"Abel Gance Author and Director" "Romuald Joubé of the Odéon Theatre as Jean Diaz" "Maxime Desjardins of the Comédie Française as Maria Lazare" "M. Séverin-Mars as François Laurin" "Little Angèle Guys as Angèle" "Marise Dauvray as Edith Laurin" "In those days, the people of France still knew the meaning of joy..." "A festive night in Provence" "One bright morning" "I came across the train" "With three wise men" "Setting off on a journey..." "Jean Diaz, the poet, all intelligence, all melancholy, all tenderness, all France." "His dear mother." "Edith is a married woman." "Stop thinking of the past." "An owl on a midsummer's night, soon calamity will be in sight." "Maria Lazare, Edith's father, veteran of the war of 1870, straight and simple as a sword blade..." "Go to bed!" "MY ALSACE AND MY LORRAINE" "What Jean was writing:" "Mother, let me read you the latest poem in my "Pacifiques":" "Ode to the Sun." "In the meantime, the drunken brute..." "And under the golden circle of his lamp," "Jean Diaz wrote his verses of light while the happy village slept." "Tragedy almost seemed to hang from the tips of the branches..." "This gash on your neck!" "He did it, didn't he?" "Run along!" "One day, when happiness shone on the village..." "SUNDAY, AUGUST 2, 1914" "It's war!" "What's war?" "I don't know." "ARMY AND NAVY" "ORDER OF GENERAL MOBILIZATION" "Long live France!" "At last!" "MARCHING ORDERS IN THE EVENT OF MOBILIZATION," "RESERVE ARMY" "Private Jean Diaz, the bearer of the present order, is to report for active service on the 40th day of mobilization." "Go ask Jean Diaz, on behalf of Madam Edith, if he's being mobilized tomorrow along with his comrades." "I'm leaving tomorrow, dearest Edith." "SEE YOU SOON" "Give François your hand." "M. Jean doesn't leave for another month..." "In every household of the village, the humble tragedy of departure played out in poignant detail." "Evening." "A few days later, he obtained permission from his superiors to make a two-hour stopover in Orneval, as his company was to report to a nearby station..." "Dear Edith, I must see you again." "I love you." "Your Jean Diaz." "You could be court-martialed for that!" "To M. Jean Laurin Lake Road, Waldheim" "My dear parents," "My wife, whose conduct has not been irreproachable, is taking the train today to come to stay with you." "Watch over her." "When I return to civilian life, I will take her back." "Your son, François." "She's gone!" "François did not know what fear was." "Meanwhile, on the home front, the veterans were winning every battle." "YOUR DAUGHTER BRUTALLY ABDUCTED ALIVE," "TAKEN TO GERMANY AFTER RECENT ENEMY ADVANCE." "The news of Edith's abduction spread rapidly through the village." "Tell me, Monsieur, is it true they abducted her?" "Can I avenge her?" "I request transfer to active service." "Jean Diaz" "Edith has vanished." "I have no more reason to stay." "I'm off to the front lines." "My dear François," "Be brave." "Edith was taken prisoner during an enemy advance." "MY ALSACE AND MY LORRAINE" "It's all nonsense, my dear Father-in-Law." "She sent you that telegram to be free to join Jean, who's lying low somewhere." "Edith, Jean and his mother are the three scoundrels behind this charade." "What a spot to write letters!" "Want to get yourself killed, you idiot?" "It's all nonsense, my dear Father-in-Law." "She sent you that telegram to be free to join Jean, who's lying low somewhere." "Edith, Jean and his mother are the three scoundrels behind this charade." "Jean?" "But he's been at Officers' Training School in Valréas for the past two months." "When the guns fall silent." "You blubberin' because your missus doesn't write?" "Don't worry, you good-for-nothing..." "You see, my wife ran off with a young shirker..." "Our new lieutenant." "Back home, to celebrate the appointment..." "Nomination at the Officers' Training School of Valréas" "Number 1:" "Jean Diaz of Orneval" "My dear Father-in-Law," "I can't ask this new officer for news of my wife, but I'm certain he knows something." "Try to find out something from his mother and write back to me quickly." "François" "Dear Mother, I have to find out what happened to Edith, but I can't ask François." "Ask Lazare if he knows anything and write back to me quickly." "Jean" "Wireless reports an enemy munitions depot within reach of Hill 33." "Send your bravest man, François Laurin, out on a reconnaissance mission tonight." "He has little chance of coming back." "Warn him." "...Jean began to realize he wasn't the only one who loved Edith..." "Jean's sacrifice." "Is François back from his mission?" "You deserve the Legion of Honor for your exploits and the guardhouse for risking your life instead of François, whom I had appointed." "Coffee's ready!" "Jean, tell me..." "Have you had any news from Edith?" "And you, M. Laurin, have you?" "Will you forgive me, M. Laurin, for having loved her as much as you?" "Stop being so formal if you want me to answer you..." "Will you forgive me, François?" "We'll talk about her often, won't we, Jean?" "Pipe down, guys." "They're both crying'." "What dopes!" "The veteran piously framed the glorious lieutenant's Legion of Honor as the two old people's hearts beat loudly..." "We're out of ammo!" "So what if we are!" "Do you remember when she..." "You have to understand that there will always be beauty on this earth and that man will never be cruel enough to destroy it." ""Letters from a soldier"" "END OF PART ONE" "J'ACCUSE by Abel Gance Part Two" "Four years later, the war is at its height." "The blue devils are now only gray, mud-clotted forms." "The cannon squat or lie monstrously sprawled, the eternal spirit of Evil hovers over this battle to save the world." "My fifth blackout in a week..." "It's the fatigue." "Dear Father-in-Law, tell Madame Diaz to write to her son and tell him to report to the Discharge Review Board, as the doctors advised him." "His health is in jeopardy." "He could die if..." "I thought I saw an owl there..." "It's the fever..." "Dear Father-in-Law, tell Madame Diaz to write to her son and tell him to report to the Discharge Review Board, as the doctors advised him." "His health is in jeopardy." "He could die if..." "My dear François, tell Jean his mother is gravely ill." "That might persuade him to request a discharge." "I'm writing this in secret because she doesn't want him to leave France for her, as she courageously puts it." "What his health couldn't accomplish, his filial feeling did." "Jean, discharged, returned home." "Go to bed." "I'm feeling better tonight." "Well, Mama..." "My dear Jean!" "My little boy!" "How you've changed!" "You're sick too, aren't you?" "I'm just very weary." "All I want is to go to sleep listening to you read one of your poems the way you used to." "My poem about the ploughmen?" "The one about silence?" "The Ode to the Sun?" "And, as he had done four years earlier..." "Dead!" "At that point in the poem when she had fallen asleep the night of the festivities." "So she could take to her grave his stanzas of light, he sought to finish his ode." "But all he found was the sadness of the twilight haunted by Edith's gentle spirit." "War kills as much the mothers as the sons." "I accuse!" "It rained that night..." "DEAR PAPA, COME TO JEAN DIAZ'S TONIGHT." "I'LL BE THERE." "EDITH LAURIN." "Mother Diaz!" "Death leaves through one door, as life enters through another!" "DEAR PAPA, COME TO JEAN DIAZ'S TONIGHT." "I'LL BE THERE." "EDITH LAURIN." "If she came back!" "What's this?" "When enemy troops occupied the village," "I hid in the barn, but the soldiers found me..." "There were several of them..." "Wouldn't François kill her if he saw her?" "I knew that he wasn't around, and I thought that Madame Diaz would protect my child later..." "Isn't that so, Jean?" "My father's sudden departure frightens me!" "He has such a violent nature." "I'm going home." "I'll be back later." "My dear child, Honor is an old tradition among us." "I will try to avenge this indelible affront." "In any case, I could never stand that child's presence." "Jean will help you bear your pain." "Farewell." "Maria Lazare." "If you leave like my father has, who will protect my daughter?" "François must never find out." "Never, never." "If he does, I just know he'll kill her." "I'll teach you how to become French." "Then you can find your own way to punish your father as he deserves." "How he loves me, to make my tragedy more important than his own." "The first French lesson." "Have come home." "Notify me of your next leave." "Affectionately, Edith." "Hey, cook!" "Prepare us something special for tomorrow!" "My wife's come back!" "Unwitting courage." "They knew their luck would change..." "She..." "She must have gone out for a walk..." "Why are those old hags looking at me with such sorry expressions?" "He left... the night Edith came home." "We haven't heard from him since." "She's not here, François!" "A distant relative left little Angèle... with me..." "I'm looking after her until... until..." "Someone's crying!" "I'm telling you, François there is no one there!" "After four years of sacrifice, a brute can become a man, a man like Jean Diaz perhaps." "And François suffered in silence because Edith hadn't noticed." "Chance does not like secrets." "You kissed a child just now." "Yes, little Angèle..." "A distant relative left her with Jean Diaz..." "Any harm in that?" "No harm, but... the neighbors talk." "They say you come to kiss her every day." "That bothers me a little..." "My poor Edith, thank you." "I didn't know, you see." "My heart is so possessed." "Forgive me!" "Velvet-clawed misfortune approached, and one day..." "Oh, I forgot to tell you." "There's been quite a tragedy here." "Little Angèle, the child you kissed the other day with Jean..." "Ah!" "Well, she was playing near the river, fell in, and drowned..." "Is this true?" "Admit it, you shameful woman." "That was your child." "Dead!" "Dead!" "Yes, she's dead!" "Dead!" "Oh, she's dead!" "Protect me!" "François knows I'm her mother." "He's coming." "Protect me!" "You weren't a prisoner." "You lied." "You went into hiding after you sinned, and he went to see you on leave." "Admit it, you wretches, or prove your innocence!" "Is your silence formal proof that you're the child's father?" "She's my daughter!" "Mine alone!" "Let go of Jean." "Don't kill him!" "Can you prove it?" "BIRTH CERTIFICATE - FATHER UNKNOWN" "You're right, Jean, I mustn't." "I'll leave as soon as I can so as not to commit a crime." "There are others I have to kill in exchange for her life!" "Leave was almost up." "Jean..." "It hurts too much to leave, knowing you're here near her." "You're not to blame, I know, but you have to understand, my heart is bursting!" "I can't go and live with this anxiety." "Help me find a way out." "Sir, former officer discharged for health reasons," "I now request permission to return to active duty in my old company with the rank of Private 2nd Class under the orders of Sergeant François Laurin." "Departure." "We have to finish this war." "Be brave!" "Go ahead, kiss each other!" "End of Part Two" "J'ACCUSE by Abel Gance Part Three" "Hearing the call of the dispenser of justice, hearts united suddenly, and poor mud-caked bodies moved toward him like tanks." "He knew how to speak to them, with visionary images that roused energy and made them clutch their rifles harder." "Beside every Frenchman there is always a Gaul." "I accuse those who are asleep..." "Hang on a bit longer, fellows..." "Victory is here..." "In front of you, with its wings spread." "The Gaul told me so." "Come on, men." "The Gaul is with us." "And the visionary told them many other things." "Profound and painful things, which mustn't emerge from the mud through images, because the eyes are still too far from the heart to truly understand." "And back there!" "However her heart swayed, Edith suffered." "François's wife, Jean's lover, Maria Lazare's daughter," "Angèle's mother." "The cross of sacrifice, epitomizing the French woman's agony." "Strike again, o Sorrow, if you find room!" "Lamartine" "The morning of battle." "The battalion is doomed, they know." "They say nothing but re-read the last letter." "The weather is mild and the morning indifferent." "The dead won't hold back the spring." "(A soldier's letter)" "If these letters reach anyone, may they instill in the honest heart a horror of the infamy of those responsible for this war." "(A soldier's letter)" "Dearest darling mother, I desire nothing more for myself." "When the hardships are truly cruel," "I'm content to be very unhappy without thinking of other things." "(A soldier's letter)" "My dear darling Mama," "If you receive no more letters from me after this one, tell yourself that your son has left this world for a country without postmen, but that still he thinks of you night and day." "Jean, fearing the worst, had prepared a series of letters for Edith, pre-dated with the months to come, so that she would remain ignorant as long as possible..." "My dear Edith" "If I'm killed, look after the child and Edith." "You're the one she loves." "Don't say a word!" "Is that clear?" "Swear to me, Jean." "Raise the child." "It's your duty." "I would have killed her!" "What about you, Jean?" "Do you have anything to say if you get killed?" "No, no." "Nothing to say..." "to anybody." "I know you love her as much as I do." "The attack on the St. Mihel sector was filmed with the collaboration of French and American troops, in particular the U.S. 28th Division, in the villages of Hattonchatel, Seicheprey and Mosec." "If I fall in battle, send one letter per month, in order." "It's so she doesn't know I'm dead, you understand?" "Promise, Mathieu?" "So it's clear, Mathieu, not a word to François!" "You'll send these letters to Edith." "She mustn't die, as well." "Above all, don't say a thing to François, not one word." "Hey!" "Stretcher-bearers!" "Evacuate Jean, he's gone mad!" "Get up, you dead bodies!" "Until the last one!" "I accuse!" "After the taking of the village." "After the battle." "And as his life ebbed, his feverish last thoughts were for his dear Edith, whom he had loved so much without her knowing it, and who at that moment may have been laughing in the gentle light of Provence." "And as in the old days," "François would have liked to say good-bye to his dear old dog." "Who should be notified about your condition?" "Post these, once a month, without a return address." "One morning at Orneval." "My beloved, I am doing well." "Don't worry yourself if you don't receive a swift reply." "I'll be home soon." "Your Jean." "I've been given a secret and a difficult mission:" "I need to know how the morale is in the country." "What about Pierre, the blacksmith's son?" "And Jenny, the laundress?" "That evening," "Jean Diaz took a strange stroll throughout the village." "The Great Evening." "Edith anxiously tried to understand" "Jean's strange, feverish behavior since his return." "And where is François?" "What is he doing?" "I haven't received a letter from him in a month." "Nightmares... dreams..." "life... war..." "The dead..." "And the living." "I don't know anymore!" "I accuse!" "Come to Edith Laurin's home at 10 p.m." "for news of your dead." "" " I accuse" "Yes, I called you here." "Come in!" "Come in!" "That night, I was on guard duty on the battlefield." "All your dead were there..." "All your dearly departed." "All of them!" "Then an extraordinary miracle happened." "One of the dead..." "Friends, the time has come to find out if our death has done any good!" "Let us go home to see if they are worthy of our sacrifice." "Awaken!" "...And the dead obeyed!" "They obeyed, I tell you!" "...MY FRIENDS," "RISE UP!" "RISE UP!" "They had soiled faces and eye-sockets full of stars." "They came in rising waves from across the horizon." "While the living marched to the music." "The unknown dead..." "All the dead..." "The famous dead marched as well..." "I fled this innumerable flock." "I'm here to warn you." "They're coming." "They will gladly go back to sleep if their sacrifice and death have served some purpose." "The diaphanous and fantastically heroic dead." "All the dead were on their way, and the gentle road grew transparent beneath their feet." "Stop!" "You won't leave before you've heard me out." "If you've been faithful to your dead, you have nothing to fear." "You, Amelie!" "Your husband died for you, too!" "How did you behave during his absence?" "I accuse!" "And you, Pierre..." "Did you run your father's business as you should have?" "I accuse!" "And you, Berthe!" "You, Lucile!" "You, Marie!" "You profited like cowards from the deaths of your husbands, brothers and children!" "I accuse!" "And you, Darmont, Bernard Chantonin, you all greedily profited from the bloodshed shamelessly to line your pockets!" "...When the north wind blows at night, can't you hear the millions of death rattles: "I accuse!" "I accuse!"" "When fate strikes down the good, it is not being unjust." "The bad who survive will only be better for it." "May a good flame raise you up" "And rather than weep That I have lost the day" "Think that one never dies When he dies in this way" "" " Pierre Corneille" "These great dead said many things more in the moonlight, mysterious words of the future that the living didn't understand, but which were soothing." "Don't pain them by calling them." "Let them go." "They are begging you to preserve your courage!" "They were glad to see you again." "They're going back to their peaceful sleep, knowing that you've all been worthy of their death..." "They again took up their crosses, which now became lighter." "Was it all a dream?" "Some incredible suggestion?" "What possessed us?" "And the child, in turn, taught the poet again to write the word of his life." "He's mad!" "The next day." "The soldier in him had killed the poet." "He laughed at this lunatic who once had written poems about sunlight, peace and the sweetness of living." "Ode to the Sun." "Hear me, O Sun, ere I be laid" "Amid the dead My debt to thee unpaid" "Thee I accuse For all the grandeur of thy day" "Abomination has thou clothed In robes of light" "Passing unmoved On they Celestial way" "Nor horror trembling at thy might" "In death I curse thee King of Dreadful Night" "A poet there was Festoons and astragals" "In my face His laughing spirit shone" "Soldier I came home In effigy supernatural" "From my grave I cried" "Pushing back the stone As if the earth itself did groan" "Hear me in the name Of those your splendor misled" "Are you frightened?" "You blush bright red" "Jean Diaz I was But I have a new muse" "My name, once sweet Is now "I accuse!"" "And I accuse you instead" "You cast your light On a frightful bout" "Silent, placid world Without antipathy" "Like a horrible visage Tongue ripped out" "Sadistic, from your azure balcony You watched till the final rout" "THE END"