The Dreyfus Affair (film series)

Summary

The eleven installments of the series follow the events of the Dreyfus affair from 1894 through September 1899, the month of the series' release. The following is a summary of the series's overarching storyline. For information on the individual installments, see the Installments section below.

In 1894, Armand du Paty de Clam suspects the French military captain Alfred Dreyfus of being a spy for Germany. Paty de Clam demands a sample of Dreyfus's handwriting, to see if it matches the writing on the Bordereau (an anonymous letter to the German Embassy that has been discovered by French counterintelligence). Finding that Dreyfus seems nervous, Paty de Clam accuses him outright of having written the Bordereau, and offers a gun so that Dreyfus can commit suicide on the spot. Dreyfus protests that he is innocent, and is arrested. At the École Militaire, Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and honors, and he is sent to be clapped in irons in prison on Devil's Island.

Four years later, Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry, who had accused Dreyfus publicly, is arrested (he has admitted to having forged the Faux Henry, a false document designed to act as evidence against Dreyfus). Henry commits suicide in Cherche-Midi prison. The next year, in 1899, Dreyfus is transferred from Devil's Island via Quiberon to Rennes, where he will be tried by court-martial now that further evidence has surfaced. His defense attorneys Fernand Labori and Edgar Demange visit him, as does his wife Lucie. Later, when walking with Georges Picquart, Labori is struck down by a bullet. Labori survives, but the shooter escapes.

The case splits popular opinion into two sides: the Dreyfusards (who believe Dreyfus is innocent) and the anti-Dreyfusards (who believe he is guilty). The court martial is heavily attended by journalists on both sides, and a fight breaks out as controversy rages between the Dreyfusard reporter Caroline Rémy de Guebhard and the anti-Dreyfusard reporter Arthur Meyer. The turmoil is hardly more contained in the trial itself, when Dreyfus and General Auguste Mercier (called as a witness) are cross-examined. Dreyfus, convicted of treason, is led back to prison.

Installments

The table below gives each installment's chronological order (#), numbering in Star Film catalogs (SFC), English release titles for the US and UK, original French title, and length in meters (m), as well as the individual scene summaries from the catalog released on 1 November 1899 by the Warwick Trading Company, the only known British firm to sell all eleven installments of the series.

Production

Production of The Dreyfus Affair began while the real-life Alfred Dreyfus's trial was proceeding in Rennes. The series was made entirely in Méliès's Star Films studio in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, though with a strong emphasis on cinematic realism markedly different from the energetic theatrical style used in Méliès's better-known fantasy films. An ironworker with a strong resemblance to Dreyfus was hired for the role in order to increase the series's realism. Méliès himself appears in the series as Dreyfus's attorney Fernand Labori and makes a brief reappearance as a journalist after Labori's attempted assassination. The series portrays Dreyfus sympathetically, and the lead actor's performance is staged to imply strongly that Dreyfus is innocent.

At about the same time as Méliès's production, the studio Pathé Frères also produced a reenactment of the Dreyfus affair, in six episodes, with the actor Jean Liézer as Dreyfus. This version may have been directed by Ferdinand Zecca.

Taken as a whole, The Dreyfus Affair can be considered Méliès's longest film up to that date, and it has sometimes been described as such. However, the eleven installments were designed to be sold individually, so it is more accurate to refer to the work as a series.

Release and reception

The eleven installments were sold at US$9.75 each, and were sometimes shown in sequence, making The Dreyfus Affair the first known film serial. Both Méliès's and Pathé's versions reached England in September 1899, where they quickly became the most extensively advertised films of that year (the record was broken the following month with the release of films of the Transvaal War). According to the film historian Jay Leyda, Méliès's emphasis on realism was so convincing that European audiences believed they were watching actual documentary film of the events.

The Dreyfus Affair remains the most famous of Méliès's actualitiés reconstituées ("reconstructed actualities"), surpassing even his highly successful 1902 work in the genre, The Coronation of Edward VII. According to the film historian Georges Sadoul, The Dreyfus Affair was the first "politically engaged film" in the history of cinema.

Nine of the eleven installments (all except scenes 2 and 11, catalog numbers 216 and 217) survive as a 35mm positive print at the BFI National Archive. All eleven installments of the series survive at Le Centre national de la cinématographie in Bois d'Arcy.

The series is prominently featured in Susan Daitch's 2001 novel Paper Conspiracies, which includes fictionalized accounts of its making, preservation, and survival.