Editing The Life of Emile Zola (section)

==Reception and interpretation==
Following a successful preview screening excluding [[Max Steiner]]'s musical score, ''The Life of Emile Zola'' premiered on August 11, 1937, and became an immediate sensation. Soon after, Warner Bros. placed full-page advertisements in several Los Angeles newspapers congratulating the cast and crew.<ref name=":0" />

Contemporary reviews were nearly unanimous in their praise. [[Frank S. Nugent]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' wrote: 
<blockquote>"Rich, dignified, honest, and strong, it is at once the finest historical film ever made and the greatest screen biography, greater even than ''[[The Story of Louis Pasteur]]'' with which the Warners squared their conscience last year ... Paul Muni's portrayal of Zola is, without doubt, the best thing he has done."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173FE46FBC4A52DFBE66838C629EDE |title=Movie Review – The Life of Emile Zola |last=Nugent |first=Frank S. |author-link=Frank Nugent |date=August 12, 1937 |website=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=August 31, 2015 }}</ref></blockquote>

''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' wrote that the film was "a vibrant, tense and emotional story ... It is finely made and merits high rating as cinema art and significant recognition as major showmanship."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://variety.com/1937/film/reviews/the-life-of-emile-zola-1200411475/ |title=Review: The Life of Emile Zola |last=Flinn |first=John C. |date=June 30, 1937 |website=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]] |access-date=August 31, 2015 }}</ref> ''Harrison's Reports'' described it as "A dignified, powerful, and at times stirring historical drama, brilliantly directed, and superbly acted by Paul Muni, as Zola, the great French writer."<ref>{{cite journal |date=August 28, 1937 |title=The Life of Emile Zola |journal=[[Harrison's Reports]] |location=New York |publisher=Harrison's Reports, Inc. |page=139 }}</ref>

John Mosher of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' praised the film as "a picture of considerable distinction" with "no nonsense."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Mosher |first=John |author-link=John Mosher (writer) |date=August 14, 1937 |title=The Current Cinema |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |location=New York |publisher=F-R Publishing Corp. |page=62 }}</ref>

Writing for ''Night and Day'', [[Graham Greene]] offered a neutral review, noting that despite its inaccuracies, "truth to the film mind is the word you see on news-posters." Greene commented that appearances from seemingly significant characters such as Cézanne were largely irrelevant to the plot and that all of the events in the film happen suddenly.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Greene|first=Graham|author-link=Graham Greene|date=28 October 1937|title=Wee Willie Winkie/The Life of Emile Zola|journal=[[Night and Day (magazine)|Night and Day]]}} (reprinted in: {{cite book|title=The Pleasure Dome|date=1980|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0192812866|editor-last=Taylor|editor-first=John Russell|editor-link=John Russell Taylor|page=177}})</ref>

''The Life of Emile Zola'' topped ''Film Daily'''s year-end poll of 531 critics as the best film of 1937.<ref>{{cite journal |date=January 6, 1938 |title=Critics Vote "Emile Zola" Year's Best |journal=[[Film Daily]] |location=New York |publisher=Wid's Films and Folm Folk, Inc. |page=1 }}</ref>

Certain scenes were interpreted at the time as "indirect attacks on Nazi Germany."<ref name="denby" /> As David Denby writes about the movie in 2013, "At the end, in an outpouring of the progressive rhetoric that was typical of the thirties, Zola makes a grandiloquent speech on behalf of justice and truth and against nationalist war frenzy." However, the film is silent about the fact that Dreyfus was Jewish and the victim of French antisemitism.<ref name="denby" />

The French government allegedly banned the film in 1939, possibly because of the sensitivity of the Dreyfus affair.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Meisler |first1=Stanley |title=Statue Needs a Home : The Dreyfus Affair—It Never Dies |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-30-mn-8521-story.html |access-date=18 September 2019 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=30 October 1986}}</ref>

On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds a score of 92% from 72 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Urgently relevant in an era of escalating bigotry and fascism, ''The Life of Emile Zola'' is a respectful and staid tribute to the French novelist, enlivened by Paul Muni's chameleonic prowess."<ref>{{cite web |title=The Life of Emile Zola |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_of_emile_zola |access-date=September 9, 2023 |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |publisher=[[Fandango Media]]}}</ref>
The film is mentioned in the children's novel ''[[The Saturdays (novel)|The Saturdays]]'', relating a coal gas leak incident.