90 years later and The Passion of Joan of Arc may be more relevant and powerful than ever
Silent film is all about the faces. In the Academy ratio of 1.37:1 the frame becomes a canvas with the face in the centre, usually in an extreme close up, taking up every part of screen. Sound brought nuance and additional approaches to conveying story and emotion, but the silent film brought immediacy and closeness. Battleship Potemkin, The Great Train Robbery, Metropolis, Pandora’s Box, the Andalusian Dog — landmarks of early cinema that are dominated by this technique. It is none more so exhibited than in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s searingly powerful The Passion of Joan of Arc, which will have its 90th anniversary this April.
It tells the story of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc at the hands of the English. Renee Jeanne Falconetti completely embodies Joan, carrying a raw, open wound conviction that is at once mesmerizing and distraught to witness. The English accuse her of heresy, that she does not in fact speak to God. It is an imposition of power upon a woman thrown to the wolves. Falconetti’s face constantly dominates the frame. Looking up, pleading, begging, resisting. I can’t remember a performance in recent memory that was so instantly as empathetic and powerful than Falconetti’s. She is subjected to brutal, vehement vitriol, to the point where one considers turning away at the abuse she is taking.
Silent film lends itself to out sized visual expression that to our modern sensibilities can be over the top and often distracting at first, emotion and themes broadly conveyed so as not to lose anything in that translation. The Passion of Joan of Arc uses this form to present the title character as a person of unwavering faith and strength against a hoard of accusers that are cartoonishly horrid and remorseless. A beacon of light in a suffocating realm of darkness. The gigantic, amazingly designed set practically looms over her. Harsh and crude, built to confront and crush her. Dreyer’s camera always seems like it’s close to being sucked into negative space, such are the harshness of angles that he conjures up. The accusers, all men, are practically hovering like gargoyles over Joan.
I watched the film earlier this year, part of my intention to explore as many of the classics as possible, and it hit me in such visceral manner that I was shaken to the core. This woman, so deeply held to her belief and faith in her communication with God, so brilliantly pure and virtuous in the face of vehement and grotesque accusations and punishment, so heartbreakingly human and flawed that it ultimately becomes a religious experience witnessing it. Somehow the Academy didn’t see it fit for her to be nominated, yet throughout the history of cinema, it may just be the single greatest performance ever committed to celluloid.
In the opening titles, from which it’s explained that documents have been recovered that record the trial in immense detail, it says that ‘she is a young woman fighting alone against a band of blind theologians and skill jurists’ and indeed the opening shot of the trial is a languid tracking shot covering the audience, heads straining to get a better view of the accused. These are practiced, strident figures, acting in a distorted reflection of Joan’s beliefs, backed up by strength in numbers and a tide of systemic superstition and prejudice.
Some are curious, some are chomping at the bit to see justice done, some have the semblance of, not quite empathy, but understanding, others are bored. They laugh at her belief, her purpose, sent by God to save France. They take aim at her choice of being clothed not as a how a woman should be, a slight, that they perceive, to her honour and dignity. She is an affront to them. This woman who so blatantly defies them. Their anger is depressingly all too relevant and real today.
That they are the English, at war with France at the time — Joan had helped France to a number of major victories during the war — does shade the trial with political undertones. But it also highlights how religion and faith is weaponized against an enemy. How texts and interpretations are made to fit a nation’s viewpoint. Joan offers a glimpse of faith that sheds petty human predilections.
What Falconetti manages to achieve is something singularly transcendent. It has the feel of a performance immediately relevant, capturing the pain, hurt, entrapment and toxic culture that still seems to be prevalent today. Her accusers are medieval versions of online trolls. They yell — at one point, one of them does so at such an apoplectic level of rage that his spit hits her in the face — taunt, goad, shirtfront her, gang up on her, and any voices that speak up to support her are swiftly subdued.
So she remains alone, at their mercy, able to only stay true to herself, and unwavering in that regard. Whatever respite or peace she may find or receive is waylaid by it’s fragile temporary nature. A sympathetic letter, a ring returned, comfort from her pain — it but withholds the inevitable. She is shown the various contraptions of torture in an effort to sway her into signing a confession — the accusers appealing to her sense of faith to God in finding absolution and redemption. As the scene progresses, she is brought to the brink of collapse, her eyes ever-widening, the breathtaking terror in her face becoming almost too much to bear for her and the audience. But she does not break.
It is to no avail though. The inevitability of her demise is a bitter pill to swallow. And when her hair — a crop top that is unnervingly modern — is cut and she is forced out of her clothing into a dirty robe, before being led to the stake where she will be burned, the crushing….unfairness of it all is glaringly clear. As the flames rise, the mob that witnesses her burning become enraged, their target is not her though. She is becoming a martyr right before their eyes. A final sacrifice, a final, galling denouement to the accusers that for all their glowering and prostrating and smug convictions, this woman will continue to defy them beyond her mortal remains. The film dares to offer us hope. An offer we would be remiss to take.
Some recent films come to mind that utilise this painterly, sometimes claustrophobic technique. The 2015 Hungarian film, Son of Saul, set in the Auschwitz concentration camp is almost exclusively composed of this kind of shot. Jonathon Demme’s style turns the close up into a manifestation of uncomfortable and locked confrontation. Sergio Leone was a major proponent of this technique, especially in his masterpiece The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which juxtaposes the vast western landscape with close ups that transform the faces into something mythical. So much of Kubrick’s oeuvre is built on refining and perfecting a raft of cinematic techniques, and it’s surprising to realise how much of his work utilises the close up — from A Clockwork Orange to Full Metal Jacket
The one that stands out like a bloodied, mangled thumb is Darren Aronofsky’s bold, insane mother! In wildly different, and constantly extreme ways, the film explores similar themes to Dreyer’s silent masterpiece — like injustice, the fiery persecution of women, torture, religion’s universal, deliberately vague nature, the flawed brutal condition of humanity. mother!’s palette is baroque crossed with thrash metal, overwhelming every sense you have, whereas The Passion of Joan of Arc is a symphony of surging power and endless subtlety.
Jennifer Lawrence’s character is made a stand in for any number of things — earth, the discarded muse, female subjugation, how it must feel to date Aronofsky. Where Joan of Arc retains a sense of grace in still and static compositions, the better for Falconetti’s expression to bleed out from the screen, mother! never lets Lawrence escape the frame. She wanders, runs, crawls and fights her way around the labyrinth house as it all goes to literally hell in the second half of the film. Her expression and resilience gradually cracking like a porcelain doll being struck with a tiny pick.
She is abused, raped, taken advantage, stolen from. She is weakened by humanity’s insatiable hunger, and by her unwitting husband. She is afforded no respite, nor does she find support, compared to Joan, trusting in her faith in God. In mother! She is a God rendered helpless, when followers who do not even recognise her suffering run rampant, escalating her brutal punishment until she is forced to scour away the pain in flames. We recoil in horror at what Lawrence’s character is subject to, and Aronofsky doesn’t offer a way out, apart from destruction and rebirth. A caustic inversion of how Joan of Arc concludes.
What is so astounding about Falconetti’s performance is her ability to convey a staggering amount of emotion and character without it ever becoming overwhelming or exhausting to the viewer. At first glance it seems that her features are at a perennial elevated state. An extremity of emotive expression. Yet digging deeper into it reveals a wealth of nuance and layers . Each jerky shift of her body (legs and arms chained), each blink, each turn. Every reaction, every retort and statement, every movement — unerringly graceful throughout — every tear shed (and dammit if those tears aren’t the most lump in your throat, why can’t she just get a hug, kind of tears in all of cinema) are of such boundless, infinite depth.
It is often remarked that the eyes are the window to the soul, but what Falconetti elicits with her eyes is more like the opening of a five story door into the purest distillation of humanity. It becomes timeless, immediate and intimate. She makes Joan of Arc achingly real to us, in a way that makes you feel like you have known her, and been blessed to have known her, your entire life. What Falconetti does in The Passion of Joan of Arc goes beyond performance, beyond encapsulating an icon, an actual saint for crying out loud, and arrives at something akin to a universal revelation of the soul.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) France
Directed by Carl Theodor Dryer
Religious historical drama
Black & White, 110 minutes
