Cinema
The Passion of Joan of Arc
La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc
Carl Th. Dreyer · 1928
Synopsis
Rouen, 1431. Before a Church tribunal assembled under the authority of the English occupier, a young woman of faith is questioned by a throng of theologians and jurists, in a single, exhausting session drawn from the minutes of the trial. To confound her, she is handed a false letter from her king; she is pressed, she is threatened. The camera almost never leaves the faces, hers and those of the judges leaning over her.
Context
Invited to make a film in France by the Société générale des films, the director spent more than a year studying the minutes of the trial. He gave the role to Renée Falconetti, a stage actress, for whom it was her last film role, with Antonin Artaud among the judges. The film was shown in Copenhagen on 21 April 1928, then in Paris on 25 October. In December, the negative burned in Berlin; a second version edited from offcuts disappeared in its turn. In 1981, a print of the first cut was found at the Dikemark psychiatric hospital, near Oslo.
Who it is for
A silent film of about an hour and twenty minutes, almost entirely in close-ups; the version to watch is the one restored from the Oslo print.
Prizes and reception
Praised by the Paris press on its release, cut by the censors and then long seen in reworked versions, it was reconstituted by the Cinémathèque française in 1985.
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