Thursday - Movies
The Age
Thursday July 24, 2008
Trial of Joan of Arc (1962)
World Movies, 8.30pmTwo weeks ago, the claim that Robert Bresson was the greatest of all film directors led to a few questioning glances from friends and new acquaintances. But everything in art is subjective, and one function of critics is to proclaim what they believe to be magical in the hope that others might share the joy. Tonight provides another such opportunity with Bresson's Trial of Joan of Arc. Made decades after Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent classic, The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), and five years after Otto Preminger's Hollywood Saint Joan (with Jean Seberg), Bresson's film has long been undervalued, even by his devotees. Yet Florence Delay transcends acting as Jeanne d'Arc, and Bresson's craft is as pure and perfect as can be seen anywhere. Bask in the images of hands bound in chains, of giant steel door-bolts being rammed shut, of an execution stake left bodiless as the smoke clears: they convey Jeanne's imprisonment, pain and state of grace with the revelatory power of the greatest art. This may not be the easiest introduction to the world of Robert Bresson, but if you feel like diving head-first into the sublime it's for you. -- SCOTT MURRAY
© 2008 The Age