It’s been more than 80 years since movies figured out how to make noise, and perhaps the most enduring image from the silent days is that of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp character. Yet if you ask film historians what the best silent movie is, the answer you’ll probably get isn’t a Chaplin film, or a comedy at all. It’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, a 1928 French production made by a Dane named Carl Theodor Dreyer. How, in a field dominated by slapstick comedians, does this peculiar silent gem come to be so highly regarded? Let’s put on our men’s clothing and investigate.

The praise: When the New York Times’ critic, Mordaunt Hall, saw the film in 1929, he essentially called it the best movie ever made. (“As a film work of art this takes precedence over anything that has so far been produced.”) Thousands of movies have been made since then, yet Passion has barely lost its footing. Sight & Sound’s influential once-a-decade critics’ poll of the best movies ever made has regularly included it; it was seventh in 1952 and 1972, and 10th in 1992.) The Village Voice’s 2000 poll of critics placed it as the eighth best film of the 20th century. Premiere magazine’s list of the 100 greatest performances of all time has this film’s star, Maria Falconetti, at No. 26 — the highest of any silent performance.

The context: Carl Theodor Dreyer had been a journalist and screenwriter in his native Denmark before he began making films of his own, the first one in 1919. He initially followed the style of D.W. Griffith, whose Intolerance and Birth of a Nation in the 1910s had defined the silent drama. But by the time he made The Passion of Joan of Arc, funded by a French studio, he’d arrived at his own style that combined elements of Soviet, French, and German expressionism.

Dreyer found his lead actress, Maria Falconetti, on the French stage, where she was already well respected. She’d appeared in two minor films in 1917, and never made another one after she played Joan of Arc. It’s essentially her only film role. That, coupled with the movie’s tragic nature, adds to Falconetti’s mystique.

The movie: In what must have been a first or near-first for a movie, most of the screenplay is taken straight from the actual transcripts of Joan’s trial nearly 500 years earlier. As you are probably aware, Joan of Arc was a young lady during the Hundred Years’ War who believed God had instructed her to help kick the English out of France. The English didn’t care for her plan, and once she was in their hands she was tried for “heresy.” (It was the only capital crime they could think of that she might possibly be guilty of.) They were kind of mean to her during the trial. Then they set her on fire. The end.

What to look for: Right from the start, notice that there’s something missing. (Other than sound, I mean.) There are no establishing shots. Usually you’d expect to see an exterior view of the church where Joan’s trial is taking place, or maybe an on-screen title giving us the location. Instead, we’re immediately inside the building, with no external views to give us context. The purpose of an establishing shot is to help us get oriented; intentionally omitting such a shot throws us off-balance, in this case putting us on equal footing with Joan.

Roger Ebert explains how the film takes this idea even further:

There is a language of shooting and editing that we subconsciously expect at the movies. We assume that if two people are talking, the cuts will make it seem that they are looking at one another. We assume that if a judge is questioning a defendant, the camera placement and editing will make it clear where they stand in relation to one another. If we see three people in a room, we expect to be able to say how they are arranged and which is closest to the camera. Almost all such visual cues are missing from The Passion of Joan of Arc.

Not only are there no establishing shots, but even within the rooms where the film takes place it’s impossible to tell where anyone is in relation to anyone else, except when they happen to be in the frame at the same time.

In the first section of the movie — up until the torture chamber sequence — we don’t see Joan’s entire body. When she’s alone in the shot, she’s almost always photographed in close-up, her head tending to fill the frame, her wide, clear eyes often gazing heavenward. The camera does not move when Joan is in the shot. In contrast, the camera pans and dollies quite a bit when Joan’s interrogators are on the screen, and they are often filmed with a lot of empty space around them. The effect is that Joan comes across as peaceful, calm, and centered, while her accusers seem frenzied and sloppy.

Dreyer uses some effective shorthand in his visual depictions of Joan and the men. Her face is young and smooth. She seldom blinks. She might be crazy, but she sincerely believes everything she says. The interrogators, on the other hand, have craggy faces, usually with expressions of condescension and mockery. They’re often shot from low angles, making them loom over us, leering. Joan is honest and naive; her accusers trick her with a forged letter from the king and pull other shenanigans. There is no possibility of the viewer being skeptical of Joan. This could be the trial of Osama bin Laden and we’d be on his side, if he and his accusers were shot the same way Joan and hers are.

The film’s middle section is set in the church’s torture chamber. (Is it not a source of alarm that the church even HAS a torture chamber?) It culminates in a superb example of film editing being used to produce excitement without anything exciting actually appearing on-screen. There’s a large, spiked wheel. There’s a man turning a crank that turns the wheel. There are the interrogators. There’s Joan, gazing in fear as she’s threatened with the possibility of having the spiked wheel applied to her. Dreyer cuts from the wheel to the man to the interrogators to Joan. As the wheel turns faster, the editing gets faster. A rhythm emerges: glimpse of the wheel, glimpse of the man, glimpse of the interrogators, longer shot of Joan; repeat. Just as before, while all around her becomes frenetic, Joan remains comparatively steady.

This is especially impressive when you consider how effective it is even without sound. Nearly any film made after 1930 would use music and sound effects to heighten the tension created by the rhythm of the editing. Dreyer does it in silence.

Silent films are notorious for showcasing acting that is, by today’s standards, hammy and melodramatic. You will note that Joan of Arc has none of this. Instead, the performances are naturalistic. Dreyer didn’t even let his actors wear makeup because he wanted authenticity and realism.

What’s the big deal: The Passion of Joan of Arc is frequently called the last great silent film. It is indeed great, silent, and great at conveying its ideas in spite of its silence. Ironically, Dreyer originally wanted to shoot it as a sound film, the technology for which was just starting to become available. When that proved impractical, he instead made a silent picture that was as technically proficient and emotionally nuanced as anything that had come before it. Its lack of sound makes it seem very old, yet its craft puts it decades ahead of its time.

* * * *

Eric D. Snider (website) is guilty of hearsay but not heresy.

Tags: eric d. snider, the passion of joan of arc, what's the big deal?