Ian Scuffling
Well-known member
Went to a screening the this week with a conversation afterwards with scholars of art history, film, and divinity. The most interesting point discussed to me was the question of the film's influence on Schrader's conception of transcendental style, as a film that attempts a similar mysticism but does so through the opposite of the distancing techniques of Bresson and even Dreyer's own later work. The close-ups, the openness to an operatic orchestral score should turn it into a melodrama but the vivid materiality of the thing turns Joan into a moving icon. The film thus only works as a silent film; a cinematic text, a legal drama testing cinema's potential for religious ecstasy. Sontag comes to mind in her description of the secular's ability to evoke and elicit the transcendent
I think the film overall is first and foremost an ode to martyrdom, one could even argue for its own sake. No evidence of Joan's miracles is offered, only the steadfastness of her faith unto death. I think this is why Maria Falconetti's performance is still unmatched - few are able to embody the mysticism of transcendental style without losing their emotional presence, without becoming clay. She is not the non-acting model of later transcendental films, but simultaneously not the theatrical performer who at worst can mire even the best film the saccharine mud of theater.
Would love to hear other takes on the film. I think it lends itself, as a religious texts, to many interpretations.
I think the film overall is first and foremost an ode to martyrdom, one could even argue for its own sake. No evidence of Joan's miracles is offered, only the steadfastness of her faith unto death. I think this is why Maria Falconetti's performance is still unmatched - few are able to embody the mysticism of transcendental style without losing their emotional presence, without becoming clay. She is not the non-acting model of later transcendental films, but simultaneously not the theatrical performer who at worst can mire even the best film the saccharine mud of theater.
Would love to hear other takes on the film. I think it lends itself, as a religious texts, to many interpretations.
