfus Affair and
the example of Zola: there are right now in the world likely to be millions of
people in the same situation as Dreyfus, but there is only one Zola.
[iii] This and subsequent material
deleted from the radio play, which picks up again only at Scene 37.
[iv] For a long discussion of what
Dreyfus did read, with most of his books chosen by Lucie for him, as well as
the probable reasons why Dreyfus never mentions any of Zola’s fiction, see my three studies: Alfred Dreyfus: Man, Milieu, Mentality and Midrash (2012), In the Context of his Times (2013) and Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus in the
Phantasmagoria (2013)
[v] Most of the trial scene which
looms so large in the film is cut in the radio play. Scene III of the radio drama opens with the
narrator stating that the civil case against Zola is threatened by the
presiding justice ruling all reference to the first court martial and the
Affair out of order.
[vi] The radio play deletes most of
the witnesses and speeches. There is the
sound of a crowded, disorderly courtroom, and then Zola makes his concluding
speech. After swearing that Dreyfus is
innocent and ordering the jury to do their duty to France and the Army, there
are shouts in the court. The judge
directs the jurors to find Zola guilty.
More noise and then the judge reads out the guilty verdict. Zola’s friends argue for him to flee into
exile so he can carry on his writing, he hesitates, and then asks Alexandrine
to pack some warm things for his stay in England.
[vii] Radio play cuts this and other
episodes, returning only at Scene 48
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