Carl Dreyer: The passion of Joan
of Arc (La passion de Jeanne d'Arc), 1928, Kilkenny
Castle, 20 August 2005
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| Carl Dreyer: The passion of Joan of Arc, 1928, film stills, images held here |
In 1431 Joan of Arc was tried and condemned as a heretic
in the castle tower of a château in Rouen, France, the
then seat of the English occupying government. The Danish
director Carl Dreyer's silent-movie classic, The passion
of Joan of Arc, which deals with Joan's trial and execution,
was recently screened as part of the Kilkenny Arts Festival
and the Parade Tower in Kilkenny's medieval castle seemed
an appropriate venue to see it. The ensemble 3epkano
added to the occasion with a performance of their own specially
written score.
Some sense of trepidation accompanied us to the screening.
The film had inspired an awesome reputation, but I'd never
met anyone who'd seen it. The hype wasn't the kind that came
with a large PR budget and popular-media saturation. It was
that more persuasive kind, the kind that consisted of glimpses
and echoes through time. There were intimations of greatness,
and these subtle hints, I knew, could be cruelly exposed in
the light of fixed attention. Our usher for the evening reassured
us, "It'll be great craic," he said, as we took
our seats; a sentiment somewhat at odds with the prevailing
mood - the plot, after all, seemed to indicate that the next
ninety minutes or so would be short on laughs.
The legend of Joan has inspired and been added to by some
of our greatest dramatists and composers. From Shakespeare
to Brecht, from Giuseppe Verdi to Leonard Cohen, writers have
re-presented her to us as an enduringly fascinating figure.
There have been many films too, with portrayals by actresses
including Ingrid Bergman and Jean Seberg. Robert Bresson's
1962 film, The trial of Joan of Arc, like Dreyer's film,
is based directly on transcripts from the original trial and
it is interesting to compare these two great directors making
very different films from the same historical material. Despite
this abundance, however, many people continue to regard Dreyer's
film as providing the most vivid and moving portrait of all.
Joan of Arc grew up during the time of the 'Hundred Years
War'. She was born in the village of Domremy in 1412, in an
area loyal to the Armagnacs. France at that time was split
by a factional rivalry between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs,
which allowed the English make easy gains. Joan received visions
from Saint Michael telling her to drive out the English and
to bring Charles, the dauphin (crown prince) to Reims for
his coronation. After convincing Charles of her divine providence
(or at least of her tactical usefulness) she was put, while
still only seventeen, at the head of an army whose most famous
victory was the lifting of the siege of Orléans (a
'sign' she predicted which would confirm her legitimacy as
a visionary). After a year-long campaign she was eventually
captured by Burgundian forces outside the town of Compiègne.
She was delivered to the English, who, in an attempt to undermine
her 'holy' authority, selected clergymen to find her guilty
of heresy.
Everything about Dreyer's film invites hyperbole. The story
itself has a Christ-like trajectory and unassailable position
as the blueprint for a nation's sense of nobility and courage.
The film was released in 1928 (The jazz singer was
released in 1927 and the first fully sound film, Steamboat
Willie, in 1928), and helped provide an added sense of
terminal poignancy to a silent era which had, just a few years
earlier, flowered into greatness. The uncanny story of the
print itself, its destruction, loss, and eventual rediscovery,
adds another layer to the drama. Perhaps most significantly,
the film contains a central performance that has passed into
legend by an actress appearing in only her second feature
and who was never to appear on screen again.
Beginning with the first films of the Lumière brothers
in 1895, cinema gained an increasing hold on the popular imagination.
As the technical means for making and showing films advanced
it also established itself as an important new artistic medium.
The silent-movie era, which lasted until the end of
the 1920s, reached a zenith of artistic achievement in the
work of film makers like Dreyer, D.W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein,
and F.W. Murnau. The first decades of the twentieth century
saw a steady arc of technical and artistic advancement in
the cinema and for some observers the din of the 'talkies'
would destroy the purity of this brave new world forever.
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| Carl Dreyer: The passion of Joan of Arc, 1928, film still, image held here |
The original negative of The passion of Joan of Arc
was lost to fire in 1928 only months after the film was completed.
Dreyer assembled a new cut from alternative takes but that
too was soon destroyed. Existing only as fragments and in
poor quality prints, the film developed the aura of a lost
masterpiece, until 1981 when, remarkably, an almost-perfect-quality
print of Dreyer's original version was discovered at the bottom
of a closet in a Norwegian mental institution.
Throughout the 1920s, filmmakers harnessed the expressive
power of the close-up to increasingly telling effect. Directors
like Griffith, Eisenstein and Murnau knew its effectiveness
in transmitting feeling, especially when used to magnify the
expressive mystery of the human face. An exchange of glances
can transmit meanings too subtle to be conveyed by words,
and when projected onto the cinema screen facial expressions
become dramatic events. Bela Balasz writes how, "In the
silent (movie) facial expression, isolated from its surroundings,
seemed to penetrate to a strange new dimension of the soul."
Dreyer's film is dominated by close-ups; Joan and her accusers
appear to us as a series of close-ups of heads and faces;
we move, in Balasz's phrase, "...in the spiritual dimension
of facial expression alone."
In Robert Bresson's film, The trial of Joan of Arc,
Joan, as played by Florence Delay, is portrayed with an emphasis
on her fortitude and intelligence. Intellectually she is more
than a match for her inquisitors and we sense in her composure
the guiding light of a divine presence. Dreyer gives us a different
Joan. In casting the stage actress Renée Maria Falconetti,
he set the scene for one of the most memorable performances
in cinema history. The extensive use of close-ups allows us
an almost microscopic examination of the actress's feelings
and Falconetti, bringing an astonishing intensity to the role,
presents us with a harrowing image of mental and emotional
desolation. André Bazin describes the film as, "...a
documentary of faces," and writes how, "...the whole
of nature palpitates beneath every pore." Falconetti
expresses confusion and the anguish of doubt. Joan's inner
turmoil is palpable as she struggles, not just with her accusers,
but also with her own conscience, as she tries to understand
and come to terms with her spiritual destiny. Her saintliness
is not a given but rather a process in which the dichotomy
of her physical and transcendent self seeks its agonising
resolution.
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| Carl Dreyer: The passion of Joan of Arc, 1928, film still, image held here |
Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais: "Do you believe
you are in God's grace?"
Joan of Arc: "If I am I hope I stay there and if I'm
not I hope he puts me there".
Dreyer's concentration on the trial process alone, coupled
with the use of close-ups and unusual camera angles, destroys
any sense of space and helps create an intensely oppressive
atmosphere. Joan's jailers make her a grass crown and mock
her by having her pose in the attitude of a saint. We are
made constantly aware of Joan's inescapable fate. She will
burn and everyone knows it, everyone that is except Joan herself
who, despite her heavenly visions, remains concentrated on
life. Under great pressure, Joan confesses and wins a reprieve.
She is led back to her cell where her eyes fall upon the grass
crown lying forgotten on the floor. It's here that Falconetti's
performance achieves its greatest refinement of expression;
Joan retracts her confession and in doing so condemns herself
to death. In these few moments - as Joan turns to accept her
fate, turns away from life and towards a paradise only she
can see - we bear witness to one of cinema's most searing
images. Isambert, a Dominican priest charged with watching
over Joan, asks in perplexity, "...and the great victory?"
"It will be my martyrdom." "And the deliverance?"
"Death". What Falconetti does, what makes her
immortal, is her perfect embodiment of exquisite ends. Her
face trembles with a delicious foretelling. In it we witness
a terrible fear and a desperate longing, together entwined
in a relentless drive towards ecstasy.
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| Carl Dreyer: The passion of Joan of Arc, 1928, film still, image held here |
In the absence of narrative suspense, we await the end with
a mixture of impatience and dread. Dreyer knows we are in agony,
he has led us there, but he has the grace, in the midst of
the awful dénouement, to provide an opening into a
space beyond the traumatic scene of the burning, an opening
that leads us, by anticipation, into its tumultuous aftermath.
Suddenly, from the acrid, eye-stinging air, a sequence of
cutaways to the tower window appears. We watch as maces are
dropped, one by one, to a waiting arm below. The crowd is
restless and the authorities are making ready. We are surprised
by the graceful choreography of the scene and thankful too
for the respite it affords us. We watch the rising flames,
Joan's terrible end, but we watch and understand too that
it is the conclusion of her suffering - the threshold of her
deliverance.
The riot of the peasants that ensues acts like a valve releasing
an enormous pressure. The riot, the film's final scene, leads
us out of the inexorable agony and back to the reassuring
chaos of the ordinary world. A flock of tiny birds, their
black bodies flung swiftly across the incendiary sky, make
good the film's final symbolic exigency.
John Graham is an artist and is currently doing an MA in Fine Art Media at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin.
