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AN OFFICER AND A SPY 
Director Roman Polanski's Take on the Dreyfus Affair That Rocked  France in the 1890s
In 1894  Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French Army , was accused and convicted of treason on grounds of passing on French military secrets to the German embassy. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the notorious Devil's Island. For the next ten years France was plunged into a bitter controversy that divided governments, the Army, politicians and civilians alike.

Introduction: The Genesis of the Movie

Roman Polanski's movie is based on Robert Harris's  enthralling  novel. about the Dreyfus Affair.
  Polanski had previously had considerable success with  The Ghost Writer an adaptation of another Harris novel, The Ghost, for which Harris wrote the screenplay. Polanski convinced Harris that the affair would make a good novel and a good movie. For Polanski the Dreyfus Case, although occurring well over a century and a quarter ago, had relevance for today/s world. For him it signified 
"The age-old spectacle of the witch hunt on a minority group, security paranoia, secret military tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, governmental cover-ups and a rabid press."
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Key Figures in the  Dreyfus Affair

The Dreyfus Affair  ultimately involved  many significant political and literary figures in late 19th Century France. Of the latter, none was more crucial than Emile Zola, the controversial novelist and essayist Emile Zola. He published an article, famously titled J'accuse! ) I Accuse!)  in which he  accused the French army and government of falsifying  and destroying evidence that proved Dreyfus was completely innocent of the trumped-up charges against him.
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Significance of the Dreyfus Affair

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Previous Movies About the Dreyfus Affair
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