The Dreyfus Affair is intrinsically interesting but I feel Richard Dreyfus was miscast - I get he wanted to play a different sort of role but he just feels so jewish, so contemporary... I didn't buy him as a French Catholic officer who comes to believe Dreyfus is innocent. He didn't feel like someone in the army, or a Frenchman or a non Jew. Sorry, Richard - I know this was a passion project.
It's directed by Ken Russell for some reason - they presumably wanted to give the piece some oomph - but there's no real Russell flourishes. It looks handsome.
There's a bunch of English actors being Frenchmen - the actors all look like boozers: Oliver Reed, Jeremy Kemp, etc. You never really get a feeling of France at the time, or the mood of the army or the anti Semitism that was prevalent.
The film actually isn't bad when Dreyfus isn't in it - when the generals are being anti Semitic pricks, and another soldier is forced to kill himself... The compositions feel bolder, as if Russell was empowered in Dreyfus' absence.
I think telling the story from his character's point of view was a mistake... It starts with Dreyfus being convicted there's no excitement of him being busted and going to prison and the discovery of the culprit is off screen.
The device of having some Englishman narrate it in 1923 feels pointless.
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