The Passion of Joan of Arc
About The Passion of Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc is a prisoner of the English at Rouen. French clerics loyal to them try her for heresy. She holds to the voices and to her mission through questioning, tricks, and threats. Under pressure she signs a confession, then takes it back. She receives communion and is burned. The crowd turns violent as the fire takes her.
Cast & crew
More about The Passion of Joan of Arc
The Société Générale des Films invited Carl Theodor Dreyer to make a film in France. He spent more than a year on the trial transcripts before writing, with Joseph Delteil, a script that stays inside the captivity, the trial, and the execution. Renée Falconetti, a stage actress, plays Joan in her only major film role. Rudolph Maté photographed it. Actors wore no makeup. One concrete set, built like a medieval prison, stood in for Rouen. Dreyer also edited.
Themes
Background
The script follows the English captivity and the Rouen trial, not the campaigns. Joan's renewed popularity in France in the 1920s is why the Société Générale des Films accepted the subject.
In film history
For decades the film circulated only in re-edited versions. The 1981 Oslo print is the one treated as Dreyer's cut.
Making
French nationalists questioned whether a Danish director should film Joan. Dreyer answered with the trial record and with faces shot so close that the set is often only a wall behind the head.
Reviews
A jury of historians at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair ranked it fourth on a list of twelve films.
Look
Rudolph Maté shot almost entirely in close-up. Dreyer barred makeup and lit the judges so the faces read as harsh. The prison is one concrete set modeled on medieval architecture, not the Rouen of 1431.
Music
The film was silent. Scores written for it later include Ole Schmidt's in 1983 and Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light in 1994.
Preservation
The original negative was destroyed in the UFA fire of 6 December 1928. A print of the final cut was found in 1981 at Dikemark Hospital near Oslo and became the basis of later restorations.
Notes
- The Danish premiere was 21 April 1928. The French premiere was 25 October 1928.
- The Archbishop of Paris and government censors forced cuts before the French opening.
- The original negative burned in a fire at the UFA studios in Berlin on 6 December 1928.
- In 1981 a print of Dreyer's final cut turned up at Dikemark Hospital, a mental institution near Oslo.
- Antonin Artaud, Michel Simon, Maurice Schutz, and André Berley are in the court.
- At the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, a historians' poll called the Brussels 12 placed the film fourth.
- Later scores include Ole Schmidt (1983) and Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light (1994).
Scenes
- The judges press Joan until she signs, and she recants.
- She is given communion and then taken to the stake.
- The crowd reacts as the fire starts.
Influenced by
- Trial transcript of Joan of Arc
Also available
- Internet Archive (DreyersThePassionOfJoanOfArc)
