Juana de Arco

Joan of Arc is perhaps Bergman's finest "high acting" performances. (Her greatest performance is still her "minimalist" performance in "Casablanca"). This is a better than good movie, but not great. With the cast, it should have been GREAT! It is, however, well worth seeing; Bergman is in fine form.

(NOTE: This review concerns the 100-minute edited cut shown on TCM.)

This 1948 version of Joan of Arc's story is a big disappointment considering the talent involved: director Victor Fleming, who directed both GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ in 1939, and a cast including Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, and Ward Bond. JOAN OF ARC (1948) fails to live up to any expectations.

The editing is amateurish. There are abrupt cuts from one shot to the next, often cutting off bits of dialogue on the soundtrack. The voice- over does its job in setting the scenes within a historical narrative, but gives the movie an air of vintage "making of" TV specials. It almost seems as if stand-alone scenes were shot without knowing how to weave them together.

The storytelling is too sincere and sentimental, giving the film an awkward hokey sensibility. Whereas Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC left room for interpretation regarding matters of divine intervention, this version is pretty straightforward about holy miracles, playing like a Sunday school movie. That is to say it's a religious fable about Ste. Joan of Arc, rather than a historical piece about Joan rallying her countrymen against English rule. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Ingrid Bergman was actually nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Joan, a French teenager in the 1400s who believed she was called upon by God to raise an army against the English occupation of her country, later to be convicted of heresy by a council of pro-English clergymen. (It was Bergman's fourth nomination out of a career total of seven, including three wins.) José Ferrer also earned a nomination, playing the French Dauphin whom Joan fought to put on the throne. The top performances were by Bergman as Joan, Francis L. Sullivan as the corrupt judge, and J. Carrol Naish as a slimy one-eyed nobleman. Much of the supporting cast is second-rate.

Maybe JOAN OF ARC is only unimpressive today as viewed by modern cynics. Or perhaps the trouble lies with the existing copies of the film. Whatever the case may be, the movie earned seven Oscar nods (including Best Editing!) and won an honorary award for its moral values.

NOTE: Apparently the original release was a 145-minute cut, which was trimmed down to 100 minutes with added voice-over narration. This chopped-down version is shown on TV and is an embarrassing mess. The 145-minute version won the awards and is supposedly available on DVD.

UPDATE 1/9/12: The full 145-minute version (just shown on TCM) is clearly superior to the edited-down version with the awful narration. It's an ambitious production, although its Sunday School tone is still a bit over-the-top (at least for this reviewer). The film takes itself way too seriously overall, but Jose Ferrer brings personality to the proceedings and Francis L. Sullivan stands out in his villainous role. The second half, with Joan's trial at the hands of the wicked Sullivan, is more effective than the first half and Ingrid Bergman's best moments are in her final scene.

5/10 for the butchered version; 6.5/10 for the full-length epic

A very poor film translation of a stage play--rather than being tailored to the movie medium, this is very stagy, overly talky. The dialogue is arty and artificial. Everyone is obviously acting, giving a performance, though Bergman is radiant and her performance is passionate and sincere.

All of the exteriors (outdoor shots) which feature close ups of the lead actors are obviously shot on a sound stage. Some beautiful outdoor footage is used occasionally for establishing shots or transitions between scenes, but Bergman never leaves the soundstage.

On the positive side, the film is beautifully photographed, many individual shots are works of art, masterfully lit and composed. However, the camera moves only when necessary to follow the actors, the shots are static, adding to the staginess of the production. Which reminds me of CB DeMille; you could get a good idea of this film by saying it's like a DeMille film, only with more high art pretensions and less spectacle (no cast of thousands here).

The most outstanding aspect of 'Joan of Arc' is the music, it's prominently featured, good and loud, and it deserves to be--it's gorgeous.

The DVD has no extras at all, though the image and sound are excellent--a very good restoration job. A commentary track would have been very welcome; my guess is this was a challenging production, possibly with a long production period (three cinematographers are listed). It was a commercial failure, at least in part because of public condemnation of Bergman's personal life. I believe director Victor Flemming died soon after production. Lots of meat here for an interesting commentary or two.

The difference between the butchered 100 minute release of Victor Fleming's final film, JOAN OF ARC and the original 146 minute version is like night and day! UCLA has worked on restoring this film to its uncut form for some 10 years -- the results can now be seen with the May 2004 release on DVD by Image-Entertainment. My opinion of the film has greatly changed for the better. For some years I have had access to the 100 minute cut on a nice Laser Disc copy. Seeing the new DVD is a revelation. Not only is the Technicolor splendor of the original on the DVD, but the film as conceived by Victor Fleming is 100% better in its restored form. Ingrid Bergman may be a bit old to play the part, but she is quite marvelous as is Jose Ferrer as the Dolphin, in this his first film appearance. If you have any interest in this film and have only seen it in its butchered form, then do yourself a favor and take a look at the DVD. In this form it can take its place along side Victor Fleming's two most famous films, GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ.

After what seems like gargantuan efforts to obtain the DVD and the necessary equipment I have finally managed to see the uncut version of Joan of Arc.

I am thrilled with this new DVD and will add nothing further to the positive comments that have already been made. However I should like to pay particular tribute to the wonderful music of Hugo Friedhofer. Of course, for years I loved his score for 'The best years of your life' but in terms of writing for an earlier period I never regarded this composer is quite the same league as, say, William Walton, whose Shakespeare/ Olivier scores were so memorable. But I have been forced to revise my opinion.

It was Max Reger who commented to the English composer Vaughan Williams: 'you have a veritable obsession with the flattened seventh' Well so, it seems does Mr Friedhofer! I suppose one either likes or loathes pastiche and modal writing. I adore it, and think that in Joan of Arc we get the best of both worlds. The music has a direct and powerful emotional appeal. It could scarcely fail to have. Yet given the fact that Friedhofer uses C20th conventions, harmonies, instruments and musicians, his 'nods' in the direction of C15th French church music are tastefully enough done for us to feel that such scenes as the coronation are, if not exactly in any sense 'authentic' then still marvellously effective.

I should dearly love to know whether anyone has arranged the score into a suite of pieces and recorded it. That would be a rare treat. Perhaps some other readers can advise?