An essential work of cinema

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2008)

Carl Dreyer is one of the first and true masters of the art. His direction is always exceptionally controlled and crafted and for me this film encapsulates succinctly his dual expressionistic and formalistic approach to cinema. Although Dreyer succeeds in creating an extremely credible depiction of the trial and tribulation of Joan of Arc, he knew the filmic medium was not, and never could be, knowledge, fact or reality, and so he presents experience, truth and authenticity.
The film can be argued to be entirely shot from the mind's-eye view of Joan in relation to her locality to give the impression that we, as Roger Ebert said, are not watching a film but in fact watching "fragments from Joan's own experience". Hence, the reason why everything is filmed in either, close-ups or medium shots, the reason why there are no establishing shots and very few visual linkages. Filming in this way also created the intended affect of overwhelming claustrophobia and discomfort for the audience- a mediation of persecution one could say.
A lot has been said on Dreyer's inspirational use of the facial close-up in this film. His attention to the details on his performers faces, such as lines, warts, freckles, sweat and hair, and even on two occasions a fly, are used as revelations to their character and personality. The insignificant is made significant. Their faces are filmed in such a purist, "microscopic" fashion (no make-up was permitted by Dreyer) that their features and expressions convey a deeper more profound understanding of their emotions and thinking than words ever could. Renee Falconetti's face is also almost always seen in isolated shots and often filmed from a height thus accentuating her spiritual solitude and physical defencelessness. In contrast the trial judges and their faces are often shot from below, accentuating their threat to Joan and their dominance over her. Also her face is never in shadow and often captured in grey whereas the judges are always shot in shadow and have a more defined black and white composure, emblematic I believe of their inner good and bad.
The acting is superlative undoubtedly helped though by Dreyer's cruel and unrelenting treatment of his actors. Dreyer became a notoriously demanding and dictatorial director after this film. He reportedly drove its star Falconetti into a mental breakdown in order to get the right emotional intensity he desired for the film. His pursuit for total realism, or to be more exact total authenticity, knew no bounds. The scene were Joan suffers a bloodletting was in fact real, albeit from a stand-ins arm. Falconetti never made another film again, yet her performance, I among others, deem as being arguably the finest ever filmed.
Everything about this film is manipulated to convey the mind-set of Joan, her disturbed emotions and confused thinking, as well as her physical vulnerability and spiritual purity. Also anything that is not important to the conveyance of Joan's condition and situation is not included, hence the massive and very expensive set that was built but very little of it used. All the images presented conceivably convey what she could have seen and the way she might have seen it. Hence, the reason I believe for the upside down and backward shot of the English soldiers entering the gates of the castle, possibly a symbolic reference to St. Peter being crucified upside down, as allegorical parallels can be drawn with the historical story of Joan and the Biblical one of St Peter. Also, the swinging camera that makes the tower appear to be moving while she is burning is I believe a subjective representation of Joan's mental and physical suffering and the fact that she is about to depart from the earth. Either way these are certainly not just stylistic flourishes. The angular composition of the trial judges in relation to Joan and her relation to them, the off-kilter framing showing sometimes only half a head or at least only the head, and the fact that the judges are filmed moving in to and out of the frame only enhance capturing Joan's mental state of mind and her sincerity and honesty in the face of her Pietistic and duplicitous accusers. Furthermore, the weird and bizarre set designs from Hermann Warm, famous for his expressionist sets for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, only add to the disillusioning and disturbing overall effect for the viewer.
The themes of this film are also present in many of Dreyer's other works, namely his fascination with the incompatibility of institutionalised religion and individual faith, the physical dominance of the male over the female (somewhat dated now), and the power of the human soul over earthly ambitions and corruption. These themes appear to be of personal significance to Dreyer in nearly all his films. There is humanity and a desire to create sympathy, and not indifference, towards all his characters in his films.
The Passion of Joan of Arc is an aesthetically austere yet serenely beautiful, psychologically uncompromising yet spiritually moving piece of work. The 15 hundred cuts and the way the film is structured, in clearly defined chapters, and, as already discussed, the way it is shot in close locality to Joan and always in relation to her immediate surroundings, gives the deceptive impression of simplicity and naturalness, whereas in fact the film is highly sophisticated and stylised. It also makes what Jean Cocteau said about the film even more true. That was, that it played like "an historical document from an era in which cinema didn't exist".
Also, Richard Einhorn's 'Voices Of Light' musical score, first presented with the film in 1995, is an undeniably creative and truly inspired piece of work which adds to the intensely emotional, powerful and hypnotically engaging visuals of the film.