The Devils (film)
The Devils is a 1971 British historical drama horror film directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. Russell's screenplay is based on the 1952 book The Devils of Loudun by Aldous Huxley, on the 1960 play The Devils by John Whiting based on Huxley's book; the film is a dramatised historical account of the rise and fall of Urbain Grandier, a 17th-century Roman Catholic priest executed for witchcraft following the supposed possessions in Loudun, France. Reed plays Grandier in the film and Vanessa Redgrave plays a hunchbacked sexually repressed nun who finds herself inadvertently responsible for the accusations; the film faced harsh reaction from national film rating systems due to its disturbingly violent and religious content, received an X rating in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It was banned in several countries, heavily edited for release in others; the film has never received a release in its original, uncut form in various countries, is unavailable in the home video market.
Note: This plot is from the uncut version of the film. Some scenes described below are omitted from other versions. In 17th Century France, Cardinal Richelieu is influencing Louis XIII in an attempt to gain further power, he convinces Louis that the fortifications of cities throughout France should be demolished to prevent Protestants from uprising. Louis agrees, but forbids Richelieu from carrying out demolitions in the town of Loudun, having made a promise to its Governor not to damage the town. Meanwhile, in Loudun, the Governor has died, leaving control of the city to Urbain Grandier, a dissolute and proud but popular and well-regarded priest, he is having an affair with a relative of another priest in the town. Sister Jeanne asks for Grandier to become the convent's new confessor. Grandier secretly marries another woman, Madeleine De Brou, but news of this reaches Sister Jeanne, driving her to jealous insanity; when Madeleine returns a book by Ursuline foundress Angela Merici that Sister Jeanne had earlier lent her, the abbess viciously attacks her with accusations of being a "fornicator" and "sacrilegious bitch," among other things.
Baron Jean de Laubardemont arrives with orders to demolish the city, overriding Grandier's orders to stop. Grandier summons the town's soldiers and forces Laubardemont to back down pending the arrival of an order for the demolition from King Louis. Grandier departs Loudun to visit the King. In the meantime, Sister Jeanne is informed by Father Mignon, she informs him of Grandier's marriage and affairs, inadvertently accuses Grandier of witchcraft and of possessing her, information that Mignon relays to Laubardemont. In the process, the information is pared down to just the claim that Grandier has bewitched the convent and has dealt with the Devil. With Grandier away from Loudon and Mignon decide to find evidence against him. Laubardemont summons the lunatic inquisitor Father Pierre Barre, a "professional witch-hunter," whose interrogations involve depraved acts of "exorcism", including the forced administration of enemas to his victims. Sister Jeanne claims that Grandier has bewitched her, the other nuns do the same.
A public exorcism erupts in the town, in which the nuns remove their clothes and enter a state of "religious" frenzy. Duke Henri de Condé arrives, claiming to be carrying a holy relic which can exorcise the "devils" possessing the nuns. Father Barre proceeds to use the relic in "exorcising" the nuns, who appear as though they have been cured – until Condé/Louis reveals the case containing the relic to be empty. Despite this, both the possessions and the exorcisms continue unabated descending into a massive orgy in the church in which the disrobed nuns remove the crucifix from above the high altar and sexually assault it. In the midst of the chaos and Madeleine return and are arrested. After being given a ridiculous show trial, Grandier is shaven and tortured – although at his execution, he manages to convince Mignon that he is innocent; the judges under orders from Laubardemont, sentence Grandier to death by burning at the stake. Laubardemont has obtained permission to destroy the city's fortifications.
Despite pressure on Grandier to confess to the trumped-up charges, he refuses, is taken to be burnt at the stake. His executioner promises to strangle him rather than let him suffer the agonising death by fire that he would otherwise experience, but the overzealous Barre starts the fire himself, Mignon, now visibly panic-stricken about the possibility of Grandier's innocence, pulls the noose tight before it can be used to strangle the priest; as Grandier burns, Laubardemont gives the order for explosive charges to be set off and the city walls are blown up, causing the revelling townspeople to flee. After the execution, Barre leaves Loudun to continue his witch-hunting activities elsewhere in the southwest of France. Laubardemont informs Sister Jeanne that Mignon has been put away in an asylum for claiming that Grandier was innocent, that "with no signed confession to prove otherwise, everyone has the same opinion", he leaves. Sister Jeanne, now broken, masturbates pathetically with the bone.
Madeleine, having been released, is seen walking over the rubble of Loudun's walls and away from the ruined city as the film ends. Oliver Reed a
Women in Love (film)
Women in Love is a 1969 British romantic drama film directed by Ken Russell and starring Alan Bates, Oliver Reed, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden. The film was adapted by Larry Kramer from D. H. Lawrence's novel of the same name, it is the first film to be released by Brandywine Productions. The plot follows the relationships between two sisters and two men in a mining town in post-World War I England; the two couples take markedly different directions. The film explores the nature of love; the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, with Jackson winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role, the film receiving other honours. The film takes place in 1920, in the Midlands mining town of Beldover. Two sisters and Gudrun Brangwen, discuss marriage on their way to the wedding of Laura Crich, daughter of the town's wealthy mine owner, Thomas Crich, to Tibby Lupton, a naval officer. At the village's church, each sister is fascinated by a particular member of the wedding party – Gudrun by Laura's brother and Ursula by Gerald's best friend, Rupert Birkin.
Ursula is a school teacher and Rupert is a school inspector. The four are brought together at a house party at the estate of Hermione Roddice, a rich woman whose relationship with Rupert is falling apart; when Hermione devises, as entertainment for her guests, a dance in the "style of the Russian ballet", Rupert becomes impatient with her pretensions and tells the pianist to play some ragtime. This angers Hermione, she leaves. When Birkin follows her into the next room, she smashes a glass paperweight against his head, he staggers outside, he discards his wanders through the woods. At the Criches' annual picnic, to which most of the town is invited and Gudrun find a secluded spot, Gudrun dances before some Highland cattle while Ursula sings "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles"; when Gerald and Rupert appear, Gerald calls Gudrun's behaviour "impossible and ridiculous", says he loves her. "That's one way of putting it", she replies. Ursula and Birkin wander away discussing love, they make love in the woods.
The day ends in tragedy when Tibby drown while swimming in the lake. During one of Gerald and Rupert's discussions, Rupert suggests Japanese-style wrestling, they wrestle in the firelight. Rupert enjoys their closeness and says they should swear to love each other, but Gerald cannot understand Rupert's idea of wanting to have an emotional union with a man as well as an emotional and physical union with a woman. Ursula and Birkin decide to marry while Gerald continue to see each other. One evening exhausted after his father's illness and death, Gerald sneaks into the Brangwen house to spend the night with Gudrun in her bed leaves at dawn. After Ursula and Birkin's marriage, Gerald suggests that the four of them go to the Alps for Christmas. At their inn in the Alps, Gudrun irritates Gerald with her interest in Loerke, a gay German sculptor. An artist herself, Gudrun is fascinated with Loerke's idea that brutality is necessary to create art. While Gerald grows jealous and angry, Gudrun only derides and ridicules him.
He can endure it no longer. After attempting to strangle her, he trudges off into the snow and cold to commit suicide and die alone. Rupert and Ursula and Gudrun return to their cottage in England. Rupert grieves for his dead friend; as Ursula and Rupert discuss love, Ursula says. He explains that she is enough for love of a woman but there is another eternal love and bond for a man; the plan for the film adaptation of Lawrence's novel came from Silvio Narizzano, who had directed the successful Georgy Girl. He suggested the idea to Larry Kramer, who bought the book's film rights. Narizzano, intended as director, had to leave the project after suffering a series of personal setbacks, he divorced his wife for a man. Kramer commissioned a screenplay from David Mercer. Mercer's adaptation differed too much from the original book and he was bought out of the project. Kramer himself wrote the script. After Narizzano's departure, Kramer considered a number of directors to take on the project, including Jack Clayton, Stanley Kubrick and Peter Brook, all of whom declined.
Kramer's fourth choice was Ken Russell, who had directed only two films and was better known for his biographical projects about artists for the BBC. Ken Russell made important contributions to the script. According to producer Larry Kramer the film came in under budget. Alan Bates, who had the leading male role in Georgy Girl, was interested from the start in the role of Birkin, D. H. Lawrence's alter ego. Bates sported a beard, giving him a physical resemblance to D. H. Lawrence. Kramer wanted Edward Fox for the role of Gerald. Fox fitted Lawrence's description of the character, but United Artists, the studio financing the production, imposed Oliver Reed, a more bankable star, as Gerald though he was not physically like Lawrence's description of the character. Kramer was adamant to give the role of Gudrun to Glenda Jackson, she was well recognised in theatrical circles. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company she had gained a great deal of attention as Charlotte Corday in Marat/Sade. United Artists was unconvinced, considering her not conventionally beautiful enough for the role of Gudrun, who drives Gerald to suicide.
On, United Artists' executives accepted Jackson as the right person for Gudrun's role, as Jackson had the spontaneous and
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French novelist, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. Zola was born in Paris in 1840, his father, François Zola, was an Italian engineer, born in Venice in 1795, who engineered the Zola Dam in Aix-en-Provence, his mother, Émilie Aubert, was French. The family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast. Four years in 1847, his father died, leaving his mother on a meager pension. In 1858, the Zolas moved to Paris. Zola started to write in the romantic style, his widowed mother had planned a law career for Émile. Before his breakthrough as a writer, Zola worked as a clerk in a shipping firm and in the sales department for a publisher.
He wrote literary and art reviews for newspapers. As a political journalist, Zola did not hide his dislike of Napoleon III, who had run for the office of president under the constitution of the French Second Republic, only to misuse this position as a springboard for the coup d'état that made him emperor. In 1862, Zola was naturalized as a French citizen. In 1865, he met Éléonore-Alexandrine Meley, who called herself Gabrielle, a seamstress, who became his mistress, they married on the 31 May 1870. She was instrumental in promoting his work; the marriage remained childless. Alexandrine Zola had a child before she met Zola that she had given up, because she was unable to take care of it; when she confessed this to Zola after their marriage, they went looking for the girl, but she had died a short time after birth. In 1888, he obtained a near professional level of expertise. In 1888, Alexandrine hired Jeanne Rozerot, a seamstress, to live with them in their home in Médan. Zola fell in love with Jeanne and fathered two children with her: Denise in 1889 and Jacques in 1891.
After Jeanne left Médan for Paris, Zola continued to visit her and their children. In November 1891 Alexandrine discovered the affair, which brought the marriage to the brink of divorce; the discord was healed, which allowed Zola to take an active role in the lives of the children. After Zola's death, the children were given his name as their lawful surname. During his early years, Zola wrote numerous short stories and essays, four plays, three novels. Among his early books was Contes à Ninon, published in 1864. With the publication of his sordid autobiographical novel La Confession de Claude attracting police attention, Hachette fired Zola, his novel Les Mystères de Marseille appeared as a serial in 1867. After his first major novel, Thérèse Raquin, Zola started the series called Les Rougon-Macquart, about a family under the Second Empire. In Paris, Zola maintained his friendship with Cézanne, who painted a portrait of him with another friend from Aix-en-Provence, writer Paul Alexis, entitled Paul Alexis Reading to Zola.
More than half of Zola's novels were part of a set of 20 collectively known as Les Rougon-Macquart. Unlike Balzac, who in the midst of his literary career resynthesized his work into La Comédie Humaine, Zola from the start, at the age of 28, had thought of the complete layout of the series. Set in France's Second Empire, the series traces the "environmental" influences of violence and prostitution which became more prevalent during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution; the series examines two branches of a family—the respectable Rougons and the disreputable Macquarts—for five generations. As he described his plans for the series, "I want to portray, at the outset of a century of liberty and truth, a family that cannot restrain itself in its rush to possess all the good things that progress is making available and is derailed by its own momentum, the fatal convulsions that accompany the birth of a new world."Although Zola and Cézanne were friends from childhood, they experienced a falling out in life over Zola's fictionalized depiction of Cézanne and the Bohemian life of painters in Zola's novel L'Œuvre.
From 1877, with the publication of l'Assommoir, Émile Zola became wealthy. Because l'Assommoir was such a success, Zola was able to renegotiate his contract with his publisher Georges Charpentier to receive more than 14 percent royalties and the exclusive rights to serial publication in the press, he became a figurehead among the literary bourgeoisie and organized cultural dinners with Guy de Maupassant, Joris-Karl Huysmans, other writers at his luxurious villa in Médan, near Paris, after 1880. Germinal in 1885 the three "cities"—Lourdes and Paris, established Zola as a successful author; the self-proclaimed leader of French naturalism, Zola's works inspired operas such as those of Gustave Charpentier, notably Louise in the 1890s. His works, inspired by the concepts of heredity, social Manicheanism, idealistic socialism, resonate with those of Nadar and subsequently Flaubert, he is considered to be a significant influence on those writers that are credited with the creation of the so-called new journalism.
Gothic (film)
Gothic is a 1986 British horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori, it features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, marks Richardson's film debut. The film is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys' visit to Lord Byron in Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, shot in Gaddesden Place, it concerns their competition to write a horror story, which led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein and John Polidori writing "The Vampyre." The same event has been portrayed in the films Bride of Frankenstein and Haunted Summer, among others. The film's poster motif is based on Henry Fuseli's 1781 painting The Nightmare, referenced in the film. Through her stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary Godwin and her future husband Percy Shelley come to know Lord Byron. During the summer of 1816, Lord Byron invites them to stay for a while at Villa Diodati in Switzerland.
There they meet Dr. John Polidori. On 16 June, while a storm rages outside, the five of them amuse themselves by engaging in a game of hide-and-seek. In a parlor, Percy proclaims his fascination with science. Lord Byron shows his guests Phantasmagoria, a book of horror stories he purchased from a shop in Geneva, the three alternately read excerpts; this inspires them to hold a séance gathered around a human skull, during which Claire has an apparent seizure. Mary describes them as Claire's "horrors," and recalls instances during their childhood when unexplained phenomena would occur during them, such as Claire's bed inexplicably shaking, doors slamming shut by themselves. Polidori brings Claire upstairs to rest. During the night, Mary witnesses Claire share. Believing Mary was startled by a slamming barn door outside, Percy goes to shut it. While investigating the barn, he is startled by a grotesque creature. Mary speaks with Lord Byron in the billiard room, confronting him about his intentions with Claire, reveals to him that Claire is pregnant with his child.
He suggests she has an abortion, the two argue, resulting in a physical confrontation. Lord Byron performs oral sex on Claire, during which she has a miscarriage. Meanwhile, Mary consoles Percy, who has grown paranoid and claims to smell an overpowering scent of decay. From the bottom of the staircase, Mary hears a noise, feels liquid dripping on her; as she looks up, she sees Polidori leaning over the banister, clutching a bleeding wound on his neck. Once the bleeding is controlled, he claims to have been bitten by a vampire in his room. Byron accuses him of self-inflicting the wounds, while Mary believe him. Percy raves that the group collectively gave birth to something during the séance, manifesting their worst fears, while Polidori exhibits signs of religious paranoia over his homosexuality, he is stopped by Byron. Claire goes missing from her bedroom, is discovered by Percy. Percy infers. During a failed attempt to hang himself in the barn, Polidori witnesses a figure flee on horseback. Percy and Byron attempt to recreate the séance to banish their creation.
Byron and Percy, both atheists, believe it must be returned to the recesses of their minds, while Mary questions the metaphysical and supernatural events plaguing them. In the basement, the three discover Claire covered in mud. Byron attempts to hold the séance there. During the event, Mary crushes the skull, attempts to stab Byron with a shard. Percy stops her, begins kissing Byron passionately; as she flees through the home, Mary witnesses an apparition of her son, William, in a coffin, followed by a vision of her suffering a miscarriage. In the madness, she is stopped by Percy. Mary awakens the following morning and joins Byron and Claire in the garden. In the contemporary era, tourists visit the Villa. A voice-over informs that Mary's son, died three years after that night in June 1816, followed by Percy's drowning in 1822. From Mary's previous experience of miscarriage came the desire to raise her child from the dead, which led to her writing Frankenstein. From Polidori's homosexuality, suicidal thoughts, fascination with vampires came the story "The Vampyre."
Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori Alec Mango as Murray Andreas Wisniewski as Fletcher Dexter Fletcher as Ruston The film fictionalizes an actual meeting that took place between Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, Claire Clairemont at the Villa Diodati in Geneva, hosted by Lord Byron, it has been suggested by some historians and journalists that the events of their meeting which inspired Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidari's "The Vampyre" were triggered by the group's use of opium during their vacation together. Discussing the film's basis in reality, actor Sands commented: I think these portraits are rooted in reality. If people think otherwise, it's because of the Victorian whitewash of them; these were not beautiful Romantic poets. They were anarchic hedonists pursuing a particular line of amorality; the film portrays Lord Byron as de
Oliver Reed
Robert Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his upper-middle class, macho image, hellraiser lifestyle, "tough guy" roles. Notable films include The Trap, playing Bill Sikes in the Best Picture Oscar winner Oliver!, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Devils, portraying Athos in The Three Musketeers, Lion of the Desert, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Funny Bones. For playing Antonius Proximo, the old, gruff gladiator trainer in Ridley Scott's Gladiator in what was his final film, Reed was posthumously nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed 5th most popular star at the box office. An alcoholic, Reed's issues with drink were well publicised, from appearances on chat shows to a high-profile friendship with drinking partner, The Who drummer Keith Moon, with the two meeting while working on Tommy. Reed was born at Wimbledon, to Peter Reed, a sports journalist and Marcia, he was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, May Pinney Reed.
His other grandmother was Beatrice Reed, "the only person who understood, listened to, encouraged and kissed Oliver". Reed claimed to have been a descendant of Tsar of Russia. Reed attended 14 schools, including Ewell Castle School in Surrey. Oliver's brother Simon Reed, a sports journalist, works for British Eurosport.""My father thought I was just lazy," Reed said. "He thought I was a dunce."Reed worked as a boxer, a bouncer, a cabdriver and a hospital porter. He did his compulsory army service in the Royal Army Medical Corps. "The army helped," he said later. "I recognized. I was in the peacetime army and they were all telling us youngsters about the war." When he got out of the army Reed commenced his acting career as an extra in films. He appeared uncredited in The Square Peg. Uncredited television appearances included episodes of The Invisible Man, The Four Just Men and The Third Man, he appeared in the documentary Hello London. Reed's first break was playing Richard of Gloucester in a 6-part BBC TV series The Golden Spur.
It did not seem to help his career immediately: he was uncredited in the films The Captain's Table and Downstairs, directed by Ralph Thomas, Life Is a Circus, The Angry Silence, The League of Gentlemen and Beat Girl. He played a bouncer in The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll for Hammer Films with whom he would become associated. Reed was in another Wisdom film, The Bulldog Breed, playing the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema Reed got his first significant role in Hammer Films' Sword of Sherwood Forest, again directed by Fisher, he went back to small roles for His and Hers, a Terry Thomas comedy, No Love for Johnnie for Thomas, The Rebel with Tony Hancock. Reed's first starring role came when Hammer cast him as the central character in Terence Fisher’s The Curse of the Werewolf. Hammer liked Reed and gave him good supporting roles in the swashbuckler The Pirates of Blood River, directed by John Gilling. During this time he appeared in some ITV Playhouse productions, "Murder in Shorthand" and "The Second Chef ", guest starred on episodes of The Saint.
He had the lead in a non-Hammer horror, The Party's Over, directed by Guy Hamilton. In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by The System; the following year he had his first collaboration with Ken Russell, The Debussy Film, a TV biopic of Claude Debussy. Reed, who played the title role, said this was crucial to his career because " "That was the first time I met Ken Russell and it was the first part I had after I'd had my face cut in a fight and no one would employ me. Everybody thought I was a cripple." He narrated Russell's TV movie Always on Sunday. Reed returned to Hammer for The Brigand of Kandahar, playing a villainous Indian in an imperial action film for Gilling, he guest starred on episodes of It's Cold Outside and Court Martial, the latter directed by Seth Holt. He had a regular role on the TV series R3. Reed was the lead in The Trap, co-starring with Rita Tushingham. Reed's career stepped up another level when he starred in the popular comedy film The Jokers, his second film with Winner, alongside Michael Crawford.
After playing a villain in a horror movie, The Shuttered Room he did a third with Winner, I'll Never Forget What's'isname, co-starring with Orson Welles. Reed was reunited with Russell for another TV movie, Dante's Inferno, playing Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Reed became a star playing Bill Sikes in Oliver!, alongside Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Mark Lester, Jack Wild and Harry Secombe, in his uncle Carol Reed's screen version of the successful stage musical. It was Reed's performance much acclaimed, he was in the black comedy The Assassination Bureau with Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas, directed by Basil Dearden.
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jewish artillery officer whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French history with a wide echo in all Europe. Known today as the Dreyfus affair, the incident ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration. Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus. Raphaël Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870, his family moved to Paris following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war; the childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted by the war with Germany prompted Dreyfus to decide on a career in the military. Following his 18th birthday in October 1877, he enrolled in the elite École Polytechnique military school in Paris, where he received military training and an education in the sciences.
In 1880, he was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the French army. From 1880 to 1882, he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was assigned to the Thirty-first Artillery Regiment, in garrison at Le Mans. Dreyfus was subsequently transferred to a mounted artillery battery attached to the First Cavalry Division, promoted to lieutenant in 1885. In 1889, he was made adjutant to the director of the Établissement de Bourges, a government arsenal, promoted to captain. On 18 April 1891, the 31-year-old Dreyfus married 20-year-old Lucie Eugénie Hadamard, they had two children and Jeanne. Three days after the wedding, Dreyfus learned that he had been admitted to the École Supérieure de Guerre or War College. Two years he graduated ninth in his class with honorable mention and was designated as a trainee in the French Army's General Staff headquarters, where he would be the only Jewish officer, his father Raphaël died on 13 December 1893.
At the War College examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well. However, one of the members of the panel, General Bonnefond, felt that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, gave Dreyfus poor marks for cote d'amour. Bonnefond's assessment lowered Dreyfus's overall grade. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, General Lebelin de Dionne, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but said he was powerless to take any steps in the matter; the protest would count against Dreyfus. The French army of the period was open to entry and advancement by talent, with an estimated 300 Jewish officers, of whom ten were generals. However, within the Fourth Bureau of the General Staff, General Bonnefond's prejudices appear to have been shared by some of the new trainee's superiors; the personal assessments received by Dreyfus during 1893/94 acknowledged his high intelligence, but were critical of aspects of his personality. In 1894, the French Army's counter-intelligence section, led by Lieutenant Colonel Jean Sandherr, became aware that information regarding new artillery parts was being passed to the Germans by a placed spy, most on the General Staff.
Suspicion fell upon Dreyfus, arrested for treason on 15 October 1894. On 5 January 1895, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Following French military custom of the time, Dreyfus was formally degraded by having the rank insignia and braid cut from his uniform and his sword broken, all in the courtyard of the École Militaire before silent ranks of soldiers, while a large crowd of onlookers shouted abuse from behind railings. Dreyfus cried out: "I swear that I am innocent. I remain worthy of serving in the Army. Long live France! Long live the Army!"In August 1896, the new chief of French military intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was a Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart was silenced by being transferred to the southern desert of Tunisia in November 1896; when reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus's possible innocence were leaked to the press, a heated debate ensued about anti-Semitism and France's identity as a Catholic nation or a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens.
Esterhazy was found not guilty before fleeing to England. Following a passionate campaign by Dreyfus's supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals such as Émile Zola, he was given a second trial in 1899 and again declared guilty of treason despite the evidence in favor of his innocence. However, due to public opinion, Dreyfus was offered and accepted a pardon by President Émile Loubet in 1899 and released from prison. Had Dreyfus refused the pardon, he would have been returned to Devil's Island, a fate he could no longer cope with, it is nothing for me without my honor. For two years, until July 1906, he lived in a state of house-arrest with one of his sisters at Carpentras, at Cologny. On 12 July 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated by a military commission; the day after his exoneration
Billion Dollar Brain
Billion Dollar Brain is a 1967 British Technicolor espionage film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by Len Deighton. The film features Michael Caine as the anti-hero protagonist; the "brain" of the title is a sophisticated computer with which an anti-communist organisation controls its worldwide anti-Soviet spy network. Billion Dollar Brain is the third of the Harry Palmer film series, preceded by The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin, it is the only film in which Ken Russell worked as a mainstream'director-for-hire', the last film of Françoise Dorléac. A fourth film in the series, an adaptation of Horse Under Water to be released by United Artists, was tentatively planned but never made. Caine played Palmer in two films, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in Saint Petersburg; the film's credits show the title as "$1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00" and "BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN" This is the British definition of one trillion – 1 followed by 18 zeros is one quintillion in the short scale or one trillion in the long scale.
Harry Palmer, who has left MI5 to work as a private investigator, is told by a mechanical voice on the phone to take a package to Helsinki. The package contains six virus-laden eggs that have been stolen from the British government's research facility at Porton Down. In Helsinki, he is met by Anya, Harry's old friend Leo Newbigen. Leo is in love with Anya. Leo takes Harry to a secret room where a computer issues daily instructions to Anya; the computer speaks in the same voice as the one. After determining that he cannot trust either Leo or Anya, Harry is abducted by his former MI5 superior, Colonel Ross, who coerces him into working once more for the British government in pursuing the conspiracy. Harry is ordered to Latvia where he embeds with some rebels to obtain intelligence for Leo's operation. After being captured and left for dead, Harry is extracted from Russia by Colonel Stok, an old acquaintance from the KGB. Back in Helsinki, Anya tries to kill Harry while seducing him confesses that the computer told her to kill him.
Harry waits for Leo at the computer's location. Leo offers to pay off Harry for his trouble, but Harry insists on half of the money Leo is getting from whatever the conspiracy is all about; the pair go to Texas. The General proudly displays his billion-dollar'brain', a room full of computers that dispenses orders to his agents around the world; the General is in the midst of planning a rebellion in Latvia which he thinks will trigger the fall of the Soviet Union. His plan is to infect the Red Army with the viruses, while using his Latvian agents to begin a rebellion as his own private army invades. Meanwhile, Leo subverts the General's computer escapes with the eggs; the General realises Harry is a double agent. Back in Helsinki and Anya board a train for the Soviet Union with the eggs, but Harry, accompanied by two of Midwinter's men, intercepts them and escorts Leo off the train with the eggs. Anya shoots Harry's bodyguards. Leo hands the eggs to Anya; as he tries to pull himself up, Anya pushes him off the train and shrugs as he looks at her in bewilderment.
"She used me," Leo tells Harry. He offers to help Harry stop the General's insane plan, which could trigger World War III. In personnel carriers made from oil tanker trucks from his company, the General leads his private army across the frozen Baltic Sea into Latvia. Harry and Leo attempt to catch up with the General, but he orders their car to be fired upon and Leo is killed. Meanwhile, Col. Stok is aware of the invasion and orders bombers to intercept the convoy. Rather than dropping their bombs directly on the convoy, they drop the bombs on the ice in the convoy's path, breaking the ice; the entire convoy plunges into the freezing water, all the vehicles and soldiers — including the General himself — sink below the ice to a cold, Baltic grave. Harry awakes alone on an ice floe. Col. Stok arrives in a helicopter with the eggs, he gives the eggs to Harry. "We don't need them," he says, "We have our own ideas." Stok confirms. Back in London, Harry delivers the eggs to Colonel Ross, who agrees to reward Harry with a promotion.
However, when he opens the package to inspect the eggs, he finds they have hatched and the box is full of baby chicks. Cast notes: Donald Sutherland has a small appearance as the computer technician who asks Karl Malden "What's going on?". Actress Susan George makes an early appearance as a young Latvian girl on a train who offers her copy of Isvestia to Michael Caine. Principal photography took place from 30 January to the end of May 1967. Five weeks on 26 June, Françoise Dorléac was killed in an automobile accident in Nice, France, it is unclear. Location filming for Billion Dollar Brain took place in Helsinki and other parts of Finland, including Turku; the Riga scenes were filmed in Porvoo in Finland. Scenes involving "The Brain" were filmed in Honeywell facilities and featured a Honeywell 200 mini-computer; the remainder of the film was shot in the United Kingdom. Scenes on the ice were filmed on a disused airfield, covered with a la
