Tag Archives: history

Feb 23 2025

1928 – The Passion of Joan of Arc

1928 – The Passion of Joan of Arc

Produced by Société Générale des Films, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, is a 1928. It stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. It is a French film based on the trial record fro Joan of Arc. I watched it on JustWatch here kindly remastered and made public by the Open Archive.

Because of David Lynch’s recent passing, I saw Mulholland Drive for the first time a few weeks ago. I had always been scared to watch it, that I would probably not understand it. So glad I did, because I absolutely loved it, especially the performance by Naomi Watts. However, I don’t know, if I liked it so much, because I understood a lot of callbacks, e.g. the “Kim Novak, Vertigo” dress that Betty wears at some point in the movie. I kept asking myself, if I would’ve understood it as much 24 years ago, when it came out, me not being mature enough or would the chills that I had throughout the movie been enough? I think the same applies for this movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc. I’ve always archived it to “probably need to see this at some point in my life, but I am still too scared that I won’t get it”. I have been disappointed before – unimpressed by Citizen Kane, bored by Lawrence of Arabia, confused by The Last Picture Show, so it’s not a given that my fears will be for nothing.

Well, I am glad to say that “I got it” for this movie. The main theme being the feeling of dread, discomfort and desperation from the oppressing close-ups in this movie. It is quite experimental, but simple at the same time. The mantra in movies usually is “show, don’t tell” – that’s what the moving pictures are for! But then you get something that turns it on its head – think 12 Angry Men, which plays out only in the juror’s room – it’s such a fine line, because a lot of the showing is only in the desperation of the faces, while the telling is often the classic expository dialogue. And the same happens in this movie – it basically has no plot, it’s the final days of Joan of Arc and her trial before her burning at the stake. It’s all the oppression she felt, but her quiet defiance in the face of torture and death.

Just like Joan of Arc itself, I also liked the quiet defiance it took to get this film made. She had just been canonized as a saint 8 years before, so fervors in France were strong to honor one of their heroes. It was quite controversial that (a) the plot was just about her final 10 days, not the amazing battles that inspired France’s last push in the 100 years war against the English (b) the movie was directed by a Dane and not a Frenchman and (c) they tried to make it as original as possible, largely reproducing word for word the original transcripts from the 15th century – condensing them into one trial, which did not sit well with the Archishop of Paris at the time and we final restoration only coming to us in 2015 after the final cut was found in a mental institution in 1981.

And then of course, there is the feminism, quite remarkable also for 1928. How the subtleties in the faces doing the horror belong to men and the faces distorting in horror at what its happening, belong to the women (with a few unhelpful exceptions such as the priest sprinkled in). Quiet, defiant competence gets women so far and Joan of Arc, but also here Maria Falconetti’s performance underscored that! Very strange to juxtapose it to the so-called feminism depicted in Lessons in Chemistry that I just finished a few days ago (blergh!). The brilliance in so many women role models for me was how they could inspire anybody to fight, work, protest, vote with them, not simply preach! This movie, while simple, also does that!

Jan 26 2025

1926 – Faust

1926 – Faust

Produced by Ufa, directed by F. W. Murnau. It stars Gösta Ekman as Faust, Emil Jannings as Mephisto and Camilla Horn as Gretchen. I watched it on YouTube here (did not like the horrible colorization there is on other places).

When I was an adolescent, it was typical that in the 13th year of school, you read the “Faust” by Goethe. I got out of it by reading 2 Thomas Mann books and I still regret it to this day. It may have been harder to interpret, but I am sure it would’ve given me more than that depressive German attitude that “Der Untertan” gave me, a good description, but so, so lost. In any case, reading the “Faust” is still on my backlist, but more like a project that “I’ll do someday” (yeah, right…). Everybody knows its main theme: Faust gets visited by Mephisto, an incarnation of the Devil which offers him youth, fame and fortune in exchange for his soul. Will he take that (Faustian) bargain?

So, with everybody discovering Murnau, because of the remake of Nosferatu, it was quite an easy decision to go with the Faust! It was his last German film at Ufa and is believed together with Nosferatu to be the height of German Expressionism in Film. Of course, having studied and having now worked in Potsdam for many years, the history of Ufa is present at all times. You see the imagery when visiting the Film Studios Babelsberg (the rides are horrible, but the studio and the history are great) or the Film Museum, so I went in to watch the movie knowing that.

The plot is as expected, though I did not know much about the Gretchen part of the story, which is Faust’s potential love story and the wringer she is put through in the last part of the movie. Things I liked in the movie were the artistic expression, like a ballet, almost like they were pausing the movie now and then to pose off, so that you could save the frame. The face contortions and mannerisms of Mephisto are purposively over the top, but I liked that very much. The film drags a bit in the middle, because they need to show the huge fall from grace that Gretchen has, so need to show her good, but boring life, but it distracts from the actual Faust story. Interestingly, the title cards in German were a bit hard to read, so sometimes I reverted to the English subtitles, whose translation was quite good.

In any case, the movie is as prescient today as it was in any time. In a week when during the Trump administration inauguration among the invited guests where the billionaires of tech companies, I was reminded of the quote by Lord Acton:

“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

There is no bargain you make with the devil where you will do good in the end, even if that was your intention in the beginning. And that’s really what this techno super-elite has turned into, Faustian doppelgangers making deals with Trump, seeking eternal fountains of youth, telling themselves that they’re doing good in the world by inventing the next social media app. To assuage their guilt and looking for absolution, they donate a few millions, but are always baffled at why the people see them as evil. People, also in the movie, can sniff the wickedness in Faust a mile away. And so I can only recommend people watch the movie, the style may not be for everybody and the end message is cheesy. But just because it’s cheesy, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.