A huge investment at the time, with its colossal cast and loving
recreation of medieval France, Joan of Arc is historically a luckless
film. Despite its box-office winnings, it failed to cover its immense cost. It
gained seven Oscar nominations (and four wins!) with no nomination for Best
Picture. Its director, its cinematographer and actor Roman Bohnen (playing
Joan’s uncle) all died prematurely after its release. Ingrid Bergman was caught
up in scandal – and effectively exiled from Hollywood – shortly after when her
affair with director Roberto Rossellini became public knowledge. Producer
Walter Wagner was imprisoned three years later for shooting his wife’s lover.
The film itself had 20 minutes sliced from it and, for decades, was only
available in its truncated version.
Aside from these historic curiosities, Joan of Arc is a
well-made, handsomely mounted but fundamentally rather dry and at points rather
dull historical drama, mixed with more than enough touches of Biblical
worthiness. Victor Fleming himself felt the film was a disappointment, that a
trick had been missed – perhaps aware
that his own old-fashioned, rather flat direction fails to bring any
inspiration out of the drama.
If drama is quite the right word for what, all too often, are too
many scenes made up almost solely of a group of men sitting around a table in
medieval garb talking at length of current affairs. Too many of these scenes
lack in pace or urgency and many end up feeling forced, with too much of the
dialogue reduced to recounting events rather than driving the story.
The structure of the story feels off as well: it can be split into
three rough acts: Joan’s search for her purpose, Joan’s time as the inspiration
of the French, and Joan’s imprisonment and trial. The trial, in particular,
takes up almost the final 45 minutes of the film. The play the film is based on
used a troupe of actors performing the life of Joan as a framing device for
further insight into the life and impact of the saint. Without this framing
device, the actual film becomes a rather dry history lesson.
It’s not helped by Bergman’s performance, which serves to capture
in capsule the film’s po-faced piousness. It was a dream of Bergman’s to bring
her Broadway performance of Joan to film. Sadly, the script’s lack of wit (or insight
into the personality of Joan), means the majority of her scenes fall into a
stock pattern: her lines are delivered with a breathless intensity with her
hands are clasped across her chest. Aside from a few brief scenes where Joan
questions why her voices have fallen silent, there are very few moments where
either Bergman or the film seek to delve down into the motivations and
inspirations of Joan. Like the film, her performance is bereft of any wit or
warmth – instead it is almost devotional in its careful respect.
It’s part of the film’s seriousness. It makes some excellent
points on the lasting impact of Joan, the horrific unfairness of her trial and
the fact that, by burning her, the English merely cemented her hold on the
French people rather than ending it. But too many other issues are pushed to
the wayside, along with Joan’s character and motivations. No questions are
raised around Joan’s interpretation of her visions. The conflict between faith
and war is unexplored. The film sets its store out clearly: this is a
devotional work and we should take it as that, and any questions around faith,
legitimacy or what drove a fanatical teenager to embrace a life of military
campaigning goes unexplored. In truth, we know as little about Joan at the end
as we did at the beginning.
Which isn’t to say the film doesn’t have its plusses. As a piece
of devotional film-making, it has a lovely score from Hugo Friedhofer, with
just the right uses of heavenly choirs singing through the most devout
sections. The design of the film is beautifully done, heavily inspired by
medieval manuscripts, with the same striking primary colours and framing. It
has in fact a beautifully old-fashioned look to it, a wonderfully designed
artificiality. The siege of Orleans is a dramatically staged sequence, with a
particularly striking orange-drenched sky. Visually you can imagine this as an
incredibly stuffed-shirt Adventures of Robin Hood, but still glorious to
look at.
Bergman is also wisely surrounded by a strong cast of character
actors, all providing the sort of colour and corruption that Bergman’s stiffly
written Joan can’t provide. José Ferrer landed an Oscar nomination for his
film debut as the ambitious, weak-willed and envious Dauphin, more interested
in realpolitik than doing the right thing. Francis L Sullivan connives and
blusters wonderfully as corrupt Bishop Cauchon, fixing the trial. George
Coulouris gives his usual hurried authority to de Baudricourt, while Cecil
Kellaway inverts his Irish kindness as Joan’s Inquisitor. Off-the-wall casting
choices like Ward Bond as a French captain surprisingly tend to pay-off.
Shepperd Strudwick makes the biggest impression though as Joan’s sympathetic
bailiff (he also speaks the prologue).
The overall film though is one more for history buffs than for
movie goers. With its seriousness, odd pace (some events take forever, while
others – such as Joan’s capture – either rush past in seconds of happen
off-screen) and general lack of any humour or warmth, it’s not always an
engrossing watch. Well-made as it is, it’s also directed with a certain flat
professionalism rather than inspiration and Bergman seems constricted by the
script and the part. A curiosity, but not a complete success.
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