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I Accuse!
''I Accuse!'' is a 1958 British biographical historical drama film based on the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish captain in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely accused of treason and imprisoned for five years before being pardoned. The film is directed by and stars José Ferrer in the leading role, with Anton Walbrook (in his final film role), Viveca Lindfors, Leo Genn, Emlyn Williams, David Farrar, Donald Wolfit, and Herbert Lom. The screenplay, written by Gore Vidal, on Nicholas Halasz’s 1955 account ''Captain Dreyfus; The Story of a Mass Hysteria''. Plot In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French Army, is falsely accused of selling military secrets to the Germans. He is charged with treason and, despite weak evidence against him, is convicted after being railroaded by the military court. He is sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island while the real spy, Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, helps in the investigation. When Esterhazy is foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón (January 8, 1912 – January 26, 1992) was a Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic American actors—or, indeed, actors of any ethnicity—during his lifetime and after, with a career spanning nearly 60 years between 1935 and 1992. He achieved prominence for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the Cyrano de Bergerac (play), play of the same name, which earned him the inaugural Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1947. He reprised the role in a Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film), 1950 film version and won an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him both the first Hispanic and the first Puerto Rican–born actor to win an Academy Award. His other notable film roles include Charles VII of France, Charles VII in ''Joan of Arc (1948 film), Joan of Arc'' (1948), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in Moulin Rouge (1952 film), ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Drama Film
A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction such as creative dialogue or scenes which compress separate events. The biographical film is a type of historical drama which generally focuses on a single individual or well-defined group. Historical dramas can include romances, adventure films, and swashbucklers. Historical drama can be differentiated from historical fiction, which generally present fictional characters and events against a backdrop of historical events. A period piece may be set in a vague or general era such as the Middle Ages, or a specific period such as the Roaring Twenties, or the recent past. Scholarship In different eras different subgenres have risen to popularity, such as the westerns and sword and sandal films that dominated North American cinema in the 1950s. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armand Du Paty De Clam
Charles Armand Auguste Ferdinand Mercier du Paty de Clam (21 February 1853 – 3 September 1916) was a French army officer, an amateur graphologist, and a key figure in the Dreyfus affair. Early life Armand du Paty de Clam's father and grandfather were both lawyers, the latter having been President of the Court of Bordeaux. Du Paty himself turned to a military career, graduating from the military academy of Saint-Cyr in 1870. He served as an infantry officer, being promoted to lieutenant in 1874 and captain in 1877. He was assigned to the 1st Bureau of the General Staff in 1879 and then to the 3rd Bureau in 1887. In 1890 he became ''chef de bataillon'' (major), a promotion which would normally have meant returning to regimental duties. Du Paty de Clam however remained with the General Staff. Dreyfus affair In late September 1894, French military intelligence became aware of a spy within the army through a handwritten note (the '' bordereau'') obtained by their agent within th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Mercier
Auguste Mercier (8 December 1833 – 3 March 1921) was a French general and Minister of War at the time when the political scandal that became known as the Dreyfus Affair began. Military career Auguste Mercier was born in Arras. He entered the École Polytechnique at the age of 19 in 1852, and came 4th in a class of 106. He continued for a second period in 1854 and chose to enter the artillery. Appointed in 1856 as a second lieutenant in the 13th Regiment of Mounted Artillery, then in 1856, he was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Artillery. Subsequently, he was assigned to the Regiment of Horse Artillery of the Guard. Promoted to Lieutenant in 1857, he was appointed captain of the 18th Regiment of Horse Artillery in 1860 until December 1861. Next in 1862 he was posted to the 5th Regiment of Foot Artillery. In Mexico from 1862 to 1864, he was deputy commanding general of the depot. He ran the foundry during the siege of Puebla. He was a recipient of the Medal of Mex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathieu Dreyfus
Mathieu Dreyfus (2 July 1857– 23 October 1930) was an Alsatian Jewish industrialist and the older brother of Alfred Dreyfus, a French military officer falsely convicted of treason in what became known as the Dreyfus affair. Mathieu was one of his brother's most loyal supporters throughout the affair. Early life and family Mathieu was born two years before Alfred, in Mulhouse, Alsace, then controlled by France. His schooling was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a French defeat which led to the loss of Alsace to Germany. His father, the director of a cotton factory, chose to retain French nationality for himself and his young children, and moved the family to Paris. Mathieu continued his studies in Paris. At 18, he joined the 9th regiment of Hussars at Belfort but, unlike Alfred, he did not pursue a military career. With his other brothers, Jacques and Léon, Mathieu followed the family tradition and worked in the cotton business in Mulhouse. In 1885, he became ... [...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 ''École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr'' as fifth in his year. Picquart served as an infantry officer in France before undertaking staff duties in Indochina. He saw service with the 4th Zouaves in Algeria as well as with several regiments of line infantry and '' chasseurs à pied'' (light infantry) in Metropolitan France. 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 G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucie Dreyfus
Lucie Dreyfus-Hadamard (23 August 1869 – 14 December 1945) was the wife of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French Army officer who due to antisemitism was wrongfully accused and convicted of being a German spy and imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana before being exonerated and released. Life Lucie Hadamard was born into a Parisian Jewish family in 1869. She married Alfred Dreyfus in 1890. The pair had two children: Pierre, born 1891, and Jeanne, born 1893. In 1894, as part of the Dreyfus Affair, Alfred Dreyfus was court-martialed for espionage and sentenced to a penal colony. Lucie worked to convince French authorities to exonerate her husband. She petitioned Parliament in 1896 but her petition was denied. In 1898 she published a collection of his letters under the title ''Letters of an Innocent''. A subsequent petition resulted in a second court-martial being convened, which ultimately resulted in Alfred's exoneration. During the First World War Lucie worked as a Red Cros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus (9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French Army officer best known for his central role in the Dreyfus affair. In 1894, Dreyfus fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that eventually sparked a major political crisis in the French Third Republic when he was wrongfully accused and convicted of being a German spy due to antisemitism. Dreyfus was arrested, cashiered from the French army and imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Eventually, evidence emerged showing that Dreyfus was innocent and the true culprit was fellow officer Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Gradual revelations indicated that the internal investigation conducted by the French army was biased; Dreyfus was an ideal scapegoat due to being a Jew, and military authorities were aware of his innocence but chose to cover up the affair and leave him imprisoned rather than lose face. A political scandal subsequently erupted, shaking French political life and highlighting antisemitism in the French ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J'Accuse
"''J'Accuse...!''" (; "I Accuse...!") is an open letter, written by Émile Zola in response to the events of the Dreyfus affair, that was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper ''L'Aurore''. Zola addressed the president of France, Félix Faure, and accused his Government of France, 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, and sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence during Dreyfus' trial. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper, and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for Defamation, 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 Affai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, ; ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of Naturalism (literature), naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of Naturalism (theatre), 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, Nobel Prizes 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 Greeks, 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 Provence, ... [...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 (land), Captain Alfred Dreyfus was Dreyfus affair, wrongfully accused and convicted of 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 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 ... [...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 (''ÃŽle 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, with a death rate of 75 percent at its worst. Devil's Island was also notorious for being used for the exile of French political prisoners, with the most famous being Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who had been wrongly accused of spying for Germany. The Dreyfus affair was a scandal extending for several years in late 19th- and early 20th-century France. Excerpt from the ''People's Almanac'', posted at "trivia-library. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
