Hello. I was wondering what was the significance of that shot. If anyone could shed any light that would be great. It was a very accurate depiction, in fact i think she really was breast feeding her child. Why such a shot during Joan's execution? Great Film Rene F was stunning!
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More likely it was supposed to show that people took that kind of thing in their stride; just as women were supposed to have turned up with knitting to watch French noblemen being guillotined during the revolution. Perhaps it was just period detail.
Or perhaps the producer insisted that there should be a bit of skin in the movie!
it also presents the full circle of life, a young child (birth) in contrast to joans death in the same scene
This is what i thought while watching the movie but
Throughout much of the exterior sequences we are presented with images depicting the youth of the era. Perhaps the significance of the breast-fed child was to depict the generation first exposed to the death of Jeanne D'Arc. Those that would later bring about social change.
this actually makes more sense.
I'm taking a art history course right now, and my professor mentioned in class today while analyzing an altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens, that the image of a mother nursing her child is a symbol of the Virgin Mary nursing the Christ child, and that it symbolizes the virtue of charity. Charity refers to the words of the Apostle Paul, who says that charity combines the love of God and the love of your parent, which is the greatest virtue.
I guess it symbolizes the charity and love of Mary for Christ, which is what Joan feels about God.
I was thinking about this for a couple of days when I saw this discussion and this is what I came up with.
The exucution of Joan of Arc is being viewed as so heinous that even a small child who is breast-feeding is noticing it. It was like the baby was disterbed by what would be the death of an innocent. I don't know. I could be an idiot about it, but it made sense in my head.
The exucution of Joan of Arc is being viewed as so heinous that even a small child who is breast-feeding is noticing it. It was like the baby was disterbed by what would be the death of an innocent.
At the time, I believe she is praying to God and asking for as little suffering as possible. I took it as Jesus, himself, acknowledging her prayers. The judges/priests repeatedly ask if she is a 'daughter of God,' so the child-like symbolism here seems pretty obvious.
Fav. movies of the year:12 Years a Slave, Life of Pi, Drive, the Social Network
My interpretation of the scene is that people were so used to public executions as casual entertainment that they carried on as if nothing special was happening; so children would play, babies would be fed, people would gossip -- seeing a 'criminal' die at the stake was not necessarily considered something horrific or unusual, as it would be to you or me, so there was a sense of flippancy. The breast-feeding was designed to illustrate a crowd of people just being a crowd of people, behaving normally, in that era, awaiting their entertainment. The same goes for the carnival entertainers, such as the sword-swallower.
In this case, once the crowd realises that Joan is a saint and a hero, things become very different, of course, and they riot.