AllMovie

A belletrist with one of the most celebrated careers in the 19th century literary canon, Frenchman Emile Zola founded the Naturalist movement, and both argued and ably demonstrated that scientific principles could be applied to authorship of the classic roman. Zola also lived out a series of extremely colorful experiences, including potentially libelous implication in the Dreyfus Affair and a terminally strange death that many believed a homicide. Zola stands at the center of the biographical documentary Famous Authors: Emile Zola, which provides a concise, 30-minute overview of the writer's life and literary accomplishments.