SOURCE: "Sanitizing Zola: Dorothy Arzner's Problematic Nana," in Literature Film Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1995, pp. 209-15.

In the following essay, Cousins analyzes Arzner's adaptation of Nana and concludes that Arzner's film "exposes the pernicious effects … of patriarchy" and challenges normative views on male-female relationships.

Nana, Zola's best-selling novel about a Second Empire harlot-cum-actress, has attracted successive generations of filmmakers. Two French directors turned the tale into memorable vehicles for their own actress wives. In 1926, Jean Renoir made the most notable of the silent versions with Catherine Hessling in the title role, while in 1955, Christian Jaque directed a lavish cinema-scope spectacle featuring Martine Carol. More recent exploitive Italian and Swedish adaptations have traduced Zola's indictment of debauchery into sexually explicit accounts of Nana's affairs.

The only Hollywood version of Zola's novel was made in 1934 by pioneering female director Dorothy Arzner. Despite the renewal of interest in her films and, in...