The Passion of Joan of Arc

Um- And his dad's rich, but his dad's always out of town, so he says, "You guys can stay here as long as you want." Um, but Billie Jean decides that what she's gonna do is she's gonna record, because there's all these people on TV, like, saying that, oh, you know, they- they've been stealing from gas stations, and they're on drugs and whatever.

So they watch, um, The Passion of Joan of Arc, the, um, fuck, what's the name of that director? Jules Dassin? No, that's not right.

I can't remember.

Anyway, whatever.

The show is hosted by historian Dr. Sarah Ifdeka, and Sarah and I recorded this episode back in 2021.

The subject of our conversation is Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc.

While this film is clearly a long way outside the usual remit of a Russian and Soviet movie podcast, the theme of a person being persecuted by the powers that be, then being posthumously rehabilitated, does have a certain resonance with the historical times and places we typically cover.

History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes, as the saying goes.

And after the beginning was a success, he once again attempted to get a historical Joan of Arc film project off the ground, but again, he wasn't able to.

I checked my Letterboxd, and

it turns out I saw the beginning the same day I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc for the first time.

I must confess, my memories of the former are rather fuzzy at five years' remove, but I definitely want to revisit it at some point.

This is like the first movie that was shot underwater.

And then I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc from 1928, which I, of course, gave five stars.

That is just gorgeous film.

Ooh la la.

You know, again, like, we talk about this, like, where I'm coming from very much, you know, where I think of, like...

You know, Dreyer's Joan of Arc, which is essential for me, you know, and things like this.

But this is a real person going through this in front of you, not an actor who is trying to make herself cry, but you're capturing that moment.

I'm actually glad you brought that up because I was sort of just going to also say that I love the portraiture in this film.

So the best thing I watched, though, I had two movies that I logged at four and a half while I was gone.

I'm going to talk about The Passion of Joan of Arc, which is a movie I've seen before, but I had been meaning to revisit it because I had not seen her in a few years.

And I just like I think with like film spottings, 20s Madness made me think about it.

Also, there was a movie, a French new wave film that I watched recently where the characters go and see Passion of Joan of Arc.

And, uh, and he was a, he was like a, he was legitimately a, a great actor, and he was a film star, silent film star.

He was in Joan of Arc.

Um, all that stuff is true, but he was just so out there and such a kind of weird wizard that I thought the idea of him as some sort of, uh, wizard was very interesting to me.

And then, um, so a lot of the stuff he says in the graphic novel are things that he's actually said, and you can actually hear the recordings of it.