"... she was conisdered a heritic in her time and was killed for this misinterpritation....."
Joan was considered a heretic and a witch by the English, who had been at war with France for a long time, referred to historically as the hundred years
war. This view of Joan is reflected in at least one of Shakespeare's early historical plays, which, incidentally, does not necessarily imply that it was Shakespeare's personal view. All of the ecclesiastics in the film are English, and Joan is a prisoner of the English. Also, Dreyer's inspired portrayal of arrogant English ecclesiastics is balanced by several among them who are impressed by Joan's evident sanctity, and her ability to ward off the malicious interrogations by her inspired answers, echoing Christ's responses to malicious questioners. (For instance, the question "Are you in a state of grace?, is intended to trap her: if she says "no," they can discredit her testimony; if she says "yes," she is in contradiction of the Church's teaching that we cannot have absolute knowledge of the state of one's soul. She replies, "If I am not, may God put me there; if I am, may God keep me there.")
"The importance of Jeanne D'Arc martyrdom is related to the fact that she said to have contacts with god and this could not be accepted by the catholic church in those years . The church could not accept that a common peasant could be able of experiencing a direct relationship with god because that would have taken a big part of the church powers away ."
This reflects a grossly biased and uninformed view of the Catholic Church. The history of the Catholic Church is replete with instances of saints who had intimate relationships with God through personal prayer. It is the case, however, that the Church tended to avoid a gullible attitude towards alleged divine visitations, as it still does, because it is aware that many apparent divine graces might be mere manifestations of individual imagination or evil spirits. The technical name for this problem is "discernment of spirits," very important in Catholic spirituality.
"There is no scientific proof that says if someone was a saint or a fanatic , obviously . Nothing can be "proven" in these matters , it's a matter of faith ..."
I think some clarification of what it means to be a saint is necessary. It was customary in the early Church, and still continues sometimes, to refer to
all Christians as "saints." Later, the term was restricted to those whose lives were considered outstanding manifestations of heroic sanctity and virtue. This led to a formal process whereby the Church, after careful examination, and proof of miraculous healings having resulted from prayers to the person in question, declares a person to be a saint. This means that the person is in heaven and that it is appropriate to liturgically celebrate a feast in that persons honor. One way to consider all of this, is that saints are the heroes of the Christian faith.
"...they have no way of proving that God actually spoke to her?"
This may be accurate, if, by proof, you mean applying the criteria of modern experimental science. As stated above, the critical test in these cases, from the Church's point of view, is the discernment of spirits. Is a particular manifestation a result of the Holy Spirit, or is it a result of something else?
This does not mean that there is no relevant evidence. As stated above, before a person is formally declared a saint by the Church, there must be evidence of miraculous healings that resulted from prayers to that person.
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enbilal
18 years ago
Officially she was killed because of herecy, but in reality, the reasons were political. She was murdered by the church because she was a symbol of French resistence against England. Churches are known to side with those who are in power, be it England in occupied France, Germany during WWII and so on. It will always be like that.
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Hyman_Flomax
18 years ago
There will always be people who refute the divinity of saints, but its nothing to really get indignant about. There was a documentary on the history channel about a year ago that tried to dig up scientific evidence that Joan was delusional, but this is about as reliable as claiming Jesus was delusional, there is no way to no if he was, this issue comes down to faith. The documentary itself was nothing much really, just more anti-religion propaganda. Did anyone else see it? It reminded me of this show I saw on the Discovery Channel where a group of scientists gathered together to tell us they know how Mozart died, even though no one even knows where his gravesite is, therefore its all mindless speculation.
On a related note, how exactly did Dreyer's film depict Joan as a deluded soul? "The Passion" was rife with strong spiritual and religious symbolism, as most of his films are, which helped display Joan's relationship with God and how He manifested himself within her. It was very reminescent of "The Passion Of The Christ"; this film to me is equally as religious.
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Carl_Dreyer
18 years ago
Your comparison with the "Passion of the Christ" is right on. I have a theory that Mel Gibson was inspired by much of Dreyer's work. I think that Gibson had seen TPOJOA and also read Dreyer's script for his unfinished "Jesus Film" and which inspired him to do his own Passion film. Dreyer himself had originally planned to film his "Jesus Film" in Arameic and Hebrew, then decided on English because he did not want the majority of audiences to have fo focus on the subtitles and thus miss ths facial expression of the characters. The main difference with Dreyer's "Jesus Film" was that his aim to was to show that Jews were not responsible for Jesus death (that the Romans were to blame). Gibson did not follow that theory.
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