How fascinating to compare the Joan of Arc portrayed in the continental European versions by Bresson and Dreyer with this Anglo-American version. To Shaw and Preminger Joan is a rebel, a woman of action who repudiates her femininity and becomes larger than life. Whereas to Bresson and Dreyer, Joan is a martyr.
If you are a European woman, I would love to hear your thoughts about the depiction of Joan in this Preminger version.
> To Shaw and Preminger Joan is a rebel, a woman of action who repudiates her femininity and becomes larger than life.
I honestly don't see that in this film, though the Shaw play and the film takes a Brechtian approach and sees Jeanne as a definitely out of place presence, a pure naive woman facing the corruption of the world, who functions as a catharist who in contrast points out the corruption...
> Whereas to Bresson and Dreyer, Joan is a martyr.
...while Bresson, a Catholic, and Dreyer, a Calvinist protestant, are freer to raise the religious aspect and concentrate themselves more to Jeanne herself.
Preminger was Jewish (and completely secular) and Shaw was not a very devoted Christian either--indeed pretty atheist.
> If you are a European woman,
I am not a woman but it's safe to say that today in West Europe where religion plays far less role in life than it still does in America, the Shaw/Preminger film is more accepted and admired than in the States for its near-total avoidance of religion. Shaw avoids religious issue, while Preminger is more interested in the political implication of Jeanne's presence.
Bresson's and especially Dreyer's films are structured around Jeanne's self-identification as the martyr, a daughter of God, while Preminger's Joan is more about her own identity, self-determination and independence, the struggle to live as herself, which is a more contemporary theme.
For one thing, it's available on DVD in France. But then the Dreyer film is so special for it's minimalist esthetics. Honestly we don't care if its approach is actually very protestant and religious, it's just beautiful, indeed one of the most beautiful film ever made. While the Bresson film, I am afraid, is not that interesting.