Has God promised you things? ✵ The Passion of Joan of Arc - VISIONARIES ✵ 1902–1931 - The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

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IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Historical drama

DIRECTOR

Carl Theodor Dreyer

WRITERS

Joseph Delteil, Carl Theodor Dreyer

STAR

Maria Falconetti

BEFORE

1917 Falconetti stars in La Comtesse de Somerive, the first of her two feature movies.

AFTER

1932 Dreyer makes his first sound movie with the horror movie Vampyr.

1943 Dreyer’s movie Day of Wrath returns to the theme of witchcraft with a tale of 17th-century persecution.

1957 Otto Preminger adapts George Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan for cinema, starring Jean Seberg in her debut role.

The story of Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc), or the Maid of Orleans, has been filmed several times, mostly as an action-adventure in which she leads an army against English invaders in 15th-century France. But Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer went back to the transcripts of Joan’s trial to create an intimate and emotionally grueling account of her persecution and execution at the hands of the church.

By all accounts, the shoot was as grim and punishing as anything depicted on screen, particularly for Maria Falconetti as Joan, who was put through an exhausting ordeal. The director keeps his camera tight on her face, contrasting her tortured expressions with the pinched features of the clerics—all shot in extreme close-up, with no makeup, and harsh lighting.

As matters get progressively worse for Joan, the movie keeps the audience inside her tormented world for as long as it can. Even as she is burned at the stake, Dreyer focuses relentlessly on Joan rather than on the attempt to save her. As the director himself once put it, “Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face.”

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The trial scene was shot in a hugely expensive replica of the ecclesiastical court at Rouen Castle, where the historical Joan was tried.

What else to watch: Sunrise (1927) ✵ Vampyr (1932) ✵ Day of Wrath (1943) ✵ Ordet (1955) ✵ Gertrud (1964)