Carl Theodor Dreyer-La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) (Reupload to RS.com)

“La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc” shot in France in 1927 by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It was the victim of several ordeals. Censored before its release in 1928. The original negative was soon destroyed by fire. A second negative reedited by Dreyer from alternative takes was also thought lost to fire. For more than a half-century this great classic of silent film was known only in mutilated copies or in a sonorized version which made numerous changes to the original. Then in 1981 this original Danish copy complete and in very good condition was miraculously discovered in a closet of a Norwegian mental institution.

The film is accompanied by Richard Einhorn's “Voices of Light”, an original orchestral work inspired by the film and performed by renowned choral ensemble Anonymous 4, the Nederlands Radio Choir and the Nederlands Radio Philharmonic.


Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is as truly mythic as any film ever shot, its artistic achievement rivaled by its turbulent history. The focal point of controversy when released in 1928, the original film was lost for a half-century until an intact copy of Dreyer's original version was recovered in the early '80s. (www.amazon.com editorial reviews)


Seeing Joan of Arc today remains a cinematic revelation, its approach to storytelling, set design, editing, and especially cinematography (by Rudolph Maté, who also shot Dreyer's visionary Vampyr) radical then, and still strikingly modern many decades later. Influenced by both German expressionist film and the French avant-garde, Dreyer's huge set was designed with asymmetrical doors, windows, and arches, through which Maté's camera moves along equally off-centered, even vertiginous, but fluid trajectories. Although the story is epic in its implications, the film is composed primarily of extreme close-ups, especially of Joan and her principal interrogator, Bishop Cauchon, and medium shots of small groups, often shot from low angles. Dreyer and Maté shot their cast in bright light, without makeup, giving each wrinkle, blemish, or tuft of hair sculptural detail.(www.amazon.com editorial reviews)


For all its visual invention, however, Dreyer's film is most devastating in its central performance by Falconetti (née Renee Falconetti), a French stage actress who made her only screen appearance here--one critic Pauline Kael has suggested 'may be the finest performance ever recorded on film.' Through Falconetti, Joan's spiritual devotion, simple dignity, and suffering become utterly real; even without a dialogue track and only sparse inter-titles, the film achieves a fevered eloquence.

This meticulous restoration also includes composer Richard Einhorn's beautiful oratorio, Voices of Light, inspired by Dreyer's film and set to texts by women mystics from medieval and early-Renaissance Europe. A luminous work on its own, Einhorn's oratorio matches both the dramatic arcs and tremulous emotions of Dreyer's film, while its juxtaposition of choral and solo voices (with early-music vocal quartet Anonymous 4 evoking Joan herself) echoes the martyr's confrontation with the court. (--Sam Sutherland www.amazon.com)




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