Hold on, didn’t I do a French movie based on the trial transcript of Joan of Arc last December? Well, yes I did. That was The Trial of Joan of Arc, a movie based on the transcripts of the trial that found Joan guilty of heresy or something along those lines and burned her at the stake. That doesn’t mean it was the only one of its kind. There’s at least one other French movie that does more or less the same thing: The Passion of Joan of Arc.
This one is a silent film from 1928. How do you even do a courtroom drama as a silent film? Well, I found out.
The short answer is you don’t put up captions every time someone speaks, but do it often enough so the audience can follows the trial. Director Carl Theodor Dreyer kept his camera tight on his actors’ faces, particularly Renee Jeanne Falconetti’s Joan (or Joanie as they call her in her home village). That tends to make for a lot of close reactions and tight acting.
And that is how the movie does what it does so well. Joan is very much unblinking intensity except when things get to her a little bit and she sheds a tear or two. Most of the men holding her, and they are all men, tend to be older and/or fatter and look down on her quite literally. A couple do believe Joan is a saint, but the opening captions explain Joan is a 19 year old peasant girl who is matching wits, whether she wants to or not, with a number of determined and experienced lawyers and theologians who have for the most part already made up their minds about her guilt.
In fact, aside from a few establishing shots, the movie holds that close-up view of all the characters until the very end when Joan is burned at the stake, causing the villagers in the area to begin to riot. Joan’s passion never really went away, but the film did show her all-too-human side, a young girl scared out of her mind at times and looking to somehow spare her own life. It’s only when she realizes what she almost did that she recants a confession and accepts her death by fire.
Like the previous movie based on this trial, there isn’t a whole lot of plot here. Joan’s death is a foregone conclusion, so why bother watching something like this? Simply put: it’s a major step forward for the development of cinema as a storytelling tool. And the actors really sell it. Falconetti’s eyes rarely seem to blink, selling her character’s religious and patriotic zeal. Whether or not Joan spoke to God is irrelevant: she thinks she has. And yet, she’s still just a scared young woman.
Now, not all of the dialogue was captioned, but enough was to follow along. A part of me wonders if I would have understood the movie more if I spoke French (or, at least, better than basic high school French), but I didn’t really need to. This was an all-around great silent film. I’ll take this one over the previous one if given the choice.
Grade: A
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