The Passion of Joan of Arc - CRITERION DVD Review

Is there one film that you could truly call a work of art?

Yes.  The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Masterpiece is used too quickly or mis-used this days that a new word perhaps should be coined to describe the handful of films that truly are masterpieces. 

This is a silent film.  It's also in black and white.  It's stark, stylistic and unique.  

A lot of you will never even try to watch it but I assure you it as timeless as the finest ballet, opera, or piece of classical music.   

Passion broke the still developing rules of film-making in 1928 and still feels innovative, daring and impassioned today.  The images of the faces are ones you will never forget. Whether you have seen the previously available murky video taken from a damaged print of the film or the beautiful and meticulously restored Criterion DVD release.

There is one face, above all others, however, that will be remembered alongside any of the faces imprisoned on the screen within your head and that is the face of Renee Maria Falconetti. Of Falconetti's performance Pauline Kael wrote: "It may be the finest performance ever recorded on film.''

Indeed it is.

Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968), the Danish director was preparing a large budgeted film on the life of Joan of Arc in 1927. He became fascinated however with the actual preserved transcripts of Joan's 1431 trial and began constructing a film that would include them in its narrative. He at one point was seriously considering American Silent Film star Lilian Gish for the role of Joan. The French were already outraged that the Danish Dreyer would be directing a film about their recently Sainted Joan, but to have an American actress portray Saint Joan? What an outrage!!! Dreyer let the rumors persist even after he had made a little known theater performer who specialized in light comedy and cabaret shows, his Joan of Arc.

Falconetti would become immortal (though she would never make another film, the ambitious theater company she started would become a financial failure and she would die in Rio Di Janero in 1946). Falconetti, who wore no make-up, and was filmed in sometimes unflinching close-ups and would become one of the most famous faces, one of the most praised actresses of all time,for one film.

One film. This one.

And she would never make another one.

Director Dreyer originally released the film without credits,and without a chosen music score to be played along with it's showing. The film has almost no establishing shots (it does have one of the torture room which still lacks enough of a perspective to give the viewer a conventional idea of room size however) and rely's almost entirely on stark close-ups of some of the most interesting and fascinating faces you have ever seen in any painting, photograph, or on film. Faces without make-up. Dreyer forbid the use of make-up on the film. It may sound positively Dogme95 to some. Indeed it's no secret that Von Triers (Dancer in the Dark)is obsessed with Dryer.

It was 1928.

The film is based with a great deal of meticulous accuracy on the 29 cross examinations which led to Joan of Arc being burned as a witch at the stake in 1431. The film avoids any mention of witchcraft or the occult however. The film also condenses the 29 cross examinations into approximately 5, which is the number of reels the film runs (at 82 minutes). The film also ends with a riot that never actually occurred.

She was as the film shows, brought before a church court and charged with heresy. Joan believed she was the blessed daughter of God and had been inspired by heavenly visions. The church considered anyone who was certain they were going to heaven, to be a blasphemer. Anyone who did not need the church's blessing was undoubtedly possessed by Satan. Such people were
ex-communicated, imprisoned and/or burned at the stake.

And so the defiant 19 year old girl, was made to stand trial and endure torture before being burned at the stake. She would become a recognized Saint in approximately 1914. 14 years prior to this  being made.

Passion was one of more than a dozen silent films made about Joan of Arc. And some were well made exciting films that showed Joan bravely leading the French troops against the British-- complete with hundreds of extras.

This film did not do that.

Roger Ebert wrote: " If you go to the Danish Film Museum in Copenhagen you can see Dreyer's model for the extraordinary set he built for the film. He wanted it all in one piece (with movable walls for the cameras), and he began with towers at four corners, linked with concrete walls so thick they could support the actors and equipment. Inside the enclosure were chapels, houses and the ecclesiastical court, built according to a weird geometry that put windows and doors out of plumb with one another and created discordant visual harmonies (the film was made at the height of German Expressionism and the French avant-garde movement in art). "

Yet in the film, Dreyer never shows us anything but fleeting glimpses of the magnificent set he had spent millions on constructing.

There is nothing conventional about the film. Not then and not now. Dreyer uses stark close-ups and often breaks the rules of crossing camera sight lines to try and have us understand at least partially the fear and unbalance the 19 year old Joan was feeling when dozens of men, church leaders, politicians, and British soldiers, were interrogating her or trying to force her to sign a confession.

She was only 19. She had endured an incredible amount of hardship. Risked her life to do what she believed was right. Became a hero to most of the population of France. Had listened to an inner voice which gave her the strength she needed to be a war hero and for her troubles was now on trial, facing the most powerful men in the world she knew. Men who hated and despised her and wanted to break her down and use her as an example to keep control over the people.

Everything about the interiors used in the film is stark and plain. Plain curved white walls which make even Dreyer's medium shots feel like close-ups. Windows that are un-even and of slightly imperfect shapes (shades of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). Sometimes the bars in the window seem to resemble crosses, and sometimes crosses are seen as shadows on a floor or on a wall. Dreyer wants us not just to feel the oppression and fear of Joan, he wants us inside her head. He wants us to somehow hear her thoughts.

We do.

Dreyer painstakingly over the course of a long six months shoot, extracted the performance he needed to have from Falconetti. He didn't let her or other actors use music to help inspire them as they performed (an accepted practice used by most film directors of the time). Dreyer didn't want the actors in this film to be performing' or acting'. He wanted something more pure and more natural. He forced Falconetti to shear her hair for the film. He made his actors shave the tops of their heads, because that was the style of the 1430's, even though most of the actors would be wearing skull caps and the audience would never know if the tops of their heads were shaven or not. Often he would excuse all but a few technicians and himself from the set to work with Falconetti , so she would give him the perfect expression he was looking for. Together they would watch dailies, so she would completely understand what he wanted from her. Dreyer was a
perfectionist and wanted realism. People who worked with him often considered him not just intense, but insane. ( His best known films also include 1932's Vampyr and 1964's Gertrud).

It was written, directed and edited by Carl Dreyer (though some of the original ideas in the screenplay Dreyer once contemplated filming remain). It was photographed by Rudolph Mate with art direction by Hermann Warm.

The film was re-edited a few times to appease the Catholic Church and also some censors during the late 20's and early 1930's. Dreyer who had hoped his film would be shown to a wide audience was disheartened his masterpiece was only appreciated by a small audience of rich entertainment patrons. He had meant the film to be seen by everyone not just the upper class. Dreyer's original cut of the film was actually seen publicly only a few dozen times.

Then the film disappeared.

The original elements were lost in a fire. So Dreyer himself went back and re-made the film from alternate cuts that were still available. But these versions of the film were sometimes cut, and became worn and deteriorated.Previous videos had been made from various pirated copies of the film.

However, in 1981 an original Dreyer supervised edited print was found in a Norwegian mental institution closet.

Criterion and film preservationists joined forces to create a fully restored, digital re-master of the film. The 1999 released DVD includes a wealth of extras which include the choral and orchestral work that the film inspired: Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light. It serves as a near perfect musical accompaniment to the film. The meticulous restoration of the film is stunning, especially when we can see glimpses of how the 1981 found print actually looked before it's digital re-master and repair. On the disk is also a commentary from Dreyer scholar Casper Tybjerg of the the University of Copenhagen which is quite informative. There is also
a production design archive and an audio interview with Falconetti's daughter, Helene.

Let yourself  experience this work of art soon.