"♪Translated by♪  XQ2☻♥" "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 times, people in France still knew the meaning of joy..." "A festive night in Provence" "One bright morning" "I came across the train" "Of three great kings" "Setting off on a voyage..." "Jean Diaz, the poet,♥ all intelligence, all melancholy, all tenderness, all France." "His dear mother." "Edith is married." "Stop thinking of the past." "An owl on the eve of St. John, cataclysm before the year is gone." "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]" "[ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR Maria Lazare]" "What Jean was writing:" "THE PEACEFUL ONES" "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, as the happy village slept." "It was as if tragedy hung from the very branch tips..." "This scar on your neck!" "..." "It's his handiwork, isn't it?" "Get going!" "One day, when happiness shone on the village..." "[SUNDAY, AUGUST 2]" "It's war!" "What's war?" "I dunno." "[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 this order,] [is to report for active service on the 40th day of mobilization.]" "Go ask Jean Diaz, on behalf of Madame Edith, if he's being mobilized tomorrow along with his comrades." "I'm leaving tomorrow, dearest Edith." "SEE YOU SOON" "Give François your hand." "Monsieur 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 Monsieur Jean Laurin Rue du Lac, Waldheim" "Dear parents," "I'm entrusting my wife, Edith, to your care, until I return from the war." "Hopefully it won't be long." "Your son, François." "She's gone!" "J'ACCUSE" "François didn't know the meaning offear." "Meanwhile, back home, the veterans won every battle." "YOUR DAUGHTER BRUTALLY TAKEN, ALIVE," "BEHIND ENEMY LINES, AFTER RECENT ADVANCE." "News of Edith's capture spread rapidly through the village." "Tell me, Monsieur, is it true they took her?" "So I can avenge her, tell me?" "J'ACCUSE" "Consequently, I request my immediate call up to active service." "Jean Diaz" "Edith has disappeared." "I have no more reason to stay." "I'm off to the front." "My dear François, be brave." "Edith was caught in the enemy advance and taken captive." "[MY ALSACE AND MY LORRAINE]" "It's all nonsense, 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 caper." "What a spot to write letters!" "You wanna get yourself killed, idiot?" "It's all nonsense, 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 caper." "Jean?" "for the past two months." "he's been at Officers' Training School in Valréas." "During a lull in the cannonfire." "You blubberin' because your missus doesn't write?" "Never mind, you son-of-bee, look, my wife ran off with a young shirker..." "Our new lieutenant." "Meanwhile, back home, to celebrate the new Lieutenant..." "Nomination at the Officers' Training School of Valréas" "Number 1:" "Jean Diaz of Orneval" "François 6th Alpine Regiment" "Dear Father-in-Law," "I can't ask our new officer for news of my wife, but I'm certain he knows something." "Try to find out something from his mother and write me soon." "François" "Dear Mom, I must find out what happened to Edith, but I can't ask François." "Ask old Mr. Lazare if he knows anything and write me soon." "Jean" "*Ground wireless reports an enemy munitions depot near Hill 33. (Tesla)" "Send your bravest man, François Laurin, out tonight to reconnoiter" "He has little chance of returning." "Warn him." "...And Jean began to understand he wasn't alone in loving Edith..." "Jean's sacrifice." "Is François back from his mission?" "You deserve the Legion of Honor for your exploit and the guardhouse for risking your life in place of François, whom I had chosen." "Coffee's ready!" "Jean, tell me..." "have you any news of Edith?" "And *you, François, have *you?" "(Vous)" "Will *you (Vous) forgive me, François, for having loved her as much as you?" "Why so formal?" "Address me with 'tu' if you want an answer..." "Will *you (tu) forgive me, François?" "We'll speak of her often, huh, Jean?" "Pipe down, guys." "They're both crying'... the dopes..." "With pious hands the old veteran framed the glorious lieutenant's Legion of Honor as the two old people's hearts beat proudly..." "We're out of cartridges!" "I don't give a damn!" "Do you remember when she..." "Know that there will always be beauty in the world and that man will never be cruel enough to suppress 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 no more than gray, muddy silhouettes." "Cannons squat, strewn about, monstrously, the eternal spirit of Evil looms over this struggle to save and emancipate the world." "My fifth blackout in a week..." "It's fatigue." "Dear Father-in-Law, tell Mother Diaz to write and tell Jean to take the medical tests at the Discharge Review Council, as the doctors advised him." "His health is highly compromised." "He'll die if he..." "I thought I saw an owl..." "It's the fever..." "Dear Father-in-Law, tell Mother Diaz to write and tell Jean to take the medical tests at the Discharge Review Council, as the doctors advised him." "His health is highly compromised." "He'll die if he..." "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 abandon France for her sake, as she so courageously puts it." "What his health couldn't accomplish, his filial devotion did, and Jean, discharged, returned home." "Go to sleep." "I'm feeling better tonight." "Hey, Mama..." "My Jean!" "My little Jean!" "How you've changed!" "..." "You're sick too, aren't you?" "I'm just very tired." "I want nothing more than to go to sleep, listening to you recite one of your poems, as you used to do." "My poem about the ploughmen?" "... about silence?" "... my Ode to the Sun?" "And, as he'd done four years earlier..." "Dead!" "At that point in the poem when she fell asleep the night of the festivities." "So she could take to her grave his stanzas of light, he had wanted to finish his ode." "But all he found was the sadness of twilight haunted by Edith's sweet spirit." "War kills mothers as well as sons." "J'accuse!" "It rained that night..." "DEAR PAPA, COME TO JEAN DIAZ'S TONIGHT." "I'LL BE THERE." "EDITH LAURIN." "Mother Diaz!" "Death leaves by one door, life enters by another!" "DEAR PAPA, COME TO JEAN DIAZ'S TONIGHT." "I'LL BE THERE." "EDITH LAURIN." "If only she would come back!" "Explain yourself." "When enemy troops occupied the village," "I hid in the grange, but the soldiers found me..." "There were many ..." "Didn't you think that" "François would kill her if he saw her!" "I knew he wasn't around, and I thought that Mother Diaz later, would protect my child..." "Isn't that so, Jean?" "[J'ACCUSE]" "My father's sudden departure scares me!" "He has such a fierce temper!" "I'll run along home." "I'll be back soon." "My dear child, Honor is an old habit with us." "I'm off to try to avenge this indelible affront." "The child's presence would, otherwise, be intolerable to me." "Jean will help you to bear your pain." "Adieu." "Maria Lazare." "If you leave like my father, who will protect my daughter?" "François must never, ever know!" "Understand, Jean?" "Otherwise I'm certain he'll kill her." "I'll teach you how to be French." "That way you can find, on your own, the punishment your father deserves!" "How he must love me, to have placed my tragedy before his own." "The first French lesson." "Am back home." "Notify me of your next leave." "Affectionately, Edith." "Hey, cook, prepare a phenomenal spread for us tomorrow." "I got my wife back!" "*Unwitting courage." "They knew their luck would turn..." "She..." "She must be out for a walk, no doubt..." "Why are those old bats looking at me with such a sorrowful air?" "He left... the night Edith return... and hasn't sent any news since!" "She's not here, François!" "A distant relative left little Angèle... with me..." "I'm looking after her until... until..." "Someone's crying around here!" "I assure you, François it's nothing!" "After four years of sacrifice, a brute can become a man, to equal 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... that a distant relative left with Jean Diaz..." "What's the harm in that?" "No harm, but..." "the neighbors gossip." "They say you come to kiss her every day." "That troubles me a little..." "My poor Edith, thank you." "I don't know, you see." "My heart is so obsessed." "Forgive me!" "Misfortune was afoot, on velvet claws." "and one day..." "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you." "There's quite a tragedy about." "Little Angèle, the child you kissed the other day, at Jean's..." "Well, while she was playing, she fell in the river and drowned..." "Is this true?" "Admit it, miserable woman." "Was that your child?" "Dead, dead, yes, she's dead!" "Dead, she's 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 were hiding after your sin, and he went to see you on leave." "Admit it, you wretches, or prove your innocence!" "Is your silence formal aknowledgment that you're the child's father?" "She's my daughter, mine alone!" "Let go of Jean." "Don't kill him!" "You have proof?" "BIRTH CERTIFICATE Dettweiler June 28 1915" "FATHER UNKNOWN" "You're right, Jean, I mustn't." "I'd better leave right away to avoid committing a crime." "I have others to kill in exchange for her life!" "Leave was nearing its end." "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 away and live in anguish." "Let's you and I find a solution?" "Dear commandant, as an ex officer discharged for health reasons," "I request permission to return to service immediately in my old company as a Private 2nd Class under Sergeant François Laurin." "Departure." "We have to end this war." "Be brave!" "Go on, embrace each other!" "End of Part Two" "J'ACCUSE by Abel Gance Part Three" "At the call of the avenger of justice, hearts suddenly regained their courage, and poor mud-caked bodies rolled toward him like tanks." "He knew how to speak to them, with visionary images which roused energies and made them grasp their rifles once again." "There is always a Gaul next to a Frenchman." "I accuse those who sleep..." "Hang on a bit longer, boys..." "Victory is here, before you, with wings outstretched." "The Gaul told me." "Courage, boys!" "The Gaul is with us." "And the visionary told them many other things." "Profound and painful things, which mustn't leave their muddy hell, by way of images, because the eyes are still too far from the heart to truly understand." "Meanwhile back home!" "Edith suffered, whichever way her heart reached out:" "as François's wife, as Jean's lover, as Maria Lazare's daughter, as Angèle's mother." "The sacrificial cross, which sums up all Frenchwomen's pain." "Strike once more, o Sorrow, if you can find room!" "Lamartine" "The morning of battle." "The battalion is doomed, they know." "They say nothing, but re-read their last letters." "The weather is mild and the morning indifferent." "The dead won't delay spring." "(A soldier's letter)" "If these letters reach anyone, may they inspire in an honest heart a horror of the vile infamy of those responsible for this war." "(A soldier's letter)" "Dearest mother, I have no more desires;" "when the ordeal gets really tough," "I'm content to be miserable, without envisaging any alternative." "(A soldier's letter)" "My dearest Mama," "If you receive no more letters from me after this, tell yourself that your son has gone far from this world to a land which lacks postmen, but that he thinks of you night and day." "Jean, fearing grave danger, had prepared a series of letters for Edith, pre-dated with the months to come, so that she would not know for 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 place to do so." "I would have killed her!" "What about you, Jean?" "Do you have anything to say if you fall..." "No, no." "Nothing to say to anybody." "I know you love her as much as I do." "The scenes of the St. Mihel sector were filmed with the cooperation of French and American troops, notably the 28th Division (U.S.), in the villages of Hattonchatel, Seicheprey and Mousec." "If I fall in battle, send one letter a month, in order." "So she doesn't know I'm dead, understand?" "Promise, Mathieu?" "You understand, Mathieu, not a word to François!" "Send these letters to Edith." "She mustn't die, as well." "Above all, don't say anything to François... not a word." "Hey!" "Medics of the 32nd?" "Evacuate Jean, he's gone mad!" "[J'accuse]" "Keep going." "(Stand, dead men!" ")" "To the last man!" "J'accuse!" "After taking the village." "After the battle." "And as his life ebbed, his feverish last thoughts went to his dear Edith, whom he had loved so much without her knowing, and who perhaps was, laughing at that very moment in the gentle light of Provence." "And François would've liked, as he did before, to say good-bye to his dear old dog." "Who should we notify of your condition?" "Send these letters, each month, to this address and don't make any mention about any of this." "One morning at Orneval." "My beloved, I'm fine." "Don't worry about me 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 the mental state of the country." "What about Pierre, the blacksmith's son?" "And Jenny, the laundress?" "That evening, Jean Diaz set off on a strange stroll through the village." "The Great Evening." "Edith anxiously tried to understand" "Jean's feverishly strange attitude since his return." "Where is François?" "What's he doing?" "I've had no letters from him for a month." "Nightmares... dreams..." "life... war..." "The dead..." "And the living." "I don't know anymore!" "I accuse!" "Come to Edith Laurin's home tonight at 10 for news of your dead." "I accuse" "Yes, I summoned 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." "Every one!" "Then a prodigious miracle occurred." "One of the dead..." "Friends, the time has come to find out if our death has served any purpose!" "Let's go home and see if they are worthy of our sacrifice." "Awaken!" "...And the dead obeyed!" "I tell you, they obeyed!" "...MY FRIENDS," "RISE UP!" "RISE UP!" "They had soiled faces and eye-sockets full of stars." "They came in innumerable waves from the depths of the horizon." "While the living paraded to the music before them." "The unknown dead..." "All the dead..." "All the great dead paraded by also..." "I began to run before this innumerable herd and I'm here to warn you." "They're coming..." "They'll gladly return to sleep if their sacrifice and death served some purpose." "Diaphanous and fantastically heroic, the dead... all the dead were on the move, and the merciful earth became transparent under their feet." "Stop!" "You won't leave before you hear 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?" "J'accuse!" "And you, Pierre..." "Did you manage well your father's business?" "J'accuse!" "And you, Berthe!" "You, Lucile!" "You, Marie!" "who have so cowardly profited from the deaths of your husbands, brothers and children..." "J'accuse!" "And you, Darmont, Bernard Chantonin, all of you who greedily profited from the carnage to enrich yourselves shamefully from the war." "...can't you hear, in the north wind, at night, the millions of agonized groans:" ""J'accuse!" "j'accuse!"" "If fate strikes down the best, it is not unjust, the bad who survive will be improved by it." "May a glorious fire transport you" "And rather than weep (for me) for losing my life" "Believe this; one never dies When one dies thus" "Pierre Corneille" "The great dead said many more things under the moonlight, mysterious words of the future that the living didn't understand, yet were full of peace and serene joy." "Don't pain them by calling them." "Let them go." "See, they're beseeching you to preserve your courage!" "They're glad to see you again." "and are going to resume their peaceful sleep, knowing, now, that you're all worthy of their death and they didn't sacrifice their lives in vain." "They again took up their crosses, which had become lighter on their shoulders." "Did we dream this?" "Was it not some formidable suggestion?" "Under what influence?" "And the child, in turn, taught the poet again to write the words of his life." "Mad!" "The next day." "The soldier in him had killed the poet, and he laughed at this fool who had once written poems about sunlit peace and the sweetness of life." "Ode to the Sun." "Wait, O Sun, before I go and disappear among the dead this night" "And if my hand clutches at my window sill" "It is, o bitter whimsey, out of preference to have died  in the place of which I sing" "I went there, a poet Festoons and astragals" "Genius beaming in my smile☻" "I returned a soldier a statue, a spectre" "From my tomb I cry Pushing back the stone" "As the earth itself would intone:" "Hear me in the name Of those your splendor abused" "Are you afraid?" "You blush vermillion" "I was Jean Diaz, But I changed my muse" "My, once sweet, name Is now J'accuse!" "And I accuse you, o Sun" "Of illuminating a frightful bout" "Mutely, placid, undisgusted" "Like a horrible face with tongue cut out" "Of clinging to your azure balcony" "Sadistically watching till the final rout" "THE END ♪Translated by♪  XQ2☻♥"