Passion of Joan of Arc

Pros: This is the greatest movie you’ve never seen
Cons: You’ve never seen it

You have never seen a motion picture like The Passion of Joan of Arc. Truth be told, most of you have never even seen it at all. It is one of the great under-watched gems of cinema history.

Yeah, yeah, I know—critics like to...

Pros: Absolutely brilliant, breathtaking, and it will leave you speechless ...
Cons: Besson's attempt will have reached a larger audience - and it shouldn't ...

a.k.a. Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La (1928) (France)

Authors note: This is a write-off in honor of Fr. Kurt’s (kurt_messick) first anniversary to the priesthood, as well as his spooky convergence of 500’s. Approximately 500...

Pros: Maria Falconetti's unique performance and a challenging visual style.
Cons: Assumes you know all about Joan of Arc already.  Sometimes style-over-substance.

Off and on for YEARS, I would hear about the film THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.  While I am an avid movie fan and enjoy ALL kinds of films, I don’t truly consider myself a film “scholar” and I always put the movie on my “see it ...

Pros: Brilliant performance by Falconetti, highly stylized film technique, and an intensely emotional experience
Cons: None, really

With all the current interest in Gibson’s Passion, I thought it might be an apropos time to revisit another Passion and ask what kinds of lessons can be learned by thinking about these two films in tandem. The Passion of Joan of Arc ...

Pros: cinematography, casting, sets, direction
Cons: time compression, character exaggerations, difficult, downbeat

Time has been good to The Passion of Joan of Arc. Although silent and filmed in black and white, it seems almost contemporary because of its timeless historical subject, and Dreyer's disregard for dramatic filmmaking techniques of the era.
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Pros: Falconetti, photography, cutting, a magnificent oratorio composed in honor of the film's subject.
Cons: You have to give yourself to it.

When I was a child, even as a young man, I often lost myself in the passion, the magic, of the Movies. Jump cuts, the disturbing informality of TV, deafening incongruous sound tracks working against the image (designed to sell CD's) -- many other...

Pros: Unforgettable Images, Falconetti, Falconetti, Bravo Falconetti
Cons: None

Any arguments that film can never truly be an art film, end, after one views The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Masterpiece is so mis-used these days perhaps a new word should be coined to be used on only a handful of films which are truly...

Pros: The unique lighting gives the film a solemn quality
Cons: The overwrought performances, and the current unwarranted hype surrounding this film.

Watching this film for the first time, I was often reminded of the numerous occasions where reviewers threw around the word 'classic' while describing this movie. Certainly, it is a classic, despite its somewhat confused history (Criterion still can't ...

Pros: all
Cons: none

After seeing thousands of films I thought I knew a little something about the subject of movies. But I realized two days ago that I didn’t know anything--that is until I had seen Carl Theodor Dreyer’s “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (1928). Now a huge gap...

Pros: EVERYTHING
Cons: NONE

Not too long ago, Luc Besson, a fine film director in his own right, made a pretty horrible attempt at placing the Joan of Arc story on the big screen. That film, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, was a mockery with a few high points. For that...

Pros: Dreyer's use of camera
Cons: sometimes hard to find

Carl-Theodor Dreyer's The Passion Of Joan Of Arc is the definitive Joan Of Arc film. It was first released in France in 1928, and the story of the film itself is nearly as interesting as the film's subject. Passion was shown in its complete version to...

Pros: Beautiful film, very powerful.
Cons: Bad transfer, bad score.

First impressions: this is a murky video transfer, played back at the correct film speed, with the original organ score reproduced on the audio track. The distributor is "Video Yesteryear". Most sources cite the film's length at 78 minutes,...

Pros: the score is also especially beautiful and nuanced
Cons: not a one.

It probably is enough of a testimony to this film's dramatic power, lyrical beauty, and technical innovation to say that, without these, Godfather I and II would have otherwise both been consigned to cable as Friday ActionMax features. Why? One (not so)...

Pros: Direction, casting, photography, and the subdued and utterly believable performance of Falconetti.
Cons: I cannot single out one frame of this masterpiece to find fault with.

This is a review of the DVD version, which is technically brilliant. Surprisingly, the film appears to be shot at sound speed, so there is no distortion of the time base. This is a silent movie. It is shot in black-and-white. The director would ...

Pros: Amazingly well crafted film which shows the true height of the art form.
Cons: Can seem a bit dated and slow paced.

The most enveloping films are the ones that build a whole world from the ground up. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer achieves the same effect from the neck up. Concentrated close ups showing vivid facial expressions characterize the intensity of the ...