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The Life Of Émile Zola
''The Life of Emile Zola'' is a 1937 American biographical film about the 19th-century French author Émile Zola starring Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle. It premiered at the Los Angeles Carthay Circle Theatre to great critical and financial success. Contemporary reviews ranked it as the greatest biographical film made up to that time. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Produced during the Great Depression and after the Nazi Party had taken power in Germany, the film failed to explore the key issue of antisemitic injustice in France in the late 19th century, when Zola became involved in the Dreyfus affair and worked to gain the officer's release. Some recent studies have noted the film as an example of Hollywood's timidity at the time: antisemitism was not mentioned in the film, nor was "Jew" said in dialogue. Some explicitly a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Muni
Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund; September 22, 1895– August 25, 1967) was an American stage and film actor who grew up in Chicago. Muni was a five-time Academy Award nominee, with one win. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theater. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros. studio and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted. His acting quality, usually playing a powerful character, such as the lead in '' Scarface'' (1932), was partly a result of his intense preparation for his parts, often immersing himself in the study of the real character's traits and mannerisms. He was also highly skilled in using makeup techniques, a talent he learned from his parents, who were also actors, and from his early years on stage with the Yiddish theater in Chicago. At the age of 12, he played the stage role of an 80-year-old man; in one of his films, '' Seven Faces,'' he played seven differen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.; it also maintains a conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia. The library's functions are overseen by the Librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol. The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its "collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages." Congress moved to Washington, D.C., in 1800 after holding sessions for eleven years in the temporary national capitals in New York City and Philadelphia. In both cities, members of the U.S. Congress had access to the sizable collec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J'accuse (letter)
"''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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy
Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy (16 December 1847 – 21 May 1923) was an officer in the French Army from 1870 to 1898. He gained notoriety as a spy for the German Empire and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason of which Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted in 1894. After evidence against Esterhazy was discovered and made public, he was eventually subjected to a closed military trial in 1898, only to be officially found not guilty. Esterhazy retired from the military with the rank of major in 1898—presumably under pressure—and fled by way of Brussels to the United Kingdom, where he lived in the town of Harpenden in Hertfordshire until his death in 1923. Biography Ancestry Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy was born in Paris, France, the son of General Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy (1807–1857), who later distinguished himself as division commander in the Crimean War. His paternal grandfather, Jean Marie Auguste Walsin-Est ... [...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] |
Nana (novel)
''Nana'' is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, ''Nana'' is the ninth installment in the 20-volume ''Les Rougon-Macquart'' series. Origins A year before he started to write ''Nana'', Zola knew nothing about the Théâtre des Variétés. Ludovic Halévy invited him to attend an operetta with him there on February 15, 1878, and took him backstage. Halévy told him innumerable stories about the amorous life of the star, Anna Judic, whose ménage à trois served as the model for the relationships of Rose Mignon, her husband, and Steiner in Zola's novel. Halévy also provided Zola with stories about famous prostitutes such as Blanche d'Antigny, Anna Deslions, Delphine de Lizy, and Hortense Schneider, upon which Zola drew in developing the character of his title character. Yet it was Valtesse de la Bigne, painted by both Manet and Henri Gervex, who most inspired him; it is she who is immortalised in his scandalous novel Nana. Plot summary ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. While his early works are still influenced by Romanticism – such as the murals in the Jas de Bouffan country house – and Realism, he arrived at a new pictorial language through intensive examination of Impressionist forms of expression. He gave up the use of perspective and broke with the established rules of Academic Art and strived for a renewal of traditional design methods on the basis of the impressionistic color space and color modulation principles. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists' concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and colour. Its broad emphasis on abstract qualities or symbolic content means Post-Impressionism encompasses Les Nabis, Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Cloisonnism, the Pont-Aven School, and Synthetism, along with some later Impressionists' work. The movement's principal artists were Paul Cézanne (known as the father of Post-Impressionism), Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat. The term Post-Impressionism was first used by art critic Roger Fry in 1906.Peter Morrin, Judith Zilczer, William C. Agee, ''The Advent of Modernism. Post-Impressionism and North American Art, 1900-1918'', High Museum of Art, 1986 Critic Frank Rutter in a review of the Salon d'A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Award For Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category in which every member of the Oscars is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. The Best Picture category is often the final award of the night and is widely considered as the most prestigious honor of the ceremony. The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards ceremonies have been held since 2002, showcase every film that has won the Best Picture title since the award's inception. There have been 581 films nominated for Best Picture and 94 winners. History Category name changes At the 1st Academy Awards ceremony (for 1927 and 1928), there were two categories of awards that were each considered the top award of the night: ''Outstanding Picture'' and '' Unique and Artist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Production Code
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States. From 1934 to 1954, the code was closely identified with Joseph Breen, the administrator appointed by Hays to enforce the code in Hollywood. The film industry followed the guidelines set by the code well into the late 1950s, but it began to weaken, owing to the combine ... [...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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