With all the current interest in Gibson’s Passion, I thought it might be an apropos time to revisit another Passion and ask what kinds of lessons can be learned by thinking about these two films in tandem. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is widely viewed as one of the greatest films of all time. It is a view that I fully share. Christianity is central to both films although at quite different stages of the development of the religion. One film depicts a period that might be called the birth of Christianity and the other its adolescence. Together, they help put in perspective some of the controversy currently surrounding The Passion of the Christ. Many readers are already familiar with Gibson’s film, but far too few will be familiar with the 1928 film, so let’s first review its story, characteristics, and message.

The Passion of Joan of Arc was the work of the great Danish director, Carl Theodor Dreyer (1889-1968). He produced films from about 1919-1964. His output was less steady than for many great directors because he was a notorious perfectionist, taking a lot of time to complete a film and sometimes overrunning his budgets. The film catalogue that I have (from a large distributor) lists seven of his films as currently available. Among the best known, other than the one under discussion here, are The Parson’s Widow (1920), Vampyr (1932), Day of Wrath (1943), and Gertrud (1964). The Passion of Joan of Arc was his ninth film.

For his Passion, Dreyer was commissioned by the French government and was given what amounted to a massive budget for films of that era – 9 million francs. Dreyer was also provided with a screenplay but decided to throw it out and work instead from archived manuscripts of the actual trial of Joan held in 1431 in Rouen, France. Dreyer condensed the twenty-nine separate interrogations of Joan into one to provide the requisite cinematic pace. The words spoken by Joan in Dreyer’s film are therefore those actually spoken by the real Joan of Arc. Even Gibson would have to be envious of the indisputable historical authenticity that Dreyer was thus able to achieve. Like Gibson, Dreyer eschewed telling the larger story of his subject’s life and focused in relentlessly on the final period of that life culminating in martyrdom.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film and in black and white. Many of you will assume from those facts that it can therefore be nothing more than an antiquated art film of interest only to film historians or silent film aficionados. If so, you would be in error. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a film that belies its origin and the limitations that existed in the technology of filmmaking at that time. It is a work of utterly intense emotional impact featuring what is sometimes called the single finest performance ever put on film. Like Gibson’s film, it is an unflinching portrait of suffering, though Dreyer’s methods for achieving that end were quite different than Gibson’s.

Brief History of Joan d’Arc: For any of you who are unfamiliar with the history of Joan of Arc, here is a bare-bones recap. She was born around 1412 at Domrémy near Nancy in the Lorraine Province in eastern France. She was born to a peasant family, never learned to read or write, but was devoutly religious, having been raised in the Catholic church. By thirteen, she was having religious visions and hearing the voices of the saints. The voices persuaded her that God had chosen her to help King Charles VII of France drive the English from French soil. At the time, southern and eastern France were controlled by Charles but northwestern France, including Paris and Reims, was in the hands of the British and their French allies, the Burgundians. Joan asked the local military commander to take her to see King Charles. At first he simply laughed at her, but when the British laid siege to the city of Orléans, Charles' situation had become so desperate that he asked to receive the child who claimed to have heard the voices of the saints. Charles tested Joan by disguising himself and hiding among his courtiers. Joan, however, picked him out immediately and also told him what he had asked God in his morning prayers. This was enough to convince Charles to allow Joan to lead, at age seventeen, a French force against the British at Orléans. At first, the French commanders were reluctant to follow Joan, but when a number of her instructions led to surprising successes, the army soon felt invincible under her command. The British were routed from Orléans within ten days. Joan then led King Charles on an expedition into Reims, where he was crowned in the great cathedral on July 17th, 1729. Joan then led a force against the British in Paris, but was wounded in battle and captured by the Burgundians in May 1730. She was then taken to Rouen to stand trial, under the supervision of the British, for witchcraft and heresy.

The Plot: Dreyer’s rendition of Joan’s story has very little plot, focusing exclusively on the trial at Rouen. What we see is the interrogation, just questions and answers, but it is presented with such utter realism, that we feel that we are watching an actual documentary recording of the trial as it is progressing. The result is an intense emotional, psychological, and spiritual drama. Subtitles are provided for the questions and answers but only when the principals are speaking. Our focus is not to be distracted by the side conversations of the incidental characters. The simplicity of the answers provided by this uneducated but inspired 19-year-old heroine completely baffle her interrogators. They try to intimidate her into confessing, to trick her into misguided assertions about God and St. Michael, and to force her to recant on her claim that she is a daughter of God. She is tortured and bled to induce fever. They produce a forged letter, allegedly from King Charles, telling her to trust these priests who are, in reality, her enemies. Through all of this, we are shown mainly close-ups of the faces of the interrogators and Joan. There is very little action, other than Joan being assaulted once by guards and a crowd riot near the end of the film. Joan is asked if she was promised a reward by God and replies, “The salvation of my soul.” This provides enough of a basis for a charge of heresy, since it is imperative to the authority of the Catholic Church that no one qualify for salvation without the agency of the Church. Joan does briefly recant in response to the urging of a crowd, in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, but later, seeing a straw crown on the floor of her cell, she recovers the strength to stand by her conviction that she is God’s messenger, thus condemning herself to death by immolation. She is tied to a stake and set on fire. As she is engulfed in the flames, a mob of peasants attacks the soldiers. Only that final scene deviated from the true story.

A Unique Technical Construction: The filming technique employed in Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc resulted in a highly stylized composition unlike anything produced before or since. Dreyer intentionally defied many of the conventions of film-making to achieve his singular vision for this film. One issue is camera angles. Joan is almost always shot from above with the camera looking down, as though the interrogators are towering over her menacingly. It also can be viewed symbolically as Joan being viewed from God’s vantage point in heaven. The judges, by contrast, are always shot from an inferior angle. Joan’s interrogators seem like monsters and demons. One of the judges is even depicted with tuffs of hair reminiscent of the horns of the devil.

Another unique feature of the film is shot distance. There are none of the so-called “establishing shots” widely used in films to establish the lay of the land, so to speak, when characters enter a new scene. The entire film is shot in close-ups and medium distance shots. Consequently, The Passion of Joan of Arc is an extremely intimate film. The entire story is based on what is evident on the human face. Dreyer once stated, “Nothing in the world can be compared to the human face. It is a land one can never tire of exploring.” Eighty percent of this film is composed of shots of faces, parts of faces, or a face and part of a torso. The faces of the judges and the guards are shot in high contrast under bright lights with no makeup, revealing every crevice and flaw in high relief, symbolizing the inner imperfection of these individuals. Joan, on the other hand, is shot in softer light with less contrast. Although she also wears no makeup, her face reveals a perfection and purity that makes clear that this child is filled with inner conviction. The frames in which Joan appears rarely show anyone else, accentuating the fearful, friendless isolation she must have experienced.

A third special technique used by Dreyer is minimalism. There is very little distracting scenery. The walls, doors, and ceilings are bare and white, so that the various figures and faces stand out starkly against the background. It all seems like an abstraction. The pervasive whiteness is also suggestive of death and immortality. There is no extraneous detail, no clutter, no special effects. There are no religious symbols scattered around to imply righteousness in the proceedings.

With so little plot and action, one might assume that this film could easily become boring. Dreyer prevented that from happening by an unusual editing technique. The Passion of Joan of Arc uses rapid cuts (roughly double the usual number for a film of its time and length). This keeps the viewer riveting on the constantly changing perspectives and images.

Renee Maria Falconetti: Dreyer’s conception for this film could not have succeeded without the perfect face for the main character. Dreyer originally contemplated using an American actress, Lillian Gish, but there was resentment among the French public already about a Danish director being brought in to do a film about the great French national heroine. Using an American actress as the lead would have stirred further resentment. Dreyer discovered the face that he needed in a most unlikely place – at the Little Boulevard Theater in Paris. It was there he saw performing a young French actress named Renee Maria Falconetti, who had made her reputation as a vivacious comic actress, hardly what one would think appropriate for the part of Joan. Dreyer, however, saw that “There was a soul behind that façade.” After he conducted a screen test with Falconetti without make-up, he knew he had his Joan. Falconetti’s face embodied the qualities of Joan of Arc.

The filming of Joan of Arc was a virtual ordeal for Falconetti. Dreyer was a relentless taskmaster with an intense drive to achieve complete realism. Each shot was repeated over and over again so that Dreyer would have a large selection to choose from for the perfect facial nuances. Falconetti was sometimes forced to kneel on stone so that she would actually feel a degree of agony that she could then use in her performance. Falconetti was forced to shear her own hair in one scene so that her reaction would be as natural as possible. Dreyer’s idea in The Passion of Joan of Arc was to lay bare the essence of Joan of Arc by featuring Falconetti’s expressive face while suppressing all else. Falconetti could at least be thankful that Dreyer allowed a stand-in for the bloodletting scene (in which blood was actually let)! Falconetti’s tears have the appearance of utter authenticity and her facial expressions reveal a level of vulnerability that is unsurpassed if even equaled in the history of cinema. Her performance is beyond the capacity of my poor words to praise sufficiently. Falconetti made only this one movie and died in Buenos Aires in 1946.

The Traumatic History of The Film: After its completion, this film suffered its own kind of ordeals. The governments of both France and England took offense to Dreyer’s work, feeling that its anti-Church tone was excessive. They demanded cuts, which Dreyer reluctantly provided. The uncut negative was then destroyed by a fire in 1928. Dreyer put together an alternate version, taking advantage of the multiple takes he had required during filming. The film was further hacked up for its American release in 1933, which removed nearly 30 minutes of the film and added an opening commentary. Another version produced in 1951 superimposed title cards while slicing off a portion of the left side of the film to make place for a soundtrack! Then something almost miraculous happened in 1981. An almost pristine copy of the original uncut film was discovered in the closet of a mental institution in Norway. Apparently the Director of the Hospital had asked Dreyer for a copy to show to inmates. The currently available versions, both on VHS and DVD, feature a restoration made from the 1981 discovery. It has a running time of 77 minutes.

Soundtracks: Although Dreyer intended his film to be watched without sound, The Passion of Joan of Arc is most often watched with a companion soundtrack. My first encounter with this film included a soundtrack utilizing a solo organ and I thought it quite effective. The currently available versions feature a choral work composed by Richard Einhorn, called “Voices of Light”, composed expressly as a companion for this film. Owners of the DVD also have the option of listening to the film without sound as Dreyer intended.

The Relationship Between Passion and Violence: The word “passion” as it is used in the stories of Jesus and Joan of Arc means “intense suffering” experienced in martyrdom. It is only natural that people of good conscience and capacity for empathy should feel great compassion for historical figures who suffered great passion out of their commitment to noble causes. Such feelings of empathy can become the foundation of a religion such as Christianity or the adulation of a nation for a national heroine.

The great paradox in these religious or patriotic feelings is that they provide the impetus for BOTH extremes of human behavior – the most noble acts of charity and kindness on the one hand and the most ignoble acts of violence on the other hand. Christianity figures prominently in both Gibson’s Passion and Dreyer’s Passion but at opposite ends of the spectrum of righteousness. Gibson’s Passion depicts the persecution of Jesus that has served as great inspiration for hundreds of millions of people since it occurred. Dreyer’s Passion depicts the religious persecution of Joan by some of those people who believe themselves inspired by the persecution of Jesus. Dreyer is at no small effort to ensure that viewers understand than Joan was crushed by human cruelty and abuse of power, not by supernatural forces. Jesus’s message of peace and love somehow had been perverted by the Catholic Church in 1431 to justify persecution and torture of Joan of Arc.

Many people of good-will who watch Gibson’s Passion are inspired by it and are honestly at a loss to understand why the film is controversial. Viewers who are decent people know that they cannot take violent action against those who tortured Jesus and do not imagine that violent action against people is some sense “like” those who persecuted Jesus would be remotely appropriate. One reviewer, for example, says, “I am upset by all the people saying that this film is anti-Semitic. I think it was fair and accurate.” That reasoning, as far as it goes, may seem valid. I’ve seen it repeated over and over.

The problem is that the history of humankind clearly indicates, with the grossest kind of evidence, that religious passion is all too easily manipulated by institutions (churches and governments) and so-called leaders. One Epinion’s author provides this straight-forward explanation in the comment section of one review: “The people who expressed concern over the movie’s portrayal of the Jews did so for practical and historical reasons – because this very portrayal has been used to incite and to justify violence against the Jews and, ultimately, a mass extermination of them.” People of good will (Christian or otherwise) need to understand that although Jesus’s passion might only inspire for them personally a sincere effort to live in accordance with his teachings, the facts of history make it abundantly clear that the emotions stirred by witnessing the suffering of a loved one are all too easily manipulated into violence against others. Worse, history also indicates that such violence is often indiscriminate in nature. Human beings not only seek vengeance but will exercise that vengeance against people who merely resemble the wrong-doers in some categorical way. American history, for example, is full of examples of European settlers attacking villages of peaceful native Americans in retaliation for an attack on white settlements by renegades. It is also replete with examples of native Americans attacking inoffensive white settlements in retaliation for crimes committed by criminals of European descent living outside the community of settlers. You may believe that you would never yourself commit violent action against someone merely because they resemble a person who had done violence against yourself or a loved one, but the reality of history is that it happens routinely. You need look no further than the invasion of Iraq for what amounts, in actuality, to retaliation for 9/11 for a recent example. The reason why people can’t simply rejoice in the passionate religious or patriotic experiences of others is that those religious and patriotic passions provide the principal energy, when subverted by leaders and institutions, for most of the worst examples of persecution throughout world history. The more intensely such emotions are inflamed, the greater the risk of their redirection into violence. One important difference between Gibson’s Passion and Dreyer’s is that Gibson’s inflames religious fervor that may find expression in violence while Dreyer’s illuminates the dangers of persecution by religiously-inspired institutions.

Joan of Arc and homophobia: It would be silly, I think, to imagine that Joan of Arc was a lesbian. Given the strength of her religious devotion, I imagine that she thought little about sexuality in her short life and probably died a virgin. Nevertheless, there are interesting implications in her story in relationship to intolerance to homosexuality and, more broadly, women’s rights. It is no accident that Joan of Arc is not only a national heroine of France but a heroine of woman’s rights advocates as well. Joan wore men’s clothes and even as a young girl dressed like a boy. She claimed that she had been told by God to dress as a man until the British had been driven from France. The issue of her clothing is one specifically addressed by her interrogators – as if to suggest it as “unnatural”, just as homosexuality is sometimes viewed in modern times. Joan is also seen with shorn hair. Her face is somewhat masculine as one might expect for a woman leading the life of a soldier. We also see, in Dreyer’s film, a lone woman being persecuted by accusers that are all men. She is accused of witchcraft, a charge classically reserved for women. Her tormentors tower over her and put her through every psychological ordeal. It is all too suggestive of a gang rape. One of my favorite Epinion authors recently wrote an excellent review about a documentary history of treatment of gays in film. I might suggest that although Joan might or might not have been gay, Dreyer’s film is a rare case of an early sympathetic treatment of gay themes, even if the film culminates, as so many did, with the death of the manly woman.

If the reader has gotten this far, there should be little doubt that I strongly recommend The Passion of Joan of Arc. It will force you to rethink your view of silent and black-and-white films. It also enlightens the current discussion of Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Gibson could have learned a lot from Dreyer about how to convey emotional intensity without resorting to excessive sadistic violence.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Denmark:

Babette's Feast
Celebration
Dancer in the Dark
Day of Wrath
Gertrud
The Kingdom
The Kingdom II
Pelle The Conqueror
Vampyr

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age