* It appears my pictures didn't go through with my original post. Here is the original, complete with stills from the film as intended. Please reference this one for comments, discussion, and grading. *
As someone from 2013 to whom the idea of a silent movie is
about as alien as the idea of sending a telegraph or a smoke signal, I was
struck by Dreyer’s ability to communicate visually with pacing, camera angles,
and visual symbols. Because I watched a version on youtube that was not
accompanied by a score (they cited the fact that the original has been lost),
and since I did not discover the English subtitles until about halfway through
the film, I forced myself to look for meaning in the faces of each character,
the arrangement of the set, and the detail that went into each shot. One of the
most striking scenes in this respect is the scene in Joan’s cell where her
accusers are attempting to forge a letter from the king and trick her into
signing it. The cross in the window, the handmade crown in Joan’s hands, and
the movement of the camera play into the idea presented in Blaetz’s article
that Dreyer’s telling of the tale is focused on the struggle between the individual
and the “repressive institutions” of the Church and the State.
Consider the sequence below, where Joan is
alone in her cell (1). She is distraught, contemplating her predicament (2),
but suddenly, something catches her attention (3). It’s the shadow of a cross,
cast down from the window above (4). As an individual “on a mission from God”,
she views this as providential, and takes great solace in the symbol (5). In
Joan’s world, it is her center. She takes her stand on what she feels like God
is telling her and not what the appointed officials of God tell her to believe.
It is the cross in the window, not the cross in the church, that captures her
attention.
Likewise, after the shadow of the cross
appears, she turns her attention to the handmade crown in her hands. Similar to
Christ’s crown of thorns, Joan’s crown is not of glittering gold, but handmade
of some sort of vine. In this scene, she is not a conquering warrior to the
outward eye, but she is something of a spiritual conqueror, much in the sense
that Christ said in his trial, “My kingdom is not of this world”. Joan exists
on a higher plane than the political authority of the day.
The cross and the crown that have real significance to Joan
are not the church or the government, but her own personal religious and moral
conviction. Dreyer presents further evidence of this in the same scene. Recall
the solace that Joan found in the shadow of the cross, and look at the way she
interacts with the other occurrences of the cross (the church) and the crown
(the state):
Here, the officer (the state) is literally and metaphorically twisting Joan’s arm to get her to abandon her loyalty to her personal religious convictions. Afterwards, the church steps in, but not to offer spiritual comfort. The priest returns, but only to give Joan her ring back and prolong her torturous trial.
Joan looks not to these earthly figures, but to a higher power. This is seen clearly in the camera shot when the officer and the priest enter. The camera deliberately pans upward, above these “false” authorities to a higher plane - Joan’s individual perception of morality and truth.
Dreyer cements this vision of authority with the close of the scene, where the priest moves to step on the shadow of the cross. Dreyer's view of Joan is not simply of her as an iconoclast or a rebel, but also as an individualist.
- Corey Landry
Corey, you can edit your old posts by pressing the pencil that shows up next to your date stamp at the bottom of the post. Hope this helps.
ReplyDeleteCorey, that was a fascinating point you made about authority, and I love the two images you chose at the end - the cross in the window and the priest stepping into the shadow to cover the image of the cross. If you wanted to put it into Eliade's terms, you could say that Joan was experiencing a hierophany when she witnessed this image from God, and the priest interrupted it, overruling it with the profanity of the world. The frequent depictions of these worldly authorities and their opposition to Joan - you highlighted one instance in your post - suggests a sort of homogeneity about the group as a whole, a homogeneity Joan is able to break with the image of the cross.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your thoughts on the use of Christian symbolism throughout the film and the way Joan seems to ignore the status of these figures as earthly leaders. This is epitomized in the scene when they ask if Joan does not think they are wise, and she responds that she thinks they are wise, but that God is wiser.
ReplyDeleteOne scene to me is a bit ambiguous, however. As you pointed out, throughout the movie Joan is staring upwards, lost in another realm. In fact, one wonders if she is even paying attention to what is going on about her, as the movie spends a good bit of time simply filming Joan's upturned, rapt face. One exception to this is a scene where Joan is being interrogated yet again, but as she is being asked questions, her face turns not toward God, but instead towards the priest who gave her back her ring. This stands in stark contrast, as one could argue that she is recognizing a religious authority other than God. Do you think that she is acknowledging the priest as a religious figure, and she is making herself more earthly (which she ultimately would renounce to say that she will choose death), or do you think that she is simply reaching out to the priest as a friend who could help her in this situation, trying to have someone help her along on her journey? Or is it simply something else entirely?
You pose a very interesting question. When the priest gave Joan her ring back, I saw what I would like to think was a spark of hope that everyone was not against her- assurance that she was doing the right thing. We have to always take into account how young Joan is and that she is fragile, intimidated, and scared. Because of this, I believe that your second option as a conclusion to why Joan looked at the priest is best. She simply sees the priest as the one that was "nice" to her in a sense- the one that offered her a little support in a time of trouble. As she was being interrogated, I feel like she was searching for that support again.
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ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that "in Joan's world, [the cross] is her center." I think you've hit on an interesting point there. Is it the "center out there," as referred to by Turner? Is Joan taking an involuntary pilgrimage when she is tried so cruelly? She searches for the sign of the cross as she is being interrogated, taking a mental journey--or pilgrimage--to find the meaning of her interactions with God.
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