Joan of Dreyer

Vincenzo 2021-12-20 08:01:15

I often imagine a kind of hermeneutics of tears, which can solve the mystery of the origin of tears and enumerate all possible interpretations. What will we get from it? Then we will know all the highest points of history without paying attention to "events", because we will know how many times human beings have surpassed themselves in the long river of history. The hermeneutics of tears shows us the path from trance to excommunication. ——Xiao Hang: "Tears and Saints"

1.

The script of the film was compiled based on the trial records of Joan of Arc kept in the Rouen Museum (?), and described the whole process of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc by the Inquisition under the control of the English authorities at that time. The actors performed well in performances and photography, with close-ups of a large number of people's faces, successfully portraying the character of Joan of Arc and the portrait of priests. As Dreyer’s last and best silent film ("Female Vampire" should be regarded as a sound film), although as George Sadul said and Dreyer regretted it, it was limited by technical limitations. Subtitles must be used for the key and numerous dialogues, which greatly affected the rhythm of the film, but still did not affect the important position of the film in the history of film.

2.

Dreyer's Joan is completely different from personally imagined Joan of Arc. Dreyer's Joan of Arc is fragile, strong, frightened, helpless, and piety, and shows extraordinary endowments in the question of faith. In other respects, she is an ordinary girl with a pure judgment on things and an attachment to life.

Dreyer has a strong Christian faith, which can be felt from the mysticism in his other films. He still has some warmth towards priests—the political puppets who insisted on killing Joan according to historical records—in his description, they are ugly, but after all, they still have a little sense of honor in defending their religious beliefs. Therefore, the dramatic conflict of the film gently bypasses a medieval conspiracy and turns its stage into the inner conflict of Joan of Arc. From this point, Dreyer's Joan of Arc is too different from personal historical imagination, which can be explained.

At the same time, this treatment does not affect at all, but in a sense strengthens the historical narrative of Joan of Arc as a pioneer of the modern French nationalist movement; Joan of Arc as an ordinary French citizen and Joan of Arc as a saint are effective in inspiring a sense of national pride. There are different inspiring meanings in context generation, especially when the boundary between the two is not so clear, it also provides political convenience.

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Extended Reading
  • Annette 2022-03-26 09:01:07

    The camera that shows the perpetrator is always in motion, but Joan of Arc is given an unchanging gaze.

  • Camron 2021-12-20 08:01:15

    9/10. Due to the lack of a panoramic view of the environment, coupled with the sharp and skewed camera angle destroying the clear spatial reference, it radically subverts the relationship between human and space. The figures of priests and guards are swollen and often enter the screen in strange postures leaning to the left or right, like floating ghosts. When the judges whisper to each other, the camera slides over their linear and overlapping figures, bulging heads, arched doors and windows, torture instruments, and The head forms an interesting echo/juxtaposition. The subjective point of view of Joan (the camera scans the judges along her gaze and turns to the holy bread). When Joan made her first appearance, took to the cemetery and walked to the execution ground, she cowered in the lower corner of the composition and fell into spears, towers, and arcades. The flanking attack hints at the trial's response-the threat is overwhelming her beliefs. The decorations of the cross (Jan of Arc) and the penalty pole (the judge and the masses) continue to strengthen the relationship of opposition. One of the parties in the conflict, the priest representing the authority controlled the writing, and used forged letters of the king and confession to force Jean to surrender, but Jean was only in Point two pens on the confession (which happens to be a cross). At the end of the scene, the tall penalty pole lined the cross on the top of the church in the distance, and the soul of Joan of Arc turned into the French national spirit.

The Passion of Joan of Arc quotes

  • Évêque Pierre Cauchon (Bishop Pierre Cauchon): So you think God hates the English?

    Jeanne d'Arc: I don't know if God loves or hates the English; but I do know that the English will all be chased from France - except those that die here!

  • Évêque Pierre Cauchon (Bishop Pierre Cauchon): Why do you wear men's clothing? If we give you woman's clothing, would you wear it?

    Jeanne d'Arc: When the mission that God has entrusted to me is over, I will again dress as a woman.