History Film / AnOfficerAndASpy

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Everyone in the film, though there are missing people from the RealLife Dreyfus Affair.

* ConspiracyTheorist: Basically anyone who blames the "international Jewry" for whatever major problem during the Dreyfus Affair.

* CreatorCameo: Creator/RomanPolanski appears as one of the attendants at the concert Picquart goes to. He has a fake mustache.

Picquart, who can't stand lies and injustice in the army, decides to risk his career and his life, going against his hierarchy and struggling for almost a decade to expose the truth and liberate the wrongly convicted Dreyfus from the Devil's Island prison.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''J'accuse'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and based on the Robert Harris novel ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy''.

The film is {{based on|A True Story}} the notorious [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm at the end of the 19th century and in the early 1900s. [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

The film centers on [[BasedOnATrueStory the notorious late 19th century]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm. [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

The film centers on [[BasedOnATrueStory the notorious late 19th century Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm. [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''J'accuse'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and based on the Robert Harris book ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy''.

The film came out in France on November 13, 2019.

The film centers on [[BasedOnATrueStory the notorious late 19th century Dreyfus Affair]] that took France by storm. [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to the German Empire.

Picquart can't stand lies and injustice in the army, and decides to risk his career and his life, going against his hierarchy and struggling for almost a decade to expose the truth and liberate the wrongly convicted Dreyfus from the Devil's Island prison.

* InTheBack: Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy attacks Picquart in the streets after the latter made his accusations against him clear. It backfires when Picquart proves to be a superior combatant, kicking his butt and humiliating him further with a [[BondOneLiner one-liner]].

* InTheBack: Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy attacks Picquart in the streets after the latter made his accusations against him clear. It backfires when Picquart proves to be a superior combatant, kicks his ass and humiliates him further with a [[BondOneLiner one-liner]].

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Alphonse Bertillon (Creator/MathieuAmalric) is presented as a graphology expert, while he wasn't one in RealLife (rather he was a criminologist who basically pioneered biometry). His antisemitic opinions on the Dreyfus case are still depicted however, and while the real experts who proved he was a fraud are AdaptedOut, his InsaneTrollLogic still mitigates this.

* ArmiesAreEvil: Picquart is pretty much the only figure of the French military who truly wants to stand for justice and honesty in the case of Dreyfus. Most of the others believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories and want the army to remain "clean" and the very idea of another scandal hitting it prompts them to churn out lies, fake evidences and cover-ups to maintain the disgrace of Dreyfus. Dreyfus himself is the highest ranked Jewish person in the French army, and he had to struggle to get there given what the army's heads and his superiors think of his kind.

* TheAlcatraz: Devil's Island, the remote overseas penal colony off the coast of French Guiana Dreyfus is sent to.

* WreckedWeapon: The film opens with the infamous [[https://winners-files.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/sale_110-public/38_1.jpg public degradation of Dreyfus]], with an officer stripping him of his military grade insignias and breaking his officer's sword.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: When Picquart's investigation on Esterhazy starts going too dangerously far for them, his superiors first have him reassigned in garrison inspections in Lorraine, then he's sent in Africa. ''Then'' they want to send him in an area in Africa where he has high chances of being killed, and he simply decides to go back to France and face arrest.

* DrivenToSuicide: commandant Hubert Henry kills himself in his prison cell after the forging of his evidence against Dreyfus is exposed.

* ArmiesAreEvil: Picquart is pretty much the only figure of the French military who truly wants to stand for justice and honesty in the case of Dreyfus. Most of the others believe in antisemitic conspiracy theories and want the army to remain "clean" and the very idea of another scandal hitting it prompts them to churn out lies, fake evidences and cover-ups to maintain the disgrace of Dreyfus.

The film centers on [[BasedOnATrueStory the notorious 19th century Dreyfus Affair]]. [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French army]] officer Marie-Georges Picquart (Creator/JeanDujardin) is appointed chief of the army's intelligence section (Deuxième Bureau, service de renseignement militaire) in 1895. He discovers that doctored evidence was used to convict Alfred Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), one of the few Jewish members of the French Army's general staff (in which antisemitic conspiracy theories abund), of passing military secrets to the German Empire.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''[[JAccuse J'accuse]]'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and based on the Robert Harris book ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy''.

''An Officer and a Spy'' (French title ''[[{{Jaccuse}} J'accuse]]'') is a French historical drama film written and directed by Creator/RomanPolanski and based on the Robert Harris book ''Literature/AnOfficerAndASpy''.

Picquart can't stand lies and injustice in the army, and decides to risk his career and his life, going against his hierarchy and struggling for a decade to expose the truth and liberate the wrongly convicted Dreyfus from the Devil's Island prison.

Picquart decides to risk his career and his life, going against his hierarchy and struggling for a decade to expose the truth and liberate the wrongly convicted Dreyfus from the Devil's Island prison.