The Passion of Joan of Arc

"We didn't need dialogue," rhapsodizes Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond about the silent movie era in Sunset Boulevard. "We had faces." And there are few faces more devastatingly haunting than Renee Maria Falconetti's in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece. This absolutely gripping film, shot mostly in agonizingly intimate close-up, is "witness to an amazing drama": the trial of Joan of Arc, based on historical transcripts. Revealing the human face of the pious 19-year-old who claimed to be "sent by God to save France" from the British, and who was persecuted and condemned to burn at the stake by a court of powerful judges and orthodox theologians, The Passion of Joan of Arc was Falconetti's only film. This home video release is a triumph of film preservation: Dreyer's original was, incredibly, destroyed by fire shortly after its release. A second version, comprised of the film's outtakes, also perished in flames. In 1981, a near-perfect print of Dreyer's original cut was discovered in, of all places, a janitor's closet in a Norwegian mental institution. The new soundtrack is an oratorio entitled Visions of Light, composed by Richard Einhorn, who was moved to compose the piece after discovering the film in 1988 in the archives at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Essential for any millennial film collection, and sure to be of interest with the recent release on video of the TV-mini-series Joan of Arc (Artisan, $19.98) and the theatrical release of Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (K. Lee Benson) [Blu-ray/DVD Review—Mar. 20, 2018—Criterion, 81 min., not rated, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD and debut on Blu-ray, 1928’s The Passion of Joan of Arc features an excellent transfer with French intertitles and English subtitles along with music soundtracks in DTS-HD 5.1, LPCM stereo, and Dolby Digital mono on the Blu-ray release. Extras include audio commentary by film scholar Casper Tybjerg, both the 24 frame and 20 frame versions of the film, a featurette on the different versions (11 min.),three different scores (including Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light), interviews with composers Adrian Utley and Will Gregory (16 min.) and Einhorn (12 min.), an audio interview with actor Renée Falconetti’s daughter Hélène Falconetti (9 min.), a production design archive (4 min.), and a booklet featuring an essay by critic Mark Le Fanu, a 1929 statement by director Carl Theodor Dreyer, and the full libretto for Voices of Light. Bottom line: Dreyer’s classic makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]