French War Films and National Identity By Noah McLaughlin

origins, even her relationship to Edith, while patently absurd, is the central conceit in this portion of the film. This single premise then drives a series of overblown sequences, including François’ trick: he reports that Angèle has drowned, and Edith’s maternal panic gives her away. ³⁴ Later, during the confrontation at the Diaz household, Jean must physically restrain François from beating his wife. The most outrageous moment may be when Angèle innocently hands François his own rifle. Is this a strange blessing of his intentions to leave again for the front?

Typical of many war films, J’Accuse also contains a Manichaean concept of good and evil. The Germans are the ill-seen enemy culpable of mass murder, rape, and other atrocities. A scene from the lost original cut depicts a group of children, whose hands have been severed, shouting “J’accuse!” in a courtroom at their Prussian aggressors before the bar. However, the film is not consistent with this approach and constantly problematizes the identity of the accused. While the war and its concomitant horrors remain the ultimate evil, the identity of those responsible for it constantly shifts. This simplistic division of good and evil remains nonetheless important, initially creating allegiance between the spectator and the protagonists via nationalistic lines. Only later, after the audience has become emotionally invested, does the blame begin to shift—and is ultimately reversed from the Other to Us.

Theatric forms and conventions arrange and advance the narrative of J’Accuse. Gance does not create from scratch a five-act structure, the use of eavesdropping and reported events, and the melodramatic mode but borrows them from previous discourses and rearranges them in a new way to shape the larger, more general elements of the film. However, the bricolage does not end here; it also seeks to fill a void “puisque les poètes se taisent.”

Les poètes: Filling the Silence

Poetry constitutes the second area of Gance’s literary bricolage in J’Accuse. Jean Diaz is the unique diegetic source of verse, whose primary prewar occupation of writing allows for an emphasis on the written word. Interestingly, a second poet is also present, though never overtly: