The history of “The Passion of Joan of Arc” is all there on the screen. To watch it is to see a film that looks unlike any silent film ever made, and to hear its back story is to realize that it is an anomaly of all cinema.
Carl Theodore Dreyer, a Danish director working in France, made a stripped down version of a famous French story, cast an actress (Maria Falconetti) that had never and would never make a movie again, and he defied spacial rules that had governed cinema for years and would continue to for decades after.
With that, “The Passion of Joan of Arc” is a series of shocking images without even musical accompaniment that was certainly ahead of its time and still bold and disturbing today. Continue reading “Rapid Response: The Passion of Joan of Arc”