The Passion of Joan of Arc (The Criterion Collection)

this is an incredible, classic, black-and-white film from the 30s, which powerfully portrays what Joan of Arc must’ve suffered in her final hours. This is the trial she endured interiorly and exteriorly.The actress who played this part, never again performed. She personally endured so much interior and visibly exterior suffering… those who watch this will be humbled and transfigured and amazed, without words.

Every time a prestigious film institute puts together an official, stamped with authority list of "The Greatest Films of All Time" their number one pick is going to be Citizen Kane. No surprises there. Such lists might as well be packaged and sold as a 1.2.3 paint- by- number set. Ironically, it was the granddaddy of all film institutes that treated Kane's creator as a heretic, refused to give him due recognition, banished him to Europe and excommunicated him for life.Taking absolutely nothing from that film, nor Orson Welles, Citizen Kane is not the greatest film ever made, that honor probably goes to Carl Theodore Dreyer's 1928 Passion of Joan of Arc. Rarely, do classic films live up to the hype. Throughout the 1970s numerous books whispered about this lost film. It was very common to read its being compared to a fugue. Several veteran critics lamented its loss, something akin to losing a sacred relic. Only the loss of Von Stroheim's uncut Greed inspired as much passion.Then, in the early 1980's a near mint condition print was found in the closet of an Italian mental institute . When it was finally made available, many, myself included, bristled with excitement, wondering if this film was everything it was said to be.Regardless of how much you've read about The Passion of Joan of Arc, nothing prepares you for it. By the time the credits roll, the viewer feels emptied, literally drained. It is "that" devastating, as an emotional, spiritual, ecstatic, and aesthetic experience.Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is an essential, time-defying, inimitable cinematic experience of (German) Expressionism and (French) Avant-Garde. The producers had wanted something else altogether, but Dreyer's film was taken directly from Joan's trial transcripts. This is not Joan the warrior, but a young, frightened uneducated girl, absorbed in an ecstatic religious experience, and a terrifying, inevitable martyrdom.The performance of this Joan of Arc, as portrayed by Falconetti, is the single greatest acting that has ever been imprinted, seared, burned, into celluloid. But, this could hardly be called acting in any traditional sense. Rumor has it that, in certain scenes, Dreyer made Falconetti kneel on hot coals to obtain the right degree of expressed suffering and Falconetti certainly was in abject misery for the hair cutting sequence (Dreyer's reputation as a tyrannical dictator, ironically a bit like Joan's judges, was well earned, but he made the rare gesture of presenting his actress with a bouquet of flowers after that heart wrenching scene) . Falconetti, understandably, never made another film. It is a haunting, harrowing performance.Falconetti and Dreyer relentlessly violate the viewers' personal space, so much so, that one feels tortured, right along with Joan. The British censors were certainly affected; they banned the film upon its release. In the film, Joan's English accusers provoke varied, intense, emotions, although they are not depicted as two-dimensional personifications of evil.Despite, overwhelming empathy for Falconetti's Joan, Dreyer directs with admirably objectivity. At times, Joan does indeed seem on the fringed edge of sanity, so ethereal, so spaced out, that we can, at least, have some understanding of the nervous fear she she inspires in the medieval mindset of her judges. But, Dreyer's theme of a saintly woman would also be repeated prominently in both Day of Wrath and Ordet (1955) and one suspects a heated obsession behind Dreyer's cool-toned facade .Passion, like all of Dreyer's films, has a Rembrandt-like quality in every frame ( The 1943 Day of Wrath took this quality to an exquisite extreme). Rudolph Mate's expressionistic cinematography cannot be underestimated and volumes of books could probably be written about every single shot.Passion may be one of the ugliest films ever made, but it is necessarily ugly, a bit like the necessity of Picasso's hideous "Guernica". Crusty fingernails, nose hairs, sweat, bushy eyebrows, and oily pores abound in the penetrating, dirty close-ups. The only "pretty" face in the film belongs, ironically, to the legendary avant bad boy Antonin Artaud. Artaud, as the sympathetic monk Massieu, is so young, so beautifully sensuous, that memories of the later, greasy Artaud, fresh from the asylum, madly roaming Paris streets, eaten with rectal cancer, and raving " Having done with the judgement of God" are all temporarily banished from the mind's eye.Despite all she is subjected to, Joan is not of a Protestant (or Pre-Protestant) mindset. The greatest torture she receives is when she is refused the Eucharist and it is this that temporarily breaks her, so intense is her devotion. But, Joan's final answer is, 'This is my church, not yours. You are the devils who have invaded my church and the faith. It is not the other way around".Joan's conviction is so complete, so inspiring that her martyrdom leads to further slaughter of the sympathetic crowd. The British authorities sensed, in advance, the level of veneration that would be accorded Joan of Arc. They repeatedly and thoroughly burned her body as to prevent the collection of her relics. That type of fear, combined with inspired awe, was only captured once, in 1928, despite all the later films made on the subject.*my review originally appeared at 366 weird movies

The biography of St Joan does the Mediaeval Roman Catholic Church little credit, although it was quicker than on many other occasions to make amends. Today, the same church stands assailed by one scandal after another, seemingly without end, and it is hard to see how it can survive much longer in its present authoritarian form. This coalescence of history with the present makes this timeless masterpiece more contemporaneously relevant than at any period since it's initial creation. The modern paradigm of the individual versus organized religion is being played out wherever people gather to express their spiritual faith, but the conflict has rarely if ever been so acute as in the tale of this simple lass from Northern France who redeemed her country at the expense of her own life and flesh. The film, as most reviewers recognize, is one of the great early masterpieces of the cinema. It has that unique quality of the greatest art: a work that in its own right is filled with beauty, and at the same time opened previously closed doors to the film-makers that came after. Some criticism coming from very perceptive reviewers has to be faced head-on. First is the issue of historical accuracy. I do not agree, as some have asserted, that the artist can subjugate history and the truth to his own artistic needs. If he cannot face the truth he should stick to fiction. Here, the truth is well enough established, and Dreyer does not seriously distort it, despite the charges levelled against him. It is very clear from the film that the English were hell-bent on Joan's destruction, and there were sufficient compliant clergymen in the Catholic Church to seal her fate. Cauchon and his allies may not have burnt her with the full explicit authority of Rome, but the instruments ( legal and ecclesiastic) that they used to accomplish this were all devised and authorised by Rome. Extensive use was made of the actual trial record, with at most relatively minor modifications to improve the dramatic flow of the film without changing the actual course of history. Only the revolt of the peasants at the end has no basis in fact, but it draws the movie to a wonderful conclusion. Few heroines in the course of history have fired the artistic imagination more than Joan of Arc. Before Dreyer we had Shaw, after him we had Jean Anouilh (The Lark), and in between, in the medium of music, we had Arthur Honegger's Jeanne D'Arc au Bucher. In fact this is ludicrously less than the tip of the iceberg. By 1894, there were already more than 400 dramatic and musical representations of the Maid of Orleans, with Schiller, Verdi and Tchaikovsky among her more distinguished exploiters. I know a mere fraction of these works but I am prepared to assert that none could provide a more moving and compelling account of her last few days than Dreyer has achieved in this film. Some reviewers have criticised the directors's technique of using long close-ups and angled shots that were the hallmark of the period, but I would challenge that criticism by pointing out that in the silent era, close-ups, the longer the better, were essential to convey the thoughts and intentions of the characters and to establish the psychological relationships between them, in the absence of the spoken word. Remember, this is not the STORY but the PASSION of its heroine, and how else can you show true passion other than through the close-up? It is remarkable how Dreyer was obsessed with the theme of the battle between religion and heresy, and its bye-product of burning the victim at the stake. His later masterpiece DAY OF WRATH can almost be seen as a sequel to Joan. Cinema technique changed dramatically during the long interval between the two, and the later film has a great deal more action, much of it outside the narrow confines of the home, but the most telling and dramatic sequences are shot in close-up. Also reminiscent of Joan are the trial, torture, and confessional sequences, shot with frequent use of shadows against a white-walled multi-arched background that could have been leftovers from the self-same set. The fact is that in Joan, between the faces of Falconetti and her co-actors and the camera of Dreyer, we have some of the most beautiful, haunting and expressive images that the screen has given its admirers. See this film. Focus on its pictorial achievements, and I will bet that rarely will you subsequently see a truly great masterpiece of the cinema where you will not say: " Goodness me, that shot is straight out of The Passion.......".

Amazon has been recommending The Passion of Joan of Arc for a good long while. This was obvious due to my purchasing a good boat load of silent films over the years. I did eventually get round to buying it but admittedly, I took a good few months to get round to watching it. What I saw when I did was a bleak but visually stunning movie with more emotion than most could handle.The Passion of Joan of Arc is a 1928 movie directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. The film is based on the horrific trial of Joan of Arc. You follow Joan through her mental and physical tortures as the English try to get a confession from her. As we know from history, her end came soon after in what is a very gruesome death. I've spent years reading about the achievements of this film. It is well known to movie buffs for it's impressive production quality, as well as the emotional performance from the lead star.I honestly think the credit that this movie has been given is very well deserved. The fact the movie focuses solely on close ups is where it really shines. These close ups show each actor doing an impressive job showing their emotions. It also lets us see the great detail on the actors faces. We see everything from unkept nose hair, nasty looking warts, moles, nasty globs of spit and the incredible tears from Falconetti. It makes everything seem more grounded. Like we're actually looking into history itself. These are not actors smeared up with make up. We can see every crease in their face from every wince, sob and emotional outburst. Another interesting point is that there isn't any of those over the top gestures you normally find in other silent films. This one is very down to Earth in terms of acting.The Eureka!/Masters of Cinema release of The Passion of Joan of Arc has some interesting extras. There's nothing in the ways of interviews and such. But you do get multiple copies of the film. There is a 20 fps version that features a beautiful score from the Japanese composer Mie Yanashita. There's a 24 fps print that features a new score from the American musician Loren Connors. There's new subtitles to translate the original Danish intertitles, the "Lo Duca" version of the film and a video demonstration of the films restoration. Like all the other Master of Cinema releases, The Passion of Joan of Arc has a nice thick booklet with lots of details etc.The quality of the print isn't the best I have seen from Eureka and Masters of Cinema. There's a good deal of wear on the print with some scratches, dust and what looks like an odd hair appearing every now and again. But the movie still retains a good deal of sharpness and clarity. There's good detail in characters faces, the shadows etc. I was honestly hoping for a little higher quality, but it's FAR from the worst I have seen from silent cinema. The film is over ninety years old after all. It's only fair to accept a bit of wear and tear.I'm certainly glad that I have added this film to my collection. It's a fantastic film through out. It has great pacing and some truly stunning visuals. But the bleak nature of the thing means that it's not a film that I would watch a lot of. I'll maybe return to it once a year, one of those films. But don't let that put you off. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a fantastic must see film. One that is most definitely worth seeing if you're into the history of Joan or silent film in general.

Eureka restoration is excellent and excels the previous Criterion USA DVD release. Extras are limited, a short restoration comparison and the complete Lo Duca version. This is worth at least one viewing as it contains some alternate footage not seen in other versions but I recommend with sound off. We get two versions of the main film. The slower 20fps I think serves the film very well and in future years I think will likely become the standard for this film. New piano score by Mie Yanashita is superb and for this reviewer very moving. Not so for me the new score by Loren Connors on the 24fps version which I couldn't persevere with. Shame they couldn't include the Criterion Richard Einhorn "Voices of Light" accompaniment. The Criterion release also had an excellent commentary track by Theodor Dreyer scholar Caspar Tybjerg which again we are missing.Despite these caveats its still 5* rating. Original Danish inter-titles are used instead of the previous French. The new translation I also consider an improvement. This film has never looked better, the 20 fps version is a definite improvement over previous releases and that's enough for this reviewer. As to the film itself it's a masterpiece. Still shockingly modern and innovative in it's presentation. Maria Falconetti utterly convincing in her soul wrenching performance. If you haven't seen this film you really have to, it won't be easy but it might just change you, few films can carry that warning. Some interpret the film religious, others humanist, others feminist, or Catholic or Protestant.You bring to it your own persuasion and prejudice. This reviewer is an English Catholic and acknowledges it shows an all to corrupted worldly established politically linked Church. To me all the above interpretations are partly true, but perhaps the real truth is made up of all of those parts and more.Certainly the portrayal of the importance of the Eucharist could not be more Catholic. This film certainly inspired me to learn more about the historical figure of Joan of Arc and the records of her trials, (exonerated 25 years after first trial) which are out there and freely available online.For me an amazing Saint, for you perhaps............

This Masters of Cinema release of Carl Theodor Dreyer's classic 1928 French silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc) is a five star presentation of a five star film and is simply a mandatory purchase for anyone really interested in cinema. Presented in a stout cardboard box with a 100 page book (featuring articles by Jean/Dale D. Drum and Hilda Doolittle together with writing by Luis Buñuel, Chris Marker, André Bazin, Dreyer himself, an interview with Antonin Artaud, notes on the restoration by Casper Tybjerg and rare production photographs), there are two DVDs containing no less than three different versions of the film. The first disc has the 20fps version which Dreyer scholars now agree to be about the right speed for the film to be shown. Dreyer stipulated that his film should be shown mute with no music at all and that remains for me the best way to experience this remarkably concentrated work of art. That said MoC do include an optional Mie Yanashita piano score which (to my surprise) I found very moving. Watching it mute forces you to concentrate hard without any help and leaves you feeling exhausted by the end. The music of course subconsciously manipulates one's emotional response undoubtedly making for an easier watch, but one which is not as directly confrontational as Dreyer intended – for him we have to really 'feel' Joan's pain as if it is our own. My conclusion is that while watching this film mute is ideal, it is also worth experiencing Yanashita's subtle scoring for its beauty and quiet sensitivity.The second disc has the same print as the first but shown at the faster speed of 24fps and with an altogether less attractive (indeed distractive) aggressively modern Loren Connors score. Seen after the 20fps version the effect is bizarre. It seems as if the film has been fast-forwarded with characters moving at unnatural speed and a foregrounding of the swift editing adopted by Dreyer. The editing is unusually swift for a film of this period, but in the slower version it is not so noticeable. At 24fps the effect is ultra-kinetic and makes for a very different film. It should be remembered that while people agree the slower version is better (closer to what Dreyer wanted), the faster version is the one that everyone has become used to down the years. This is mainly because most people will have learnt the film from the Lo Duca version which is also included on this disc. Dreyer hated this well-meaning bastardization of his original intentions and we should also scorn the various additions that original co-founder of Cahiers du Cinéma Joseph-Marie Lo Duca sanctioned – credits both at the beginning and at the end, new backdrops (of stained glass windows) for the title cards, new translations, subtitles, and above all the addition of classical music (a popular baroque classics playlist of everything from Bach to Scarlatti) which is every bit as jarring and irrelevant as the 80s pop soundtrack for Giorgio Moroder's version of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927). If you grew up with the Lo Duca version it's understandable that nostalgia might get the better of you, but this is not what Dreyer wanted at all. For me the Lo Duca version is worth watching for one reason only and that is the print was taken from a different negative from the one (then thought lost) used on the other version presented here. Two cameras shot the film at the same time and the negatives are slightly different featuring different framing and different movements from the actors. Once you get to know the film well, playing the compare and contrast game here is potentially fascinating. We should note though that the other version contains Dreyer's preferred cut and we should feel lucky that this print was discovered in 1981 in, of all places, a mental hospital in Oslo. MoC have not restored the Lo Duca print and it remains in worn condition. The other version here (offered at two speeds) has been restored and the results are breathtaking. Pin sharp to perfection (original aspect ratio 1.37:1), it is very difficult to imagine us ever seeing it better on DVD – a miraculous achievement for everyone involved.And so to the film itself. Along with Napoleon (Abel Gance, 1927) The Passion of Joan of Arc is considered with good reason to represent the very peak of big-budget French historical reconstruction in silent films. Its considerable merits were not appreciated at the time, the film failing at the box office and upsetting both the Catholic Church and conservative politicians and journalists. This necessitated cuts on its French release from the beginning and the film also had an unfortunate reception elsewhere. By the time it reached the States talkies were all the rage and along with F. W. Murnau's Sunrise (another undisputedly great silent film), it failed to make an impact. It is often said that religion and politics are box office poison, but it is wrong to see Dreyer's film as being either religious or political even if his subject is both. It is worth stressing that while Joan is a saint and is an important figure in the Catholic Church, Dreyer was a not very devout Protestant Dane. Also, while Joan is seen as an important figure in the establishment of France's political freedom from England in the 15th century and then later from Germany in WWII, Dreyer is not interested at all in politics. No saint, and no revolutionary, for Dreyer Joan is simply a woman, the victim of patriarchal dogmatic and repressive society. From this simple desire to visualize one woman's victimization and then destruction springs all the factors that make this film so great.First and foremost is the startling communion between Dreyer and his lead actress Renée Maria Falconetti. Never before or since has cinema witnessed such a profoundly moving connection between a director and his star as we have here. Central to this is the fact that Falconetti was an unknown actress at the time. Plucked from the stage by Dreyer who was looking for an ordinary girl with the right face to play in his close-up-obsessed conception of the film, Falconetti’s film career is defined by this, her one and only role. In it she became Joan of Arc to such a degree that it was impossible afterwards to see her as anything else. There is a grain of madness in her extraordinary assumption of the role. Already emotionally unstable before the film, she was later to tragically commit suicide in Brazil in 1947. For Dreyer though she was the perfect actress with whom he could create his Joan. Virtually every shot not only centers on Joan, but in giant close up as well. Denied the use of make-up (along with the rest of the cast) she is stripped naked for everyone to see and it has been said (inaccurately) that the final transcendental achievements came through Dreyer sadistically bullying, humiliating and inflicting pain on his subject, even to the extent of shaving off her very real hair. Actually, the film was achieved out of a close intensely intimate relationship nurtured out of a deep artistic need to express themselves for and to each other. The hair-cutting was something that Falconetti had agreed to when she accepted the role and she went to great lengths after the film to praise Dreyer for what they had accomplished together. For long hours the set would be emptied or screened off so that director and star could commune alone. They would go over the previous day’s rushes together and talk over solutions, ideas, things that worked and things that didn’t. There is no doubt that Falconetti felt deeply Joan’s pain and her performance is one of pure intensity which is always natural and never remotely melodramatic. From the opening inquisition of the judges through her torments at the hands of English guards who tease and provoke her, the attempt to trick her into a recantation of her 'crimes' through a faked letter from the French king, her fainting at the sight of the torture chamber, the shaving of her head, her relapse into signing and then her retraction leading to the final march to the stake, Falconetti's performance is unbearably moving – the way she walks, the way she looks fearfully at her tormentors, the way those wide eyes reflect pain and fear, terror and transcendence, the tears that issue from them are so terrifyingly real. Many critics hold her performance up as the very best ever given in a film. I don't know about that, but it is certainly way up there with the very best.Of course, Falconetti's performance comes out of Dreyer's inspired direction. From the start he had planned to boil the whole film down to one set (Rouen Castle reconstructed impeccably by Hermann Warm and Jean Hugo), one day (Joan's real trial actually lasted a year, but miraculous editing reduces everything to a very natural-feeling 100 minutes) and a relentless series of close-ups courtesy of Rudolph Maté's extraordinary deep contrast cinematography from extreme angles both high and low. Such a flouting of film-making rules necessitated the central performance be of the highest quality and fortunately for everyone Falconetti delivers the goods and more. The oppressive set which we feel much more than we actually see and the close-ups stress relentlessly the innocence and inherent goodness of Joan as played against the evil of her tormentors, chosen one feels because of their fat heads, angular features, grotesque warts and pimples. Dreyer has said he didn't think that the various priests led by Pierre Cauchon (Eugène Silvain) were individually bad, rather their professional position forces them to press ahead a trial through mere duty. Indeed some of the priests, especially Jean Massieu (Antonin Artaud) show their doubt openly before being crushed by their ‘wiser’ seniors. Undoubtedly though, Dreyer's insistence on matching their ugly visages with the equally ugly purveyance of dogma through grotesque close-ups of heads without make-up heightens the tension and the sense that poor Joan is a woman doomed in a patriarchal society which will never accept her.The heavy emphasis on close-ups means that the editing is much more obvious than usual, and in this film the cutting is nigh on inspired. Examples are too many to mention, but one particularly impressive one comes in the opening inquisition. The camera in close-up slips down the face of an English soldier. Dreyer cuts from this downward motion to another close-up of Joan's head, the eyes closing downwards exuding tears which prolong the downward motion. This happens as she is questioned about the rightness of the English being in France. As she says that she believes the English will one day leave France if they have not died there already the camera cuts to an angle over Joan's head looking down on her head stressing her vulnerability as she wrenches her head upward to look at Cauchon before another cut to the head of an English soldier leaning angrily into the camera in protest. The editing graphically relates the story and the psychology behind it without need of title cards. The downward movement conveys Joan’s hopeless situation, the camera angles convey her complete subservience to the powers of this kangaroo court and the severe movement of an English head conveys who is really in power here. Similarly the final riot sequence with bodies milling around in an almost abstract Expressionistic manner is intercut with great expertise with the nobility of Joan being burned at the stake. Dreyer insisted on the burning taking much longer than usual and the use of a waxwork Joan for the final stages is deeply shocking as the riot dies down. There's no doubt in my mind that Dreyer's visual treatment (the close-ups and the skillful editing) heighten even further what must have been already an extraordinary performance from Falconetti. Quite possibly, had this performance been rendered in the standard manner of historical reconstruction with standard battle scenes and the usual mixture of establishing shots, middle shots and long shots, it would have seemed overly melodramatic. Harnessed with exaggerated sets, angular camera angles (in some riot shots the camera is even upside down) and the grotesque onslaught of the inquisition, the performance seems totally natural and moves us deeply.This film is an extraordinary achievement completely without precedent. No version of this oft-told story had been so intense before and none has equaled it since. Like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919) which interestingly enough also had Hermann Warm designing the sets, the film is unique, existing without either imitators or followers. The film’s originality in itself guarantees its place among the greats. If I have a criticism to make it lies in what Robert Bresson had to say. He complained about what he saw as the “grotesque buffooneries” in a film which stresses repeatedly mere spectacle over intellectual content. For me Dreyer achieves quite extraordinary intensity in his film through purely surface means. By treating the story as a simple tale of a woman brutalized by a male society in a series of close-ups which could unkindly be described as cartoon caricatures and especially in the final conflagration where Dreyer seems to almost revel in Joan’s body blistering and melting in the searing heat, any sense of deeper reflection is denied. One only has to look at Bresson’s own version of the story, The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) to see how much more reflection can be brought out without resorting to mere sensation. After all the purple prose I’ve spilt on praising Dreyer’s film I have to admit to finding the Bresson to be the more moving, the more ‘spiritual’ experience. I am not a Catholic, but there is a sense that Bresson’s Catholicism informs his Joan in a way that elevates her out of the ordinary in a simple but profound manner. An article of faith, the film seems completely honest coming from its dedicated creator. The honesty in Dreyer’s film doesn't come from a dedication to his subject despite all the research put in. Remember, the film was the result of a random choice between three subjects proffered up by the Societe General des Films - Joan, Catherine de Medici or Marie Antoinette. Any honesty there is surely comes from the hidden agenda of Dreyer's childhood wherein he was given up for adoption while his mother was abused by her male employers into dying young (the victimization of women in a male society is a perennial theme in Dreyer's work). This is what filters through into the deep communion between director and actress (not between director and Joan) and a visual style which accentuates it. As a film experience it is certainly extraordinary and worthy of all the acclaim it has received, but I’m guessing that acclaim comes mainly from spectators responding emotionally who perhaps have little or no Faith at all.

I expect most of you have read about or seen clips from highly acclaimed silent film ‘Passion of Joan of Arc’ (1928). I have always wanted to see this film, which has only been recently released on disc. I was toying with the idea of buying this Blu-ray version for some time. The package comes with a detailed booklet about the film and three different versions of it on the one disc.The film shows the final days of Joan of Arc as she undergoes the humiliation that accompanies her trial for charges of heresy – we see her imprisonment, torture and execution by burning at the stake. Disappointingly there is no explanation of her life before and the real reason for her trial. Visually the images are stunning and the acclaimed performance by Renée Falconetti as Joan is unforgettable and her images will be etched in your memory for long time as the woman who died for Jesus and France. You really get the visual feel of 15th Century France. The quality of the restoration is extremely good, as seen from the extras featuring before and after the digital makeover. It is currently at number nine in the BFI Top Fifty films of all time. In 2010 it was designated the most influential film of all time at the Toronto International Film Festival’s ‘Essential 100’ list, where Jonathan Rosenbaum described it as “the pinnacle of silent cinema – and perhaps of the cinema itself”. Well worth seeing, very memorable but I am not sure whether I would recommend buying it.

A marvel of a film, rendered thus by the gleaming, fascinating performance of Renée Falconetti in the title role. I don't need to tell you to watch her eyes - you can't fail to do so while you witness Jeanne's suffering.No sound-track - for talking pictures had barely been invented - yet the watcher can seem to hear every cry, every groan, every gasp, every foolish reiteration of ignorance, as a vile crime is committed in the name of religion.