One of the hottest topics in the off-season of this movie is probably the huge controversy after Roman Polanski, who was caught in scandal, won the Caesars Award for Best Director with his new film "I Accuse". Most critics believe that, as a sex offender convicted by a US court, Polanski is completely ineligible to receive this award in a moral sense, and even less qualified to use the name of artistic creation to label himself as a victim of judicial injustice. Person, to carry out the so-called "accusation."
But we also need to see the fact that most of the people who criticize "I Accuse" most have never watched this film. Even criminals who are sent to court have the right to defend themselves. As members of the jury, we should at least listen to the defendant's words before expressing our views, and then make a conclusion on his work and character.
"Dreyfus Incident": France's Anti-Semitic Shame
The plot of "I Accuse" revolves around the infamous "Dreyfus Incident" in France at the end of the 19th century. So before discussing this movie, we need to understand the historical context of the story.
After nine months of the Franco-Prussian War, France accepted the defeat in 1871 and humiliatedly cede land with Germany. This had a profound impact on French history for more than 40 years. Whenever economic and political turmoil appeared, The upsurge of nationalism will rise in France, the most notable of which is anti-Semitism.
Nationalist instigators treat Jews as profiteering parasites and look for arguments from religion-it was the Jews who betrayed Jesus, so the nature of betrayal is deeply written in their genes. This prejudice extends to the military system and manifests itself as jealousy, exclusion, and distrust of Jewish officers, although this runs counter to the republican ideology promoted by France.
On the other hand, bureaucracy was rampant in the French military system at the time. Some people were hostile to Jewish officers, while others followed the rules and echoed their superiors, not caring about the truth of the incident. Therefore, under the confluence of internal and external reasons, a communication letter stolen by the French Intelligence Agency from the German Embassy in France became the fuse.
The content of the letter proved that among the officers of the French General Staff there were spies collaborating with Germany. Captain Alfred Dreyfus became the scapegoat for the anti-Semitic forces in the army. Because only a few trainee officers who are being trained by the General Staff can grasp all the military information disclosed in the letter, and Dreyfus is the only Jew among these suspects. He wanted to add the crime, so it fell on Dreyfus who was kept in the dark.
But Dreyfus is not the perfect suspect. He was born in the Alsace region occupied by Germany at the time (the setting of Dude's short story "The Last Lesson"), but he has always had the national identity of France, so that he actively chose French nationality and enlisted in the army. His family is rich, and his military salary is only a fraction of his investment income; and his handwriting is also inconsistent with the letter of communication with the enemy. Whether looking at the motive or the evidence, Dreyfus is absolutely not suspected of committing a crime.
But the politically ambitious army chief was eager to cater to the anti-Semitic forces and made Dreyfus a scapegoat. The subordinates and handwriting experts who participated in the investigation followed suit and nailed Dreyfus to the cross. In this way, Dreyfus was convicted by the court and exiled to Alcatraz alone. He was devastated, but for the sake of his wife and children's reputation, he persisted in surviving.
Picard the whistleblower: the protagonist of Polanski's movies
Those who have a little knowledge of the Dreyfus incident may take it for granted that Polanski's role in the film is Dreyfus himself. After all, Polanski was a Jew who had escaped from the clutches of the Nazis, and he felt the same for the plight of the ethnic group; after all, Polanski had also experienced controversial judicial trials, so he must be defending himself through Dreyfus's experience.
But the fact is far from it. In "I Accuse", Dreyfus (played by Louis Galair) is the starting point of the whole story, but it is only a marginal character, and the appearance is only ten minutes. The central character of the film is the intelligence officer George Picard (played by Jean Dujardin). Through investigation, he discovered Dreyfus's innocence, but in the process of reporting to his superiors, he angered the entire French military system, and because of this he was discredited and went to jail.
In Polanski's narrative, Picard is portrayed as a righteous man who has not been corrupted by the bureaucracy and who is in awe of the truth. He was not without prejudice against Jews, but the corruption of the Intelligence Bureau system and the hasty trial process still shocked him. As one of the most outstanding narrators in film history, Polanski used only a few concise follow-up shots to show the absurd picture of the statistics department of the Intelligence Bureau where Picard worked: low-level officials were sleepy, The technical officer is very wary of the new boss, and his deputy is an old fried dough stick who has been immersed in the officialdom for many years. He knows that more is worse than less, and he has restricted Picard's investigation department.
Picard finally brought the evidence that Dreyfus was wronged to the Secretary of Staff, but the minister gave him an order to block the truth. Picard, who disagrees with his superiors, was banished and monitored. In the end, he had nowhere to escape and had to ask for help from outside the system. Thus was born the great writer Emile Zola's long essay, "I Accuse", which pierced through the back of paper and pursued the entire corrupt system.
The "I" in "I Accuse"-who is accusing?
Polanski's new work undoubtedly reveals the master's brushstrokes: instead of seeking pure emotional venting, it uses pictures to write about the dilemma that the characters have nowhere to go. He made a movie called "Cul-de-sac" (meaning "dead end", and the universal translation is "Desert Island") more than forty years ago, and in this new work, the movie "Cul-de-sac" The image is still lingering. Picard walked into his office in the Intelligence Agency for the first time, only to find that the window could not be opened anyhow; he brought Dreyfus, who was about to be tried, into the chief's office, but he was turned away from the door that obscured the truth; he was shot at The killer of his own lawyer went after him, but lost his way when he walked into a dense forest. The road to justice always ends in a dead end for him.
In Polanski's "I Accuse", the object of the accusation is obvious: a bureaucratic system that protects one another, protects face and authority, and has no ability to correct errors. In this system, the judicial process is just a funny show, just as Dreyfus’ helpless response in court showed: “According to your logic, if my handwriting matches the letter, I will prove guilty; if I His handwriting contradicts the letter, but it also proves me guilty."
But who is the accuser in this movie? It seems to be Picard. At least one thing is obvious: whether it is Zola's "I Accuse" or Polanski's "I Accuse", the subject is not the innocent Dreyfus. In Polanski's films, there is very little mention of Dreyfus's wrong mentality, and the story focuses more on the struggle between the individual and the system. So those critics who think Polanski is using the film to justify himself can withdraw this judgment, because he did not use the film to claim that he was innocent of seducing girls for more than 40 years.
And did Polanski encounter judicial injustice in the trial more than 40 years ago? Indeed, these can be confirmed in the information handed down. Does he have the right to express these unfair experiences to the world through artistic media? The same is true, just as the victims of his violation have the right to make their wounds public through various channels. It was just as he had fled to Europe, and he should have been in prison for his crimes. Regardless of our judgment on his behavior, we may not be able to deny the fact:
Polanski is an unborn film genius, and talent itself is his last card and fig leaf.
2020/3/14/Originally published in "Iris"
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