In 2020, I earned 5 minutes on the phone with Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Fitzcarraldo), and I assailed the man with questions on a topic that is always on my mind: how the canon of cinema is changing and solidifying now that the art form has passed the centennial mark (with a centennial amount of homework for new artists, cinephiles, and historians to wade through).
I asked him what films I should watch. He recommended The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) from France and The Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apur Sansar) from India. The Criterion box set for The Apu Trilogy remains on my shelf waiting for a rainy day that still hasn’t come, but The Passion of Joan of Arc changed my understanding of what film can be, and how faith can shine through it.
At the beginning of the 20th century, pulp heroes like Tarzan were all the rage, and somehow, Joan of Arc, the 15th century teenage Freedom Fighter and religious zealot, was among them. Joan of Arc books, plays, and films abounded. And then the transcripts of her trial were discovered, and legend became reality as Carl Theodor Dreyer adapted the transcripts into one of the greatest films ever made. The silent camera flies down the benches of Jurors, ripples with the heat of oppression’s fires, and lingers on Maria Falconetti’s face as she cries the best tear that’s ever been cried on celluloid or digital. The Passion of Joan of Arc is history in moving paintings, not moving pictures, and its cultural relevance, to those of faith and not, has once again risen with the tides of time.
Where Joan’s faith can be interpreted by different artists as political game, mania, or even exaggerated triviality, Dreyer takes it seriously. What is the cause of her rebellion that will send her to execution? Her faith, and the anger at evil done in the name of that faith. In a moment where Church and Government had no separation, where misogynist readings of The Bible painted the poor, the outsider, and women as inferior and demanded they submit to a male-led church and government, she lashed back with the fury of Jesus attacking the money-lenders in the Temple. Would that we all felt the faith so strongly that we were moved to action when such things are done in the name of Jesus. Would we all be so moved by faith as to risk the ultimate punishment as Joan of Arc did. As you watch the ordained of God test her faith, ask yourself, are you Joan? Or are you her enemy?
Arts & Faith Lists:
2011 Top 100 — #1
2024 Top 25 Crime and Punishment Films — #5
2025 Top 100 — #1