The Passion of Joan of Arc (Criterion Collection Spine #62)
by Carl Theodor Dreyer
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Andr? Berley, Antonin Artaud, Eugene Silvain, Maria Falconetti, Maurice SchutzDirector: Carl Theodor Dreyer
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Silent, Special Edition
Picture Format: Academy Ratio, 1.33:1
Running Time: 82 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-10-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of The Passion of Joan of Arc (Criterion Collection Spine #62)
Movie Review: Saint Carl
Summary: 5 Stars
A while back the Turner Classic Movie channel dedicated a day to the Director Carl Theodore Dreyer. I'd never heard of him before. I watched a couple of the film offerings and was captivated. I purchased four Dreyer films from Amazon. I'm glad I did. My favorite [personal bias] is 'Day of Wrath' but the 'Passion of Joan of Arc' is also wonderful and, considering that it is a 'silent' film it still speaks plenty loudly enough. Dreyer apparently searched for a time before he found his perfect 'Joan' in Maria Falconetti. The casting was indeed perfect and closeups of the illuminated and tortured Maria's face perfectly mimic the emotions of the strange and naive Joan.
Confused and increasingly hopeless, she stands before the Holy Office accused of being a witch. We all know the story through it's many retellings. She hears heavenly voices and will not deny them. She is condemned and her writhing death in the flames is both horrific and weirdly appropriate. Joan with her devout mysticism is simply too good to live.
The film is, of course, filmed in black-and-white and the light and shadow is hallmark Dreyer--every pore and imperfection and droplet of sweat show on the face of the fervent Falconetti/Joan. If I have a criticism, and it's only a small one, is that perhaps there is a little too much emphasis on these closeups. In that way it resembles Gibson's 'Passion of the Christ' in which the scourging was overdone.
Ron Braithwaite, author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico
Summary of The Passion of Joan of Arc (Criterion Collection Spine #62)
With its stunning camerawork and striking compositions, Carl Th. Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc convinced the world that movies could be art. Ren?e Falconetti gives one of the greatest performances ever recorded on film, as the young maiden who died for God and France. Long thought to have been lost to fire, the original version was miraculously found in perfect condition in 1981-in a Norwegian mental institution. Criterion is proud to present this milestone of silent cinema in a new special edition featuring composer Richard Einhorn's Voices of Light, an original opera/oratorio inspired by the film.Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is as truly mythic as any film ever shot, its artistic achievement rivaled by its turbulent history. The focal point of controversy when released in 1928, the original film was lost for a half-century until an intact copy of Dreyer's original version was recovered in the early '80s.
Seeing Joan of Arc today remains a cinematic revelation, its approach to storytelling, set design, editing, and especially cinematography (by Rudolph Mat?, who also shot Dreyer's visionary Vampyr) radical then, and still strikingly modern many decades later. Influenced by both German expressionist film and the French avant-garde, Dreyer's huge set was designed with asymmetrical doors, windows, and arches, through which Mat?'s camera moves along equally off-centered, even vertiginous, but fluid trajectories. Although the story is epic in its implications, the film is composed primarily of extreme close-ups, especially of Joan and her principal interrogator, Bishop Cauchon, and medium shots of small groups, often shot from low angles. Dreyer and Mat? shot their cast in bright light, without makeup, giving each wrinkle, blemish, or tuft of hair sculptural detail.
For all its visual invention, however, Dreyer's film is most devastating in its central performance by Falconetti (n?e Renee Falconetti), a French stage actress who made her only screen appearance here--one critic Pauline Kael has suggested "may be the finest performance ever recorded on film." Through Falconetti, Joan's spiritual devotion, simple dignity, and suffering become utterly real; even without a dialogue track and only sparse inter-titles, the film achieves a fevered eloquence.
This meticulous restoration also includes composer Richard Einhorn's beautiful oratorio, Voices of Light, inspired by Dreyer's film and set to texts by women mystics from medieval and early-Renaissance Europe. A luminous work on its own, Einhorn's oratorio matches both the dramatic arcs and tremulous emotions of Dreyer's film, while its juxtaposition of choral and solo voices (with early-music vocal quartet Anonymous 4 evoking Joan herself) echoes the martyr's confrontation with the court. --Sam Sutherland
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