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Prisoner Of Honor
''Prisoner of Honor'' is a 1991 British made-for-television drama film directed by Ken Russell and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Oliver Reed and Peter Firth. It was made by Warner Bros. Television and distributed by HBO, and centers on the famous Dreyfus Affair. Richard Dreyfuss co-produced the film with Judith James, from a screenplay by Ron Hutchinson. Synopsis The film documents the events that saw a French Captain, Alfred Dreyfus, sent to Devil's Island for espionage near the end of the 19th century. Colonel Georges Picquart (Richard Dreyfuss) is given the job of justifying Dreyfus' sentence. Instead, he discovers that Dreyfus (Kenneth Colley), a Jew, was merely a convenient scapegoat for the actions of the true culprit, a member of the French General staff. His attempt to right the wrong sees his military career ended and the famous French author, Émile Zola (Martin Friend), found guilty of libel for publishing his 1898 open letter '' J'Accuse…!''. Cast Production ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films in the main were liberal adaptations of existing texts, or biographies, notably of composers of the Romantic era. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios. Russell is best known for his Oscar-winning film ''Women in Love'' (1969), '' The Devils'' (1971), The Who's '' Tommy'' (1975), and the science fiction film '' Altered States'' (1980). Russell also directed several films based on the lives of classical music composers, such as Elgar, Delius, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Liszt. Film critic Mark Kermode, speaking in 2006, and attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell "somebody who proved that Briti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HBO Pictures
HBO Films (formerly called HBO Premiere Films and HBO Pictures) is an American production and distribution company, a division of the cable television network HBO that produces feature films and miniseries. The division produces fiction and non-fiction works, primarily for distribution to their own customers, though recently the company has been funding theatrical releases. HBO Films slates three or four films per year and develops most them internally with theatrical films being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Background After or around 1978, HBO was involved into preproduction financing films for exclusive pay-TV rights, which is risky as the films could be unpopular while alienated movie studios. The original Silver Screen Partners, L.P. was organized by Roland W. Betts, New York film investment broker to fund movies for HBO in 1982. The limited partnership sold through E.F. Hunton were oversubscribe and raised $83 million. HBO made a 50% guarantee on their investment ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges-Gabriel De Pellieux
George Gabriel de Pellieux (6 September 1842 – 15 July 1900) was a French army officer who was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in which a Jewish officer was convicted of treason on the basis of a forgery. Early years George-Gabriel de Pellieux was born in Strasbourg, France on 6 September 1842. His father, Captain Jean Honoré Théodore Pellieux, served in the 10th artillery regiment. George-Gabriel de Pellieux entered the military college of Saint Cyr when he was seventeen, and in 1861 became a sub-lieutenant in the infantry. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1864 and captain in 1868. During the Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871) he was aide to General Eugène Arnaudeau and officer attached to the general staff. He was decorated with the Legion of Honor in May 1871, effective 14 October 1870. De Pellieux served in Algeria as aide to General Carteret between 1872 and 1878. In 1880 he was promoted to battalion chief. He was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hubert-Joseph Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry (2 June 1846 – 31 August 1898) was a French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell. He was considered a hero by the Anti-Dreyfusards. Early life and career Hubert-Joseph Henry was born into a farming family. He enlisted in the French Army as an infantryman in 1865. Promoted to sergeant-major in 1868, Henry served in the Franco-Prussian War, being captured twice but each time successfully escaping. In 1870, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in an infantry regiment. In 1875 Henry was appointed as an aide to General Joseph de Miribel, Chief of the General Staff. Four years later Henry, now a captain, joined the Statistics Section of the Ministry of War - the office responsible for counter-intelligence. He subsequently served in Tunisia, Tonkin and Algeria before returning to counter-intelligence duties in Paris. Lieutenant Colonel Georges ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raoul Le Mouton De Boisdeffre
Raoul François Charles Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, or more commonly Raoul de Boisdeffre (6 February 1839, Alençon – 24 August 1919, Paris) was a French Army general. Biography He studied at the College of Saint Cyr and at the Staff-College. During the Franco-Prussian War he was a major of cavalry and aide-de-camp of General Antoine Chanzy, and in 1882 was promoted to colonel. In 1890 he became assistant chief-of-staff, and in 1893 he was named Chief of Staff of the French Army. He was consulted on the 1894 French Military Treaty with Russia and had met both Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II. Boisdeffre is possibly most known for his comment to Tsar Alexander "Mobilisation IS war!" to which the Tsar replied "That is as I understand it."Owen, Robert L., Senator (USA), ''The Russian Imperial Conspiracy 1892-1914'', New York, 1927, p.13. Nicholas received Boisdeffre twice when he visited France. At the trial of Émile Zola (1898), during the Dreyfus affair, he appeared full ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J'Accuse…!
"''J'Accuse...!''" (; "I Accuse...!") is an open letter that was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper ''L'Aurore'' by Émile Zola in response to the Dreyfus affair. Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for libel and found guilty on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899. Other pamphlets proclaiming Dreyfus's innocence include Bernard Lazare's ''A Miscarriage of Justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair'' (November 1896). As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, ''J'accuse!'' has become a common expression of ou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined '' J'Accuse…!'' Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. Early life Zola was born in Paris in 1840 to François Zola (originally Francesco Zolla) and Émilie Aubert. His father was an Italian engineer with some Greek ancestry, who was born in Venice in 1795, and engineered the Zola Dam in Aix-en-Provence; his mother was French. The family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast when Émile was three years old. Four years later, in 1847, his father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Picquart
Marie-Georges Picquart (6 September 1854 – 19 January 1914) was a French Army officer and Minister of War. He is best known for his role in the Dreyfus affair, in which he played a key role in uncovering the real culprit. Early career Picquart was born in Strasbourg. He began his military career in 1872, graduating from the '' Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr'' as fifth in his year. Picquart served as an infantry officer in France before seeing service in Indochina. He subsequently studied at the General Staff Academy (''École d'État-major'') where he was second in his class, after which he became a lecturer at the War Academy ('' École supérieure de guerre''). One of his students at the latter institute was Alfred Dreyfus. Picquart and the Dreyfus Affair Picquart was then appointed to the General Staff in Paris. As a staff officer he acted as reporter of the debates in the first Dreyfus court-martial for the then Minister of War, Auguste Mercier, and the Chief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devil's Island
The penal colony of Cayenne (French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''Île du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana. Opened in 1852, the Devil's Island system received convicts from the Prison of St-Laurent-du-Maroni, who had been deported from all parts of the Second French Empire. It was notorious both for the staff's harsh treatment of detainees and the tropical climate and diseases that contributed to high mortality. The prison system had a death rate of 75% at its worst, and was finally closed down in 1953. Devil's Island was also notorious for being used for the exile of French political prisoners, with the most famous being Captain Alfred Dreyfus, accused of spying for Germany. The Dreyfus affair was a scandal extending for several years in late 19th and early 20th century France, exposing antisemitism and corruption in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration. Early life Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann). Raphaël Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870 and following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war, he and his family first moved to Basel in Switzerland, where he went to high school and later on to Paris. The childhood experience of seeing his family upr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screenplay
''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, feature length filmed dramas, including ''ScreenPlay''. Various writers and directors were utilized on the series. Writer Jimmy McGovern was hired by producer George Faber to pen a series five episode based upon the Merseyside needle exchange programme of the 1980s. The episode, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, was entitled ''Needle'' and featured Sean McKee, Emma Bird, and Pete Postlethwaite''.'' The last episode of the series was titled "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" and featured Robbie Coltrane as English writer Samuel Johnson, who in the autumn of 1773, visits the Hebrides off the north-west coast of Scotland. That episode was directed by John Byrne and co-starred John Sessions and Celia Imrie. Some scenes wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was falsely convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years. In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation made by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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