In this work, Georges Méliès (1861-1938) reconstructs the significant facts of the Dreyfus affair by a series of filmed pictures of approximately one minute each.  It involves topical events pieced together, a genre that the film maker excels in.  In the absence of being able to film real events, these are reconstructed and filmed in a studio.  So the viewers can relive the scenes they couldn’t be a witness to, sometimes the very day of the event!  Two pictures of the Dreyfus Affair have not been found: La Dégradation (the Decline) and Dreyfus allant du Lycée de Rennes à la Prison (Dreyfus going from Rennes College to Prison).

The film maker filmed this series of topical events in autumn 1899, when the crisis generated by the Dreyfus affair was at its height. Between 1894 and 1906, France was violently shaken by this affair, which began when captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was accused of military treason: He supplied Germany with secret documents.  In October 1894 Dreyfus was summoned to the War office where Commander Armand du Paty de Clam (1853-1916) got him to take dictation, concluding that his writing was the same as that on a form found at the German embassy.  Degraded and condemned to hard labour for life, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony in Guyana on Devil’s Island while proclaiming his innocence.  When the rumour spread that the captain had escaped, he was ordered to be attached to his bed every night. Degraded and condemned to forced labour for life, Dreyfus was sent to a penal colony in Guyana, on Devil’s Island, while he proclaimed his innocence.  His loved ones engaged in an unremitting battle and rallied part of public opinion for the captain’s cause. 

Dreyfus’ loved ones engaged in an unremitting battle and rallied part of public opinion because of this. The writer Emile Zola (1840-1902), then at the height of his notoriety, took up arms against this injustice by publishing the famous “J’accuse…! (I accuse) in the L’Aurore newspaper in 1898.  A few months later Colonel Hubert-Joseph Henry (1846-1898) admitted to being the author of the fake proof against Dreyfus and committed suicide in his cell.  In the summer of 1899 Alfred Dreyfus returned to France to review his case in Rennes, firing up people’s passions with renewed vigour!  Against all expectation he was convicted again.  A few days later, Dreyfus was pardoned by President Emile Loubet (1838-1929) and was finally rehabilitated in 1906.

The impact of the affair was huge, notably due to the Captain being Jewish.  In a context influenced by a rise in anti-Semitism France was divided into two: those who were pro Dreyfus, who denounced injustice and the anti-Dreyfus, for whom justice must be subject to the State’s best interests at heart.  The division of opinion was so great that Méliès topical events were forbidden by the police headquarters as cinemagoers were fighting in the cinemas!

A fervent Dreyfus supporter Méliès wanted to make the public aware of the captain’s fate here.  He expressed his commitment by playing the role of Fernand Labori (1860-1917), Alfred Dreyfus’ lawyer, injured by an unknown when going to the hearing. Although far from his fantasy works of art, one of the first political films in the history of cinema was an outright success for the film maker.