The Passion of Joan of Arc
- Aug 13
- 2 min read
The French actress Renee Falconetti only made one film, 1928’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, and her performance made history. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that to see Falconetti in the film “is to look into eyes that will never leave you.” Film critic Pauline Kael called it “one of the greatest of all movies” and that Falconetti as Joan “may be the finest performance ever recorded on film.”
Directed by Carl Dreyer, The Passion of Joan of Arc ranks as one of the greatest masterpieces of the silent film era. History tells us that Joan was a peasant girl who was born in 1428 during the Hundred Years War between England and France. When she was but seventeen years old, she went before the king of France and told him that visions from heaven were compelling her to lead the French army against their British invaders. Remarkably, she convinced him of her God-ordained mission, and he allowed her to lead his troops to several decisive victories before she was eventually captured and put on trial by the English.
The Passion of Joan of Arc focuses solely on Joan’s interrogation by a tribunal of clergymen and other judges. They accused her of heresy, of hearing demonic voices rather than divine ones. After a long, torturous trial, she was found guilty and burned at the stake.
It’s Falcionetti’s face—especially her large, expressive eyes—that vividly bring Joan of Arc’s nightmare ordeal to life.
Dreyer’s production of Joan’s trial and execution is astounding. With a screenplay built on transcripts from the trial, his camera work is revolutionary. The entire film is made up of only close-ups or medium shots. There’s little scenery beyond the intimate, intense facial expressions of Joan and her inquisitors.
As Joan, it’s Falcionetti’s face—especially her large, expressive eyes—that vividly bring the young girl’s nightmare ordeal to life. Legend has it that Dreyer shot long scenes where Falconetti was forced to kneel on the stone floor of the set and to then fight against allowing the pain she felt to show. His reasoning was that he wanted Falconetti’s face to be etched with the same struggle and exhaustion that Joan must have felt at her trial.
For Dreyer, the struggle to make the film continued after production when censors insisted that he remove any scenes depicting the clergy who sat in judgement of Joan as being corrupt and cruel. They also censored the stark realism of her brutal execution.
For decades, Dreyer’s original, uncensored version of the film was believed lost. Then, in 1981, a copy was miraculously discovered in a Norwegian hospital of all places. It’s believed that the film had been screened there for patients when it was first released. Thankfully, that’s the version we have today, just as Dreyer and Renee Falconetti intended! I give The Passion of Joan of Arc four out of four stars. It’s a timeless masterpiece of world cinema.
