The Life of Emile Zola

The Life of Emile Zola
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	William Dieterle
Screenplay by	Heinz Herald [de] Geza Herczeg [de] Norman Reilly Raine
Story by	Heinz Herald Geza Herczeg
Based on	Zola and His Time 1928 book by Matthew Josephson
Produced by	Henry Blanke
Starring	Paul Muni Gloria Holden Gale Sondergaard Joseph Schildkraut
Cinematography	Tony Gaudio
Edited by	Warren Low
Music by	Max Steiner
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	August 11, 1937 (1937-08-11)
Running time	116 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 American biographical film about the 19th-century French author Émile Zola starring Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle.

It premiered at the Los Angeles Carthay Circle Theatre to great critical and financial success. Contemporary reviews ranked it as the greatest biographical film made up to that time.

In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."^[1][2]

Produced during the Great Depression and after the Nazi Party had taken power in Germany, the film failed to explore the key issue of antisemitic injustice in France in the late 19th century, when Zola became involved in the Dreyfus affair and worked to gain the officer's release. Some recent studies have noted the film as an example of Hollywood's timidity at the time: antisemitism was not mentioned in the film, nor was "Jew" said in dialogue. Some explicitly anti-Nazi films were canceled in this period, and other content was modified. This was also the period when Hollywood had established the Production Code, establishing an internal censor, in response to perceived threats of external censorship.

The Life of Emile Zola became the second biographical film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.