France
3.5*
Director:
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Screenwriters:
Carl Theodor Dreyer
Joseph Delteil
Director of Photography:
Rudolph Maté
Running time: 82 minutes
Original title: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
The saying goes that a picture is worth a thousand words, and this is particularly true of silent films, where one often has only the images to rely on. Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc has a remarkable following and is revered as one of the best silent films. Above all, reviewers focus on the force of the lead performance, by Renée Falconetti, whose face conveys anguish and passion with great clarity and admirable conviction.
However, for all the veneration it has inspired in viewers all over the world, and I grant that Dreyer’s film has much going for it, it has never provided me with the kind of transcendental experience that other viewers have written about.
Based on the trial records archived at the Bibliothèque de la Chambre des Députés, the film prides itself on being an exact reproduction of historical events. It focuses on the interrogation of Joan of Arc in court in 1431, her obstinate refusal to disavow her statement that she is the daughter of God and her eventual execution by burning.
The problem is the same one I had with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, incidentally also very faithful to previous texts, and my objection has nothing to do with the religious content of the two films. Rather, I question the approach of a filmmaker who seems to think that the viewer would be able to fill in the big gap left by the removal of the film’s build-up. In Gibson’s film, as in Dreyer’s film, if you had never heard of Jesus Christ, or of Joan of Arc, the film simply wouldn’t make much sense, since the reason for their suffering has been wholly omitted.
In the film, Joan of Arc is supposed to be about 19 years old. At the time of the shoot, Falconetti was almost twice her age: 35. This is not a fatal disparity, but since the main character states her age in the opening scene, I found it difficult, from the very beginning, to trust anything she had to say.
And then there is the face of the film, Falconetti’s face, with eyes, says Roger Ebert, “that will never leave you”. That much is true: when I think of the film, I think of Falconetti’s face and her unblinking eyes. But that is because Dreyer spends so much time showing us her face, and Falconetti spends so little time doing anything else than trying not to blink. Her pauses are frustrating, and she remains a very opaque figure at the centre of the drama, even though it is clear that the director intended for her to seem like she was drunk on divinity. Most of the time, whenever she is asked an important question, she stares blankly at her interrogator, her eyes as big as plates.
The film is evidently on her side, not only because an opening title card informs us that we are about to watch the story of “a young, pious woman confronted by a group of orthodox theologians and powerful judges” (théologiens aveuglés et juristes chevronnés: blind theologians and seasoned legal experts), but also because the judges themselves are not portrayed very flatteringly: In one of the opening shots, a judge scratches his ear and examines the piece of wax on his finger. The judges often snicker at Joan’s responses to their questions and victimise her even further.
Despite my objections about its plot and the central performance, The Passion of Joan of Arc is an audiovisual gem. I watched a version with Richard Einhorn’s glorious “Voices of Light” on the soundtrack, and the experience of listening to his choir music, often accompanied by strings, and watching the stark, clean images with pure white backgrounds, sometimes in very elegant tracking shots over slightly expressionist décor, was extraordinary.
The film is intense, and many sequences stand out for provoking powerful feelings in the viewer, but Dreyer’s choice to place his central character above all else (significantly, he fails to introduce all other characters by name) makes it a very prejudiced work of art. On the technical side of the production, however, The Passion of Joan of Arc is one of the most beautiful films ever produced.