NEW YORK — It’s taken six years to get here, but Roman Polanski’s film J’Accuse has finally made to the United States, and that’s a very good thing, since it’s one of the director’s finest works. An engrossing, tension-filled David vs. Goliath saga wrapped up in political intrigue and explosive courtroom battles, and set boldly against the background of Europe’s notorious 19th century anti-semitism, it recounts the infamous Dreyfus Affair, when Jewish military officer Alfred Dreyfus got falsely accused of being a spy for the Germans.
Polanski expertly and deftly recounts how Dreyfus was scapegoated by the French military, given a degrading court-martial, then cruelly exiled to Devil’s Island.
And that’s only the start of the movie!
It would take a decade to prove Dreyfus’ innocence, and as the film slyly emphasizes, it was another French military man and outspoken anti-semite, Georges Picquart, who eventually exposed the truth. The movie focuses on Picquart and his risky decision to reopen the Dreyfus case, and how that became a very dangerous move for him, setting up a gripping cat-and-mouse chase.
When did J’Accuse Get Made?
Polanski and author Robert Harris adapted the script from Harris’ 2013 novel An Officer And A Spy, the true story of Picquart’s long-running battle to expose the truth about doctored evidence that sealed Dreyfus’ conviction — a remarkable chapter in the Dreyfus case, considering Picquart’s vocal distaste for Jews and the scathing demands from his superiors to drop his investigation. But he didn’t, and how he survived the severe retaliation thrown at him by France’s military makes for a fascinating and exhilarating story.
Polanski’s film had its premiere at the 76th Venice International Film Festival in August 2019, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. After opening in France, it was widely acclaimed by critics and attracted huge crowds at French cinemas. The film received 12 Cesar Awards nominations, with Polanski winning best director.
But for years, the film wasn’t released theatrically or on home video in the U.S. That was viewed as a reaction to the #MeToo movement, which had peaked around that time. Because Polanski had pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in 1977, no U.S. distributor would touch the film and risk a vocal and public backlash from #MeToo (and French activists had loudly and bitterly protested Polanski’s best director win at the 2000 Cesar Awards ceremony).
So much has changed since 2019. Today it’s easier to recognize the backlash that formed against #MeToo. Critics have argued that the #MeToo movement has done little more than encourage a rush to judgment in complex sexual abuse cases, while political conservatives have accused the movement of promoting Cancel Culture. Donald Trump’s defeat of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race signaled to a lot of political commentators that we were witnessing the dying gasp of left-wing social activism as a political tool.
There’s no small irony that President Trump is now desperately searching for a way to divert attention from controversy over the Jeffrey Epstein files, but this case may have shifted the bar on public perception of sexual abuse cases even further: A recent survey found that 47% of Republican voters said they’d still support Trump even if he got officially implicated in Epstein’s sex crimes, while HBO host John Oliver just predicted that Trump would pardon Polanski for his ongoing legal case in the U.S., giving the director a “comeback” opportunity.
Where Is J’Accuse Being Shown Today?
In this rapidly shifting cultural environment, it was no surprise when Polanski’s film, retitled An Officer And A Spy for U.S. audiences, finally had its U.S. premiere at the Film Forum in New York City, where it’s playing for a two week engagement, financed with support from the Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film and The Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish and Holocaust Films.
The parallel to the Holocaust is incisive, since the Jewish Polanski, who directed the award-winning Holocaust drama The Pianist, includes scenes in J’Accuse of right-wing activists burning books in public streets, targeting author Emile Zola after he came out in support of Dreyfus’ innocence. A prelude, perhaps, to the vicious anti-semitism and book burning that would later be carried out by the Nazis in 1930s Germany?
What is the movie J’Accuse About?
I first saw J’Accuse several years ago when I discovered a DVD edition of the French-language film being sold, of all places, in Italy, but with both Italian and English subtitles. Armed with my Region O DVD player, I could finally watch this masterful film that had been essentially cancelled in the U.S.
In my view, this is one of Polanski’s most thrilling and rousing films, certainly on a par with his highly acclaimed works such as Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby and The Pianist. The film opens with Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), having been convicted of treason, being paraded in an outdoor ceremony in front of his military peers. They watch him get subjected to the punishment of degradation, as the adornments of his rank are ripped from his army uniform and his military sword is broken. As this happens, Dreyfus loudly and helplessly insists on his innocence. No one cares.
His peers include Picquart, who trained Dreyfus and is just as convinced as everyone else that this Jew is guilty. As Dreyfus is shipped to Devil’s Island, Picquart’s own fortunes look up – way up. He gets a strong promotion, being appointed to lead the army’s secret service division. It’s here that Picquart notices irregularities in the Dreyfus files, so he decides to conduct his own investigation to verify that Dreyfus is guilty.
And what a can of worms he opens.
What Picquart reluctantly discovers is that notes sent to the Germans and attributed to Dreyfus were actually written by another solider, Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. The more Picquart digs, the more he comes to believe that Esterhazy is the real spy — and a cruel injustice has been committed.
But if Picquart assumes that revealing this information to his military superiors will right a terrible wrong, he’s tragically, and painfully, mistaken. The army, desperate not to have the truth revealed, does everything it can to crush Picquart’s investigation. It’s one man against the entire French military, and as Polanski and Harris make crystal clear, Picquart’s battle is uphill all the way.
Polanski has always excelled at lavish, picturesque historical dramas, including Macbeth, Tess, and The Pianist; the director always goes out of his way to meticulously recreate a bygone era for us. The same can be said of J’Accuse, where the story runs from 1894 to 1907, mainly in Paris. Picquart’s determination to fight the military rot and corruption he uncovered is exciting to watch, even when it feels like the walls are closing in on him.
As they do, France’s left-wing politicians and writers, including Zola, take up the cause of Dreyfus’ innocence and make it a cause célèbre throughout France, culminating with Zola publishing his famous article J’Accuse, which blasted the many irregularities in Dreyfus’ trial while exposing everyone involved in the cover up. Suddenly Picquart isn’t so alone after all.
The film is as beautifully crafted as any of Polanski’s earlier works, and the pace and editing keep you on the edge of your seat as the military’s dark, ominous net starts to engulf Picquart. The performances are first rate as well.
Jean Dujardin is just superb as Picquart, a flawless performance that gives us an underdog we can root for, especially as he become even more fiercely committed to exposing the truth. As one of his chief rivals, Grégory Gadebois is a man you’ll love to hate, one of Picquart’s own underlings in the secret service division and a vile toad who tries to sabotage him at every turn. Mathieu Amalric provides some engaging (and comical) moments as the bumbling graphologist who falsely insisted that Dreyfus’ handwriting was on the intercepted notes being sent to the Germans.
Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner, as Picquart’s longtime mistress, and Garrel as the embittered and righteous Dreyfus, help give the film so much of its ability to enthrall and beguile us.
The film is very much a tour de force, and one that deserves to be seen in the U.S. The last Polanski film to play in the states was Venus In Fur in 2014; many thanks to Film Forum for finally breaking this long-running and unnecessary ban.
Michael Freeman is an Orlando journalist, playwright and author of the terrifying book “Bloody Rabbit”. Contact him at Freelineorlando@gmail.com.
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