The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962)
Joan of Arc is an intriguing figure. Some, of course, think she was crazy, some think she was a witch, and many think she was called by God. I’m inclined to the latter. How Joan is portrayed in film tends to lean according to however the filmmakers view her, but in the case of The Trial of Joan of Arc, the aim is straight, stark realism. For the most part, anyway.
The film is presented in black and white with very simple sets. There’s not much gradation, mostly browns and reds, but a lot of it is just plain old white and light shades. Seeing as scenery-chewing isn’t the order of the day in a film like this, the plain backgrounds work nicely to frame and highlight the action.
According to Variety, none of the cast members were trained actors, so the picture that comes across is very simple in terms of performance as well. There isn’t a lot of heavy emoting or movement; the cast members walk into scenes and out of them, they sit, and they talk. It sounds boring but it really isn’t because director Robert Bresson kept things moving at a nice clip, with the cast delivering their lines in rapid French. There isn’t even time to get the characters’ names except for Joan’s, but no biggy.
For being non-actors, the cast turns out very nicely. Florence Delay, who was credited as Florence Carrez in the film, gives a delicate performance, barely looking at the other actors but hiding a lot of subtext behind her eyes. She also looks as if she wants to bolt or leap out of her chair or something. This is a good thing because there’s no way the film could recreate all of Joan’s trial, so Delay’s performance fills in at least some of the blanks.
(Incidentally, if anyone wants more of the details and context of Joan’s story, Joan of Arc In Her Own Words is an awesome book in my opinion. But I digress.)
It’s pretty hard to give spoilers about a film like this because we know how it ends. The film clocks in at just over an hour and covers bits of the trial, mostly consisting of a few questions and then Joan being taken back to her cell. We see what’s called her abjuration, which meant she denounced her voices and everything she had held to, and then we see her take it back. We see Joan’s execution but don’t linger long enough to see the regret of the people who witnessed it.
The only aspect of Joan’s trial that doesn’t come across is how chaotic it could be. Sometimes there would be several questions fired off at Joan at the same time so as to confuse her and make her sound crazy, and her answers were recorded in third person. For obvious reasons this wasn’t done in the film; any chaos comes in the forms of unseen crowds yelling outside the castle and a male voice yelling, “Kill the witch!”
What is effectively shown is how manipulated the whole business was and how desperate the English were to implicate Joan as a witch. There were clergy who silently approved or disapproved the questioning, mostly with nods and looking off to the side. The English peep at Joan through holes in her prison wall and whisper instructions to Joan’s prosecutors. They might as well have been standing over everyone and literally pulling strings. The movie shows all of this from scene to scene with such regularity that it looks as if they were recycling footage.
The Trial of Joan of Arc is a compelling film. It’s a little skimpy on the events surrounding Joan’s trial, but overall it presents her in a mostly unfiltered fashion and is over all too soon.
The Trial of Joan of Arc is currently streaming on HBO Max. Not rated.
My grade: B+
Principal cast: Florence Delay, Jean-Claude Forneau, Roger Honorat, Marc Jacquier, Jean Gillibert, Michel Herubel
Directed by Robert Bresson.
Written by Robert Bresson and Pierre Champion.