After so many years, I am afraid that Joan of Arc under the lens of Bresson still cannot be surpassed by the later image.
Before going to see this movie, I first watched "Joan of Arc" filmed in Canada in 1999. It was a big movie I saw when I was a child. Lily Soboski, who lost her long hair by the water, was my childhood. The most beautiful face in memory.
Until I finished reading Bresson's story of Joan of Arc, I thought that this Joan of Arc, who was dressed in men's clothes, was tenacious, responded calmly, and had the wisdom of struggle, should be closer to the real her. At the same time, she also has handsome eyebrows, a soft face and spring-like eyes.
Lily's version of Joan of Arc has an epic narrative that unfolds the major events of Joan's life as a memoir. And Bresson's Joan of Arc, like a convicted person who was brought to the audience for trial, her image was gradually established under the gaze of the audience, and her experience gradually emerged in the conversation.
Bresson focused on Joan of Arc, not the legend. So he told the actors not to think for a moment during the performance that they were Joan of Arc. He tried to faithfully recreate the process of Joan of Arc's trial, like a documentary director, with great enthusiasm for realism.
The truth is in the details that are so easily overlooked. For example, Joan of Arc's bare feet stumbled on the way to the stake. No one remembers Joan in this way, so this scene is unsurpassed. The robe she wore to death, the men's clothes and boots she was burned with, in these plain places, lay the poetry and truth of this story.
The girl was gone from the charred stake, and everyone knew that she was burnt to nothing, but they still stared at the charred stake as if she were still there.
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