Events

(1928) 1431, and the charismatic, mystic warrior Joan is led before her English and French inquisitors for the last day of her trial for heresy. Danish director Dreyer condensed months of interrogation into a single day, with all dialogue taken from the still-extant transcripts, built a gigantic re-creation of the city of Rouen, stylized in the manner of medieval illuminations, then hardly showed it at all as he concentrated on a non-stop set of brutally realistic, often low-angled close-ups of fevered intensity never before seen on screen (and seldom since), sans makeup or flattering lighting, focusing closest on what, per Pauline Kael (and many others), “may be the finest performance ever recorded on film” – Falconetti’s Joan. A stage star who helped popularize the Charleston in France, this was her second (and final) film role, with her every facial contour visible, and every slight movement of magnificently teary eyes denoting enigmatic spirituality and suffering.  With Antonin Artaud (avant-garde playwright and actor of the Theatre of Cruelty) as the young, sympathetic monk and a final coda of burning, riot, running soldiers and villagers seen from both above and below that proved Dreyer a master of montage as well. This new restoration features composer Richard Einhorn’s acclaimed Voices of Light, a choral and orchestral work inspired by the film and performed by vocal ensemble Anonymous 4. DCP restoration. Approx. 82 min.​

Restored by Gaumont with funding from the Centre National du Cinéma (CNC). The restoration was based on a preserved print created by La Cinémathèque Française for the 1985 reconstruction of the film, printed from a nitrate copy preserved and provided by the Danish Film Institute.

Presented with support from The George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema.

A JANUS FILMS RELEASE.