The Life of Emile Zola (1937): Eitan's Take

The Life of Emile Zola, a film too long even at its running time of under 2 hours, is a rather flaccid and disappointing entry in our Best Picture lineup, especially after the innovative, impressive fun of the last three. While I feel it was appropriate to create a cinematic memorial to one of the great journalists, authors, and truth-seekers of all time, it's unfortunate that the memorial was crafted so clumsily and without purpose. An eloquent fifteen minute coda does not a movie make, and I found myself frustrated with how long it took for the film to get its footing. The first hour and a half might as well have been called "Various Unimportant, Hammy Montages of Emile Zola 'Struggling' to Become an Artist, Interspersed With The Blandly Evil Machinations of Some Indistinguishable and Stuffy Men With Capes." It's no wonder Joseph Schildkraut (Alfred Dreyfus) won an Academy Award for this film -- he's pretty much the only compelling, truly sympathetic character we meet, subtly and heartbreakingly portrayed.

Paul Muni, star of other biopics such as "The Story of Louis Pasteur," "Dr. Socrates," and "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," does an admirable job, but overall, his performance is just a bit too hammy. Zola is an interesting figure, and we really don't get to see him composing his thoughts and truly struggling to achieve what he did. Instead, we get longwinded speeches that give us an impression of what he stood for, but nothing about his motivations and mental process. For a movie supposedly about his "LIFE," it gives us much better scenes after his death, when his greatest admirers gather at his funeral, than when he was alive and working.

Also, after the crisp extravagance of The Great Ziegfeld, I was mildly put off by the rather poor print quality and the shortsightedness of the director's vision. This muddled, mostly ineffective, albeit relevant film gets a 6/10.

Also, seriously, the guy on the poster looks NOTHING LIKE EMILE ZOLA.