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IMDbPro

J'accuse!

Original title: J'accuse
  • 19191919
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 2h 46m
IMDb RATING
7.7/10
1.9K
YOUR RATING
J'accuse! (1919)
DramaHorrorWar
The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.
IMDb RATING
7.7/10
1.9K
YOUR RATING
    • Abel Gance
    • Abel Gance
  • Stars
    • Romuald Joubé
    • Maxime Desjardins
    • Séverin-Mars
    • Abel Gance
    • Abel Gance
  • Stars
    • Romuald Joubé
    • Maxime Desjardins
    • Séverin-Mars
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 18User reviews
    • 29Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards

    Photos11

    Maryse Dauvray, Romuald Joubé, and Séverin-Mars in J'accuse! (1919)
    Romuald Joubé in J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)
    Angèle Guys in J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)
    Romuald Joubé in J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)
    J'accuse! (1919)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Romuald Joubé
    Romuald Joubé
    • Jean Diaz
    Maxime Desjardins
    Maxime Desjardins
    • Maria Lazare
    Séverin-Mars
    Séverin-Mars
    • François Laurin
    Angèle Guys
    • Angele
    Maryse Dauvray
    Maryse Dauvray
    • Edith Laurin
    Mancini
    • Jean's Mother
    Elizabeth Nizan
    Pierre Danis
    Blaise Cendrars
    Paul Duc
    • Orphan
      • Abel Gance
      • Abel Gance
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The soldiers in the March of the Dead sequence were real soldiers on leave from the front. Most of them were killed within the next few weeks.
    • Quotes

      Child #1: It's war!

      Child #2: What's war?

      Child #1: I don't know.

    • Connections
      Edited into Zombie Evolution (2008)

    User reviews18

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    The cinematic phantoms of Verdun
    Here's why I deem this the most important film of the first 20 years; DW Griffith also had a lofty message to impart in Intolerance, but his Victorian saga of humanism through the ages was removed from life, unfolding in the shadow of gigantic Hollywood sets for Babylon or in Judea at the time of Christ. It was comfortably nudged in its archaic pulpit. This is important to understand, by contrast. J'Accuse is not a historical epic on WWI. Gance was drafted in the French Army's Section Cinématographique, was discharged for ill-health, but appalled at the horror of the experience, decided to re-enlist and make a film about it. He filmed actual war booming away through the country, actual soldiers on leave from the front and expected back within days.

    Oh, the bulk of the film away from the trenches is old-fashioned melodrama, likely to leave the modern viewer cold. What does hold power, is that it is about war inspiring Gance to make the film denouncing war.

    See, our protagonist is an artist. Like Gance, he is a poet committed to pacifism and blessed with the gift of granting vision, look at the poem he recites to his elderly mother, rendered in silent images, the sun rising over heaving seas. This is a great moment, later repeated for contrast in the midst of muddy war.

    So, the poet enlists in the army to save a girl he loves but is not his, not solely his at any rate, and is really the whole of France. This all preamble of course - a man who grants visions brought to where visions are possible, the mad theater of war. The most celebrated moment in the film is an actual vision, a poem he recites for an audience back home which has gathered to listen about life in the trenches.

    It is the rousing sight of the dead rising from the battlefield.

    Gance used for the scene 2000 soldiers who had come straight from Verdun and were due back eight days later. You have to appreciate the chilling significance of this. Gance was staging death for these people, and death that both parties could not have failed to know was a rehearsal for the real thing. Within weeks of their return, the majority of the soldiers were dead as presaged in the film.

    So death staged for an audience gathered round back home, at the behest of this poet - now raving mad - who conjures a vision of cinematic phantoms, the dead gaunt and in clutches and tatters getting up from shallow graves to march all the way back and haunt the living. They Accuse! ungrateful parents, wives, brothers, who have not honored the sacrifice.

    The maelstrom of self-reflexive notions was one of the most advanced things going on at the time, I was surprised really. Gance would go on to invent a new visual grammar with La Roue, and first inklings of that we see here in the rapid-fire cutting and agile camera in the battle scenes that reflect the anxious mobility tearing through Europe, that was really the fight for a modern world.
    helpful•9
    1
    • chaos-rampant
    • Apr 28, 2012

    Details

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    • Release date
      • April 25, 1919 (France)
      • France
      • French
    • Also known as
    • Filming locations
      • Saint-Michel, Haute-Garonne, France
    • Production company
      • Pathé Frères
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • 2 hours 46 minutes
      • Silent

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