Post by Mrs Vindecco on Apr 7, 2013 18:35:53 GMT
I just watched this for the first time last night. I have been meaning to watch this for a while and am so glad I took the time to watch it. I was completely floored by Falconetti performance as Joan. This was her second and final appearance on film which was probably to the director (Carl Theodor Dreyer) being rough on her.
I'm going to quote from my old friend Mark Cousins regarding this film.
"La Passion de Jean d'Arc amalgamates the internationalism, the technical brilliance and human ambition of 1920's cinema... [Falconetti's] face has almost no make-up and on big screen her freckles are visible. In the film, her eyelids quiver like butterfly wings, but in other ways her face is immobile, almost expressionless. There is almost no depth to the image, nothing in the background. Although this is a black and white film, the walls of the set were painted pink to remove the glare and not detract from Falconetti's face. The film's set designer was German Hermann Warm, who painted the shadows in Caligari. [The scene where] Falconetti had her hair cropped was shot in silence and such was the atmosphere on the set that some of the electricians cried. In some shots she is framed, at the edge of the image, almost trying to escape it. Not many inter-titles explain, what is being said, but Falconetti and the other actors move their lips throughout the film, speaking the precise words recorded at Joan of Arc's trial. This was a premonition of a kind because in the year of The Passion of Joan of Arc's production, Warner Bros release The Jazz Singer."
I watched it youtube, where surprisingly enough, one of the comments summed the film up perfectly "simplistic without being simple".
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www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/17/passion-joan-arc-classic-dvd
I'm going to quote from my old friend Mark Cousins regarding this film.
"La Passion de Jean d'Arc amalgamates the internationalism, the technical brilliance and human ambition of 1920's cinema... [Falconetti's] face has almost no make-up and on big screen her freckles are visible. In the film, her eyelids quiver like butterfly wings, but in other ways her face is immobile, almost expressionless. There is almost no depth to the image, nothing in the background. Although this is a black and white film, the walls of the set were painted pink to remove the glare and not detract from Falconetti's face. The film's set designer was German Hermann Warm, who painted the shadows in Caligari. [The scene where] Falconetti had her hair cropped was shot in silence and such was the atmosphere on the set that some of the electricians cried. In some shots she is framed, at the edge of the image, almost trying to escape it. Not many inter-titles explain, what is being said, but Falconetti and the other actors move their lips throughout the film, speaking the precise words recorded at Joan of Arc's trial. This was a premonition of a kind because in the year of The Passion of Joan of Arc's production, Warner Bros release The Jazz Singer."
I watched it youtube, where surprisingly enough, one of the comments summed the film up perfectly "simplistic without being simple".
www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/17/passion-joan-arc-classic-dvd
