Maid by Tony Pipolo ized saints are among the rarer sub- jects that narrative cinema has tackled with any degree of success, Two standouts— Roberto Rossellin's works on Francis of ‘Asis and Augustine of Hippo—are almost impossible to see and go unmentioned in film histories. No doubs, itis the assumed otherness of such creatures—their member- Ship ina select and unknowable caste, and the explicit or underlying virtue belived to bbe at their core—that makes the prospect of characterizing them so daunting. While biographers and historians, with a myriad of resources a their disposal, can flesh out the hhumanity through the details, narrative filmmakers (and probably playwrights) rust inevitably dramatize and paycholo- size—processes not readily compatible with Saintike features. In other words, the flm- ‘maker faces the dilemma that one of Gra- hham Greene's novelist/characters identified (in The End of the Affair) when he com- Plained that “Goodness ha 0 litle fictional, value” T: judge from the track record, canon- 16 CINEASTE Immortal All the more surprising, then, that not fone or two, but atleast dozen feature films (and a number of one or two reelers during the silent era) have been made about Joan of ‘Are, To be sure, the appeal that her story has had and continues to have—crossing national, cultural, and gender boundaries— predates the movies. She was treated, not always sympathetically, through the cen- tries by no lesser figures than Shakespeare, Schiller, Voltaire, Verdi, and Twain; and in the twentieth century by Shaw, Brecht, Anouilh, Bernanos, Peguy, and Honegger. Joan was the subject of numerous paintings and of folkloric pageants that continued Tong after her death, In fact, with the excep- tion of Christ, few historical figures—and no other canonized saint that I can think ‘of have prompted such an array of atten- tion, ‘Most likely it isthe combination of ele- ‘ments that made up her brief but blazing public career—her age, her sex, her determi- nation, her inexplicable ease with soldiers, royalty, and churchmen, her uncanny ability jn 9 uo 4 puna Sams owe YoHOHeN a aly jousor jo Aets ay unevoeeoy 94S uDHSOR on tit to move them to trust her, ther ultimate betrayal, her ignominious death, and even- tual rehabiltation—that keeps us wonder- ing how such a child could have achieved such fame on such precarious grounds only to be destroyed in the names of the very things—faith and nationalism—for which she fought, Inher excellent new biography, Mary Gordon says that “any understanding of [Joan] wil be partial.that so compelling 2 figure wil constantly demand new visions new revsions..she will not stand still for What makes her so compelling, the ‘iter AJ. Dunning suggests in an essay Joan and Gilles de Rais—the notorious child abuser and murderer who accompanied her to Reims forthe corona: tion of Charles Vili our fascination with those with “the burning deste to live or die for a cause, no matter how unusual or extreme... our average comfortable cit- cumstances, we admire extremes or are repelled by them, but in ether cae have dif ficulty finding a satisfactory explanation forthem.” Art, sometimes even mediocre art, has always been the instrument for express- ing and exploring that fascination—per- haps, a times, even compensating for the absence of such figures in our midst. It places them before us at a safe remove and. in their most compelling mode. And, throughout the last century, for better oF nation of her motives. Joan, it seems, wit- nessed her older sister Catherine's murder and rape (in that order) at the hands of a sadistic mercenary during one of the many violent raids on her village by the Burgundi- aansand Armagnacs (that the attacker actual- ly sounds English is yet another point at ‘ods with the fects). record, which includes interviews conducted in her village with people who would have been vell aware of such an event. “The worst isnot thatthe ida is suggested, but that the scene is so gratuitously graphic as to give preposterously undue weight to What is, at best, febrile fabrication. Joan is not merely a witness of the action; she is worse, we have pro- duced no more com- pelling means for doing so than the movies. re recent fs "Tsien fetsue oft lent classic have made their way to VHS and DVD— rivalling the output in the 1920s spurred by her canonization (1920) and its anticipation. Then, as now, the subject in- spired filmmakers of widely different esthetic sensibilities: on the one Videos Reviewed in This Article Joan of Arc Directed by Christian Duguay staring LeeLee Sobieski, Peter O"Toole, Peter Straus and Jacqueline Bisset. VHS and DVD, color, approx. 180 mins Distributed by Artisan Home Entertainment. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc Directed by Luc Besson; starring Milla Jovovich, John Malkovich, aye Dunaway and Dustia Hoflman, VHS and DVD, color 148 mins. Distributed by Columbia TriStar Home Video. Joan the Maid: Part One, The Battles Joan the Maid: Part Two, The Prisons Directed by Jacques Rivett; starring Sandrine Bonnaire. Two VHS videos, color, concealed in a closet, against the door of which her sister stands to protect her, from which perspec. tive Joan not only sees the brutish at= tacker through cracks in the wood, but barely escapes death herself from the git- tering, blood-stained sword that penetrates her sister's body— and the door—and misses her by inches. Think how conve- nent such a traumat- hand, Cecil B. De Mille, whose Joan the Woman (1917) was one of his first big-budget specta- cles; on the other, Carl Dreyer, whose The Pas- sion of Joan of Arc (1928), as the reissue French dialog with English subtitles, 227 mins. white, 82 mins. The Passion of Joan of Arc Directed by Carl Dreyer; starring Renée Falconetti; VHS and DVD, black and lent, with (optional) accompanying musical score by Richard. Einhorn; with French interttles and optional English subtitles. Distributed in ‘VHS by Home Vision Cinema and in DVD by The Criterion Collection. buted by Facets Video. ic experience is for explaining Joan's compulsion to go to war, her tenacious sion with arms and soldiering and with finding the sword of attests, remains one of, the quintessential avant- garde masterpieces of the cinema. The same ‘contrast is echoed in the new releases: both Lue Besson’s The Messenger (1999) and ‘Christian Duguay’s Joan of Arc (1999) are more of less in the De Mille vein, while Jacques Rivette’s Joan the Maid (1997) is a ‘model of intelligence, modesty, and reserve. (Equally poles apart are the Victor Fleming Ingrid Bergman epic of 1948 and Robert Bresson's austere Trial of Joan of Arc of 1962.) Of the four films under review, the one that might unwittingly ‘esthetic’ is The Messen- 8 including three American stars— John Malkovich as the Dauphin, Faye Dunaway as his mother Isabeau, and Dustin Hoffman as Joan’s ‘conscience’—this two-and- ‘a-half-hour epie gives us a Joan so deranged as to make us wonder how the entire legend could have inated. Played in a constant state of frenzy by Milla Jovovich, this ‘maid’ gives new meaning to the word ‘driven’—she's like a rock star on speed making the most of hher brief time in the limelight. Not content to leave the mystery of Joan's impact ambiguous, Besson (who cowrote the screenplay with Let’s be generous: since such things clearly took place during the civil conflicts that were an offshoot of the Hundred Years ‘War, itis not impossible thet such an inci- dent could have occurred. But you will not find evidence of it in the two-volume biog- raphy by Anatole France (1908), 2 writer bent on finding rational explanations for Joan’s behavior to oppose vaguely spiritual ‘ones. Ite not mentioned in the studies by Tales Michelet (1844), Vita Sackvill-West (1936), Marina Wamer (1981), or Régine ernoud and Marie-Véronique Clin (1998); nor does it appear anywhere in the trial ‘St, Catherine de Fier- ois to wreak ven- sgeance on France's enemies. It's safe to assume, I think, that, in Besson’s view, Whatever Joan was embarked upon, good: ‘ness—let alone saintliness—had nothing to do with it ‘Unfortunately, this account not only fails to explain the symbolic significance Joan— and her virginity—had for the people, the military, and even, despite themselves, the cecclesiasis: it fails to make any sense of her widespread appeal and uncanny ability to deal persuasively with the cynical wits of the ‘court, to gain the trust of rough and sea- soned soldiers, and to verbally outwit the efforts of religious scholars to trap her into condemning herself. That the army would have been inspired by and actually followed the leader- ship of the raving lunatic we see at ‘Orleans and not run the other way is an absurdity that apparently never occurred to Besson and Birkin. Compare ths film’s render- ing with the opening sentences of ‘Michelet’s history: “The originality ‘of the Pucelle, the secret of her suc- ‘ess, was not her courage or her visions, but her good sense. Amidst all her enthusiasm the girl of the people clearly saw the question and knew how to resolve it” Tn the film’s last section, we are Andrew Bi in) reaches for the ‘rudest and most simplistic expla- ‘Mila Jovovich stars in Lue Besson's Tho Messenger: ‘The Story of Joan of Are photo by Jack Engish) back treated to another gimmick that es. Joan is haunted by CINEASTE 17doubts, by thoughts that perhaps she has haallucinated everything—her voices, her visions, her knowledge of the location of St. Catherine's sword. Again, the writers choose to exchew any reasonable approach to this legitimate assertion of her state of mind, and ‘opt instead for a near comic performance by Dustin Hoffman, who ‘embodies’ Joan's ‘mind in conflict. Possibly, Besson and com- pany felt that their actress wasn't quite up to a soul-wrenching crisis. But the very notion thatthe Joan they present would be capable of thinking deeply and weighing various alternatives to her experiences is a complete contradiction, made even more ludicrous by the proposal that the seemingly mindless creature we've been watching for two hours is really a closet method actor. Was this Besson’s way of suggesting —in tune with the short hair and men’s clothes that she insisted upon—that Joan thought like a ‘man? It isa supreme irony that France, the pairie said by Michelet to have been “born in the heart of a woman [i.e Joanl,"and that once rose in protest to demand her rehabilitation, has flocked to theaters to ‘make this fiasco a huge box-office hit which premiered on CBS, is also @ spectacle, conceived—by television standards—on a lage scale, Battle scenes are reasonably well-staged and photographed with sweeping wide angles. The siege of Orleans, Joan's first engagement in arms and the victory that propelled her to fame and led to the crowning of Charles VIl,con- sumes a good forty-five minutes of the fim’ three hours. From the calculated sensational opening of Joan's body burning at the stake—the ‘camera climbing up directly above her to assume the heavenly perspective that her head stretches to act knowledge—the notion of destiny is evoked. Iti support ced by a strange—and apoctyphal—scene from the reconstruct- ced family past when her father (Powers Boothe) tries to kill the newborn to save her from the hands of the marauders who have been burning and ravaging the vil- lages around Dom- remy. Her mother (lacqueline Bisset) intervenes. A close-up of the child’s uncan- nily blue eyes recalls the Damien of the Omen series as much as the star-child of 2001. At ten, Joan is told the history of France by the village T: film directed by Christian Duguay, 18 CINEASTE priest (Robert Loggia) who remarks that he “has never seen such piety at such an eatly age.” Immediately after, we see Joan at sev- enteen (Leelee Sobieski) comforably riding athorse in slow motion—anather sign of her difference and the profession she will pur- ven Joan herself, while confident of her mission and determined to see it through, seems unaware initially ofthis destiny. She remarks more than once that she is not the legendary Maid of Lorraine prophesied by Merlin the magician—that is, until she is wounded at Orleans, has the arrow pulled out of her body, remounts her horse, and resumes the battle, at which point she flatly declares to her officers, “I am the Maid,” and rides off to victory ‘The film surprises with few nicely con- ceived—if historically iaccurate—portraits of key characters. ‘La Hite, one of Joan’s, strongest military supporters, comes across as a noble, sober-minded, and valiant sol- dier who, upon hearing of her capture by ‘the English, readies an army to storm the walls of Roven, but to0 lat to save her from the stake, While he was, by all accounts, loyal to Joan, he was aso a foulmouthed, short-terapered man who was in a Burgun- dln prison at the time of her burning. Nev- ertheless, as credibly played by Peter Straus, the character embodies all we need to know about Joan’s effect on the military Peter O'Toole's impersonation of Pierre ‘Cauchon, the Bishop in charge ofthe eccle- siastical tral, isa tour de force, his age-lined face sill animated by the bluest of eyes and ‘those quivering Lawrencian lips. His impas- sioned performance captures Cauchon'srig- ‘orously legal, theologically unyielding mind. ‘Asin the case of La Hire, however, his char- acter works dramatically and thematically, history be damned. As “spiritual adviser” to Joan in Christian Duguay’s CBS fim (oto courtesy of Poses. the Dauphin, for example, he gets to meet Joan early on in a fatefully-charged encounter that allegedly reflects his divided soul: moved by her purity and sincerity while foreseeing her doom. A theatrically effective moment that encapsulates the impression that Joan inexplicably made on virtually everyone wha met her, itis, nonetheless, pure unabashed fiction, Not only was Cauchon not Chacles’s spiritual adviser; he was an advocate and defender of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, and later of the English, and for a time counselor to Henry VI of England—in other words, a consistent supporter of the factions completely ‘opposed to Charles's claim to the crown. He was nowhere near the court at Chinon where Joan meets the Dauphin, not to men- tion at the latter’s coronation in Reims, Where we see him as an active participant in the ceremonies ‘Another Archbishop entirely, Regnault of Chartres, was present at the meeting ‘between Joan and the Dauphin and actually consecrates the Dauphin King at Reims, but since he was not the one who presided over Joan's tral, he could not provide the ironic symmetry the screenwriters and director apparently sought. In other words, in this film Cauchon conveniently embodies— much eatlier than historically indicated— the role of the Church in Joan’s fate, just as Charles's shifting allegiance embodies that of the State. In one juicy moment, after he has been ‘transferred’ to Beauvais, Cauchon remarks, “Poor deluded Joan. She has no idea she has put a monster on the throne.” ‘And indeed, itis Charles as monster poli cian who emerges as the villain in this ver- sion, beyond the callow and mundane ‘opportunist, played by Malkovich in The ‘Messenger, who turns a deaf ear to Joan’s fortunes once she is no longer useful to him, While it is true that Charles made lit- lle effort to ransom her during the four ‘months she was held prisoner at Beau- revoir before being turned over to the English, the polities and the general situa- tion was enormously complex. In any event, if we have to choose between ‘Charles and the Bish- op of Beauvais, there is really no contest, since the latter made countless efforts to hhave Joan released to the English and con- ducted her tial at Rouen in a tyrannical fashion—something, the Dreyer film cap- tures toa 't! Indeed, ‘twas precisely on the edbasis of the many procedural flaws of the wal, of which Cauchon was clearly the engi- reer, that the rehabilitation trial of 1456 nullified the first one; even Cauchon's rela- tives ultimately rejected him. And so, the seemingly tortured, theologically-minded Cauchon, as played by O'Toole, is not quite the picture one finds in the scholarshi where Cauchon emerges mare politician than churchman, with Cauichon occurs here, asi did, while $e was still nthe custody ofthe Burg an John of Luxembourg. As played by Allain Olivier, this Cauchon has none ofthe fey, conflicted nature of the O'Toole, nor the flamboyant garrulousness of Eugene Sivain in Dreyer’ film, Much closer tothe cool and composed figure in Bresson’s Trial he isall business and thoroughly detached. Yet, ina fletng, but eitical exchange left out of victally ll versions, when he is asked by a Falow clergyman—afer the recantation that seals Joan's fate—why she should be permit- ted to receive the Eucharist since she has been excommunicated, he responds, with- out hesitation, “Give her whatever she wants.” This is not so much a reflection of CCatichon's underlying pity as its an indica- tion that he belived that Joan was actually sills of theological eror and that there- fore, any conclusion reached by the ec- clestiastical court was legitimate. Indeed, this seemingly casual granting of Joan's request, authorized by the man whose Knowledge and interpretation of canon Te vas precisely why he was chosen by the Unic Yerstyof Pars to preside over Joan's ta, became one ofthe primary reasons that the tial was eventually declred invalid Rivets fm Is replete with this kind of historclly-grounded deta, which makes it the most authoritative chronicle of Joan's Story ever put on film, Hence ts no wir- prise to dtcover in the closing credits cita- tions of both primary soures like the ta fecord, and the meticslous scholarship of Regine Pemoud and Marie-Veronigue Clin. Ii was no doubt the later that prompted Rivette to include the earlier scene at Poitiers, when more than dozen theolo- gians questioned Joan about her claims before recommending that Chale actually five her the army she requested. The co Elusion reached was that "no wrong was found in her and tha the king mst not pre- ‘vent her from going to Oriesns.” The hear- Jing documents were apparently suppressed dluring the Rowen eile they would ceatly hhave contradicted the latter's attempt 10 characterize Joan a an apostate and heretic Rivette's film, in other word, i every- thing the Besson and Duguay are not — soberiy conceived, intelligently executed, histockally accurate and wholly persosive {At four hours, itis longer than the other ‘wo, even while it eschews all the obvious ‘opportunities for melodrama and spectacle [Neither a dramatization in the conventional sense with peak scenes and climaxes, nor a tour de force for actors, Rivette’s is not an audience pleaser. This filmmaker, whose ‘work has so often celebrated spontaneity and the unexpected, has here fashioned a modernist meditation of uncompromising directness and simplicity. Because of its delibera understated- ness, the film retell a familiar story as if it were brand new, avoiding formulaic and stylistic excesses that punctuate the already overdetermined ‘high points’ of the drama, This same reserve characterizes its vocabulary: long shots and long takes over close-ups and editing; slow, exploratory pans and tracks; no external music to under- line significant moments; intertitles throughout to precisely fix the dates and places of the action; black leader inter- spersed between scenes, often concealing extraordinary elisions in the progress of events. Not the Teast effect of this approach is that in its near-minimal, quasieportorial style, the film looks as if it were in modern dress, its quietly eloquent camera move- ments scanning the terrain, turning the wit- ness of place into the retrieval of time If some of it seems to be in the Bresson- jan mode—eg., its near zero-degree acting style—this eannot be a coincidence. From CINEASTE 19‘Rene Falconettiin Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Are photo coutosy of Potlet) Sandrine Bonnaire’ fine, strong, and per- fectly natural performance as Joan to the Teast ofthe soldiers who follow her banner, that style could not better suit the film's aims. Rivete could hardly be unaware ofthe work by the filmmaker whom he once referred to as “the only [French] filmmaker left who hasn't sold out.” The opening scene, in fact, is clearly a nod to Bresson's film: three nuns walk along a portico and approach the foreground, the one in the center supported by the other two. She is Isabelle Romee, Joan's mother, who at Notre Dame, years later, tells her story, “I had a laughter, born in wedlock...” the very way Bresson’s film begins. Considering the spareness of the trial scenes—we see only Erard’s cemetery ora- tion and Joan’s abjuration—it may well be that Rivete sees his fm as a complement to Bresson’s. While they are far apart stylist cally, it may also be a respectful nod to the Dreyer. But there is one quirky—and, again, historically intriguing—touch that cannot be found in Bresson or Dreyer or any of the ‘others. At the moment Joan signs the abju ration, she giggles. A sudden relief of ten sion? Perhaps, but there is evidence that the sign she made on the parchment was the ‘same one she used on letters or documents to her military associates, a code alerting ‘them to discount the truth of the document. 3s Joan cleverly outwitting her judges and signalling future historians? Certainly, 20 CINEASTE she was in no rush to die, much Iess to be ‘burned, And ifa single stylistic gesture povr- cerfully captures that truth, itis the third and last cry of “Jesus!” that she screams into the fire in the film’s final image—countering the mutedness of what precedes, and ‘wrenching the viewer from all complacency. At once a cry of pain and a protest against injustice, it may also be, for the contempo- rary viewer, a shriek of terrifying, last- ‘minute doubt. Gone are the doves that fly off with her soul in Dreyer’ film: gone is the empty stake that suggests her spiritual tri- ‘umph in Bresson’s. Rivette leaves us with a cryin the wilderness, the cut from flames to black leader now invoking a void. It is a stunning, disturbing, altogether modera end toa brilliantly executed work o fim ere made on Joan howeve, Nest ora genuinely disturbing a: Dreyer Wide Dreyer ie Bree Son and Rivet id lyon the saalnip a FReord which the ins nes day Fecord and employed historian Pere hr Site hind of tthe wef To teach he rducd Joan story nt ony LE Lr a Ginn ne mos powerpc res othe ay. To acamate oan’ perce Deeyer completely avoided the spectacle approach—exposing precious little film on the meticulous replications ofthe medieval city of Rouen—and conceived an uncon- ‘ventional visual style which continues to Unsette spectators. Through a relentless, almost suffocating use of close-ups and rmedium shots—many of them so decen- tered compositionally as to almost fall off the edges ofthe frame—he created a contin- tual sense of fracture and disorientation that parallels the discordant, fraudulent nature Othe tial the equivalent of zoom-in and = outs to hostile figures—an infuriated Cau- chon, an English soldier—embody the very notion of assault the initially insulated space that Joan occupies quickly becomes a danger zone, as when D'Esivet, one of her judges, rises in anger, looms over her, and Spits om her face. The threat of torture is concretzed as fragmented images of wheel, spikes, blades, and teth-lned objects are rapidly interut with Joan's swooning and eventual faint. And, a one might expet, the ‘burning scene is graphically represented and prolonged with repeated images of Joan's heated face through the lames and shots of her slumping body behind smoke at almost very stage ofits descent. Inshore, Dreye’s film comes closest to conveying both the horrific nature of Joan's plight as well as the barbaric forms of punishment available to the medieval Church. It is no wonder that upon completion, the film was greatly‘objected to by leaders of the French Church, who wanted many cuts, and that several prints still in archives are missing some of the more graphic images. ‘Asif tis were not enough, Dreyer boldly parallels Joan's story with that of Christ, sig- nalled immediately by the fl’ ttle—The Passion of Joan of Aro—and reinforced by its condensed structure, which collapses several ‘months of the trial into what seems one, long, uninterrupted day, much the way Jesus's arrest imprisonment, and appear- ances before Herod and Pilate are often ren- dered. Even the incident of Joan attacked in her cell by English soldiers serves the pur- ‘pose: instead of the near-rape—which Riv- ette’s film makes explicit—Dreyer has the ‘men place a mock crown of thorns on Joan's head and scepter in her hand, and taunt her as the soldiers did Jesus asthe ‘King of the Jews’ For Dreyer, in other words, Joan, like Jesus, was another figure of spiritual indi- viduality, who could not be tolerated by the established forces of Church and Stat, Heavy going some would say. On its ini- tial release the poet H. D., while impressed by the film, found it unbearable to be 2 helpless spectator before the tortured Joan, a sentiment that has been echoed by others since. Ths has always seemed curious to me, asif there should bea less heavy, more bear- able way to create disturbing art. Singling ‘ut the Dreyer as possibly sadomasochistic ignores the truly horrific elements of Joan's Story as it neared its finale, In analogizing it to the story of Christ, Dreyer was recreating, significant aspect of medieval life and art—described so eloquently in Johan ‘Huizinga’s masterly study The Waning ofthe Middle Ages—in which the individual believer modeled her or his life very closely fon that of Christ, conceiving everything, from mundane activities to manners of dying as valorized experiences to the degree that they did so. Indeed, as the film's arc tectural design and rmise-en-scene—based on ilustrated medieval manuscripts connote, The Passion of Joan of Arc itself might be viewed as one would 2 series of narrative ftiezes on a medieval French Cathedral. Its characteristic look—a three-dimensional head sculpted against a spare background— suggests as much, "The recent reissue of the film comes as close as any digital or video image probably can to conveying the visual quality and intensity of the original. No film scholar or serious collector should be without it, preferably in the DVD format, which includes extras in the way of information on production design and print history, although not all of this as we shall see, i accurate. A pethaps minor, but revealing ‘example of the lax scholarship reflected in this material is the repetition of an error made by all but a few scholars. The great French actor Michel Simon is erroneously identified as the judge Jean Lemaitre, when, in fact, the actor who portrays this role is Gilbert Dalleu; Simon appears in exactly two brief shots. The extra material also includes brieftoo brief, in my opinion—excerpts from an interview with Helene Falconetti, daughter of Renée Falcanetti, whose perfo mance as Joan surely ranks as one of the half-dozen most astonishing in the annals of, film history. (One serious drawback, however, is the speed at which the film is run, which, while perhaps mainly of interest to scholars, will affect anyone’s experience watching it. Some archivists and scholars insist, quit rightly to ry mind, that the film should be projected at sixteen or eighteen frames per second, consistent with the speed at which it was shot; others claim that ths is far too slow. Projected at that speed, the virtually com- plete prints available up to now and screened periodically at places like The Museum of Modern Art and Anthology Film Archives run between 110 and 120 ‘minutes. The present reissue—which does not include any new material nor any sub- stantial cuts—runs eighty-two minutes. According to the brochure enclosed in the DVD edition, the “digital transfer was creat- ed, at 24 frames per second from a 35mm fine-grain master positive made from the restored negative." What this claim blithely ‘ignores is that since the film was not shot at twenty-four frames per second, transfering it at this speed could only result in those jerky, unnatural movements typical of silent films projected too fast—i.e., at sound speed. ‘The reason for this is simple, since asell- ing feature ofthe reissue isthe score written for the film by composer Richard Einhorn, A choral and orchestral work entitled “Voic~ es of Light,” the score itself i lovely its text composite of many writings, including biblical passages, and songs and poems by ‘medieval female mystics. When I first heard it a live accompaniment to a screening of the film at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, resisted it because I thought it out of synch with Dreyer's work, Since then, I have come to appreciate it as a sensitively conceived complement to the film. Nevertheless, no score, no matter how brillant and moving, should dictate the film's rhythm, which is ‘what has occurred here. Nor does the option to watch the film silent affect this. With or without the soundtrack, the tape or DVD runs atthe same speed and this is a disser- vice tothe film's own magisterial pace Concerning the “master print” from which this copy is derived, alot of unfound- ced assumptions have circulated since it was discovered in 1981 in a sanatorium in Nor- way, where it had presumably been sent in 1928 for purposes unknown. (One story— recounted in The Manchester Guardian in 1985—had it that Dreyer, who had suffered ‘a nervous breakdown after shooting Jeanne d'Ar, was friendly witha doctor atthe sana~ torium and sent him the film to use as shock therapy for his patients!) On the basis that the print was believed to have been struck from the original negative, long thought lost in two separate fires (the irony here is almost irresistible), the magazine L’Avant- Scene Cinéma published a dossier on the film in 1988, including a shot by shot analy- sis of this print, and an essay on the print history of the film. In the absence of any conclusive evidence, it was assumed that the Norwegian discovery was a case of the phoenix rising from its ashes, Ever since— And still without any conclusive evidence— the print has been proclaimed as ‘definitive ‘or ‘original’ by newspaper and magazine commentators, a few archivists, and, of ‘course, the marketers ofthis release. ‘We are fortunate to have this print since itis of beautiful visual quality. But, the peo- ple responsible for this release, ina perhaps overzealous—but completely unnecessary— attempt to sell their product, have distorted ppart of the film’s print history. We are shown (in the DVD format) a clip from ludicrously corrupt print ofthe film as an illustration of the “pale” and “mutilated” (read “only”) versions of the “original” available for sixty years to film scholars. Such a claim is ether the result of inade~ quate research or simply an advertising lie. Scholars have worked on ths film for years ‘with access to prints of varying, and very good, visual quality, at many institutions, including those mentioned ea In an article in The New Yorker (Noven- ber 15, 1999) Joan Acocella tells us that ‘more movies are currently “in the works” and that both Madonna and Sinéad O'Con- for have expressed intrest in playing Joan. ‘Will all this have anything to do with the historical Joan of Arc, even asa cult figure? Or will she become as endlessly malleable and meaningless as a figure in a video game or an image in cyberspace, a mere icon for ‘whatever passing fads may preoccupy the user? We can be thankful that there will always be scholarship, but, of course, there, too, special interests will have to be distin- fished from the real McCoy. But in a cul: ture so inundated with the mediocre and the transitory, I guess we should be thankful that the moving image technologies that form such a critical pat of it are what have ‘made the Dreyer and Rivette films (the Bres- son, alas, is not on either VHS or DVD) available to greater publ . Works cited: Dunning. A. J Extremes Rfson on Human Bhar fay, atte by Johan Theron, New York Harcourt Bese, 1992 Gosden, May, Jo of re New Yuk engu, 2000, Hazing, Johan, The Waning of the Middle Ages New York: Doubleday Anchor Book, 1954 Michelet, Jules, The Lif of Joan of Ar translator unkown, The Spence Pres 1937. Pernoud, Répne and Mare-Vernigue Clin, Jam of ‘Are Het Story eveed and translated by Jeremy AluQuesnay Aden, NY: Se Martin's Grif, 199, Rivets, Jacques, et als"Six Characters in Search of ‘Asters A Discusion About the French Cinema,” (Chiesa inna 7 (May 1957) rep in Cahiers ‘iu Cinona: The 19305 Neo Real, Hlipwted, New ‘Wore dim Hiller, Cambridge, MA Harvard U. Pres, 1985, CINEASTE 21