The Passion of Joan of Arc
Can you imagine a movie comprised almost entirely of close-ups? Would you feel claustrophobic? Want to shove your elbows outward to create some breathing room? Stand up and stretch and take huge, gasping breaths? Or perhaps even hit pause and take a walk outside?
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc made me feel all of those things. And therein lies a lot of its brilliance.
Set in the last hours of Joan of Arc’s life, the movie covers her trial, how her English judges coerced her, her recanting and her eventual execution at the stake. We all know the story and we all know how it is going to end, but it is still gripping, moving and utterly consuming.
Joan is played brilliantly by Maria Falconetti. She is wide-eyed, she is afraid and she is resigned. The camera frames her face. At most you can see her face and shoulders. Her tear-streaked cheek fills the screen. She tilts her head, looks down in defeat and you want to jump up and shake her and tell her to fight or yell or scream – just don’t take what these bastards are saying so calmly!
If Joan’s face is one of innocence and acceptance, Dreyer has chosen the antagonists even more brilliantly. Every single actor has a face that could inspire a comic artist to create his evil, plotting, scheming baddie. Hooked noses, curling lips, ears sprouting hair, supercilious glances, conniving chuckles and blubbering superiority are all in full force.
In the first scene, Joan is brought into the court. Dreyer surrounds her with guards that dwarf her. And he shoots her from above, making her even smaller. The committee of jurors are placed on a slightly elevated dais and are shot from below. All of this accentuates the stress that Joan is placed in. Dreyer often has shots in the film where we see only parts of a character’s face with the background providing relevant context and meaning – for example, the image used in this post where we see only a part of Joan’s face and the cross looms in the background. The provocative camera angles continue throughout the film.
Another scene that’s fascinating is one where Joan is threatened with torture if she does not confess. She’s initially calm. Then she is shown the device on which she will be tortured – a plank over which a wheel with spikes will be rotated. The torture master starts turning the wheel and the camera focuses in on it. The whirring of the wheel gets faster and faster. Joan is afraid. It spins faster still, filling the screen and becoming a blur. Joan faints in fear and my heart was pounding. Brilliantly constructed to build tension and anxiety.
I watched the Criterion Collection DVD and it has provides interesting background information on the film – “Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981—in a Norwegian mental institution.” It also offers the movie with no sound whatsoever and with an opera score that was inspired by the film. I watched the completely silent version first – it was the way Dreyer wanted it to be watched. I then started to watch the film with the score, but having watched it silent and been so taken with it, the score felt like too much and I stopped.
Whether you watch it for the first time with or without the music, I recommend you do watch this movie. This is a master at work – he takes a story that you know and makes you care, makes you feel and keeps you riveted through the whole harrowing tale.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
wow…this movie was a fabulous watch. had seen it way back in 2006. u shud have mentioned tat the movie was made in 1928, hence the silent version.
falconetti was awesome, but a lot of credit shud goto the cinematographer as well. it was captured beautifully….
One of the most rousing historical characters I am fascinated by. Thanks for the recommendation Shripriya!! Nice writeup. Do write more pls.
Nice reco Shri… thanks! Keep more gems like this coming.
Will go on my to watch list now ;)
Good recco Shripriya. Will def’ly have to watch this one. Keep them coming..:)..And the actress hasnt acted in more than 2 or 3 films in her whole career…Got to kno more @ this angle…
lovely post!
@Shripriya…great recco…another film that is based on Saint Joan’s life is Luc Besson’s epic ‘Messenger’, where Milla Jovovich played the saint/witch..with confusing innocence…
@crazyrals – Yep, silent b/c fo the period it was made. Title cards used to convey what’s going on.
@VPJ, Ravi, Magik – Thank you. Will try
@Arthi – Yeah, I don’t know why she acted in so few movies. I can’t see her playing a more mundane, everyday role, but that is also because she inhabited this role so well.
@Ram V – Thanks for the Besson reco. Am getting to him – moving forward chronologically
@Shripriya: yes, tat title card thing was a title-turn off, felt like i was watching charlie-chaplin. such a fantastic movie deserved to have voice/dialogs; the actors had to express so much with their faces for the lack of dialogs :(
nice write-up, shripriya. i like how you actually brought attention to specific scenes.
great movie. just watched it. thanks for the recco once again.
@Amanda – thank you.
@Satyendra – glad you liked it. Did you watch it with or without the music?
Shripriya: im sorry, i shud hv mentioned it in my comment. i watched it without any music, (i was in office, u see…) and plan to watch it with music later tonight…
Not seen the movie so can’t comment.
‘Can you imagine a movie comprised almost entirely of close-ups?’
Santosh Sivan’s ‘The Terrorist’ has almost 80% close-up & extreme closeup.
Great recommendation, will make it a point to watch this, its not easy to describe a movie the way you’ve done
@uh – Thanks for letting me know. Been wanting to check it out.
@Vishal – thank you.