a.k.a. THAT THEY MAY LIVE / I ACCUSE
Forrester-Parant Productions [1938] 125′
country: France
director: ABEL GANCE
cast: VICTOR FRANCEN, LINE NORO,
cast: MARIE LOU, JEAN-MAX
An overturned statue of the crucified Christ lies in a contaminated fountain – a dead dove, downed by a stray bullet, sits at the fountains edge. A mortar unceremoniously rips through the head of the statue and tosses the dove into the filthy water of the fountain, where it sinks slowly to the bottom. “Shit! Aren’t you tired of playing around with my carcass!” screams a wounded soldier, tossed about by shell fire, in the opening line. We are then introduced to other soldiers – tired men in haggard uniforms forced to clean themselves as best they can in the polluted water of the fountain.
So begins I ACCUSE (the literal translation of the French title J’ACCUSE – the film was released in a truncated form in the USA in 1939 under the title THAT THEY MAY LIVE), less a remake than an expansion of the latter two thirds of director Gance’s 1919 film J’ACCUSE! The thesis of the piece is evident from the very beginning: This is what war looks like, Gance tells us. This is what you’ve all forgotten. Further evidencing this latter point is the handwritten introduction by Gance himself – it reads, roughly, “This film is dedicated to the war dead of tomorrow, who will no doubt watch it without recognizing in it the face of their own times.”
