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The Life of Emile Zola Movie Review

The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 biopic directed by William Dieterle and starring Paul Muni. It’s a well acted and at times powerful, but mostly very tedious film.

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“What does it matter if an individual is shattered –

if only justice is resurrected?“

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The movie is about a famous French author, particularly focusing on his involvement in fighting the injustice of the Dreyfuss Affair. I did not care for this subject matter. I was acquainted neither with Zola nor with the Dreyfuss Affair, and although I got to know what happened due to this movie, I was still rather bored with it as it has very little power for those who aren’t history enthusiasts.

The movie is also structurally quite messy. Basically, its first half is concerned with Zola’s life and it follows quite closely his novel publications. This is one of those rare biopics from the period where they are set in one particular moment or period during the subject’s life, and it doesn’t follow all of his life, which was a good choice for me, but still the first half remains quite uninvolving as his story to me wasn’t all that interesting.

As for the second half, this is clearly the part where the movie reached at least some sort of strength. Turning into full courtroom drama at this point, those scenes are more engaging to follow and some are downright powerful in their dialogue and emotion. However, most of the movie still remains overly didactic and thus rather dated in that approach.

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As for the acting, I did find Paul Muni’s performance very strong here. Because he received an Oscar the previous year for ‘The Story of Louis Pasteur’, they did not give him an Oscar this year, but in my opinion this is the better performance of the two. It’s more memorable and he has some genuinely showcase worthy moments to display his talents.

The movie’s main problem is that it’s so much less memorable in the other characters and performers with only Joseph Schildkraut being interesting in any shape or form. Some of his scenes near the end are so terrific that I find his Oscar win justifiable. I do not care for movies which fail to develop its characters properly, and this one is no exception.

The Life of Emile Zola is also technically rather uninspired. This is the kind of 1930s movie which is utterly dated in how it looks, and not only for how preachy it is (and it is annoyingly preachy to the extreme). The cinematography is nothing to write home about, the direction from William Dieterle is also uninspired and the same should be said for the score. The dialogue is admittedly quite good at times, but on-the-nose for the most part.

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The movie received no less than ten Oscar nominations. Yes, freaking ten! It just goes to show how clueless the Academy could be back in the thirties. It ended up winning Best Picture and against a rather strong slate of movies, and that continues to bother me all these years after I’ve first seen it.

The directing nod is even more ludicrous, and only the acting nods are deserved. The screenplay and the technical noms are all ridiculous as, again, this film looks immensely uninspired and dull. Yes, it’s a passable, at times even dramatic, powerful film, but it still remains incredibly boring for the most part.

The Life of Emile Zola is a very weak Oscar winner. Yes, some of its scenes are dramatic and powerful. And yes, Paul Muni and Joseph Schildkraut are both excellent in their respective roles. But the movie is mostly very boring, slow and simply way too didactic and technically inferior to be enjoyed nowadays.