A Stake in History

Trial of Joan of Arc. With the exception of Carl Dreyer's silent classic The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), the numerous films about the martyred Maid of Orleans have contributed very little to art and less to the box office. The subject thus seems a natural for French Director Robert Bresson (Diary of a Country Priest, Pickpocket), who for more than two decades has been making austere, praiseworthy, but unpopular movies. Bresson's treatment of the Trial of Joan is characteristically ascetic; but it is also quintessential history, unique and timeless, graced with a master's touch.

Almost defiantly literal, the film at times looks like a 15th century news documentary. Every line of dialogue is taken from transcripts of Joan's heresy trial, preserved in French archives since 1431. Joan is played by a forthright nonprofessional (Florence Carrez), shrewdly directed to make her acting appear a simple act of faith. She pits her visions and her voices against ecclesiastical authority in a poignant litany that could hardly be improved as drama.

"Beware of misjudging me," warns the Maid.

"Do your saints hate the English?" asks Bishop Cauchon.

"They love and hate as God does."

"Does God hate the English?"

"He wants them driven out of France."

A day's questioning over, Joan returns to her cell. A dungeon door groans shut. Englishmen's voices cry, "Death to the witch!" Alone, the girl lies motionless, staring; somewhere in the night a barking dog echoes her isolation. Then the interrogation resumes.

Bresson's flow of sound and image is set to an inner rhythm as clear--and at moments as soporific--as a slow-rolling drumbeat. The cumulative effect is massive, finally unforgettable. The death of Joan is a nearly wordless sequence that provides a definitive lesson in economy of style, for it shows little, says all. The Maid's bare feet are seen padding over cobbles. Someone in the crowd trips her. At the stake there is a split second of hesitation: then she is chained, the faggots are lit, and her meager belongings are fed to the fire. "Holy Jesus!" calls Joan, and extinction comes as two priests lift a great cross into the thickening smoke, then quickly draw back from a wall of heat.

Moments later, birds' wings flutter above the benighted churchmen, who gape at the charred pillar, already uncertain whether they have incinerated a heretic, or a saint.

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