Amazing Photography Carries the Film and Heightens Its Impact!

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2008)

This film is amazing on several counts. First, the cinematography is mind boggling: we've got tons of extreme closeups, lots of low angle shots, pans and swish pans, even upside down shots. Dreyer is using the camera to tell the story of Joan of Arc's trial for heresy and her being burned at the stake.
Second, Dreyer wants the viewers to really become involved in the reality of the story. Like other films with unconventional takes on Jesus or other historical figures (such as by Martin Scorsese or Ken Russell), Carl Dreyer is really doing his own thing here, by telescoping her trial and execution into one day, without much referencing to her historical activities or character. In fact, Maria Falconetti portrays Joan as a naive, simple farm girl of deep faith, hardly conveying the image of someone capable of having led the French against the English. She spends most of her closeups either crying or saying "Oui," looking wide eyed like a deer caught in the headlights. Dreyer must have been saying here that Joan (actually Jeanne) was resigned to the inescapability of her situation. (The film is titled 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' not 'The History of Joan of Arc.')
Dreyer's whole purpose is to make the experience of her trial and death have a strong impact on the viewer. To further the reality of this, no makeup was used on any person, and the sets (when seen beyond the close-ups) were spare and almost bare, so as to not to detract from the interactions of the characters. Again, to emphasizes its reality, Dreyer introduces the story by showing that the dialogue in the film was taken directly from the real transcript of Joan's 1431 trial.
Dreyer's most formal contemporary critic complained that the 'irksome monotony' and 'maniacal' use of closeups resulted in a loss of spatial orientation for the characters, that is, you couldn't always tell who they were looking at or addressing. There was hardly any sense of the characters being in a room at all. In fact, Eisenstein's response on seeing the film was to call it 'a collection of pictures.' For Dreyer, however, his mostly all closeups approach was to show and emphasize the conflict between Joan and her interrogators.
But here's the thing: the impact of this film is undeniable. The intensity of the closeups accomplishes Dreyer's stated goal to shake up the audience and have them feel the suffering. Her being burned at the stake is equally uncompromising. As the scholar on the commentary track noted, this film makes most other films seem trivial.
The film is a compendium of French, German and Russian film making techniques. It gets a 10.
Note: The cinematographer, Rudolph Mate, who had previously worked extensively with Karl Freund, went on to his own successful career in the United States, showcasing Rita Hayworth and her hair in both 'Gilda' (1946) and 'The Lady From Shanghai' (1947)-- yes! the movie with the great Fun House Mirror shots, and as a director for 'When Worlds Collide' (1951), and the noir films 'Union Station' (1950) and 'D.O.A.' (1950) among others.