Saint Joan

This is an under-rated version of the story of the farm girl who fought the British and helped kick them out of France. Seberg is nowhere near as bad in this movie as reputation would suggest (and looks great with a way cool cropped hair-do), and there are good performances from Geilgud, Richard Widmark, and Richard Todd. It does have to be said, though, that this is not a movie for action-lovers - the centrepiece of Joan leading the troops in the liberation of Orleans, for example, is replaced by a fade-to-black! The movie is also quite stagey and it is stylistically easy to think it was made at least ten years earlier than it's 1957 release date. The movie makes a nice change if you are fed up with the Ingrid Bergman version, though.

Savaged when it came out, this film now looks handsome and sounds great. A feast of intelligent thoughtful acting, from Gielgud, Kenneth Haigh, Harry Andrews and especially Anton Walbrook,and a moving central performance from the beautiful and incredibly young Jean Seberg. Preminger doesn't jump around and show off- his long slow takes encourage you to listen and reflect, and Graham Greene's script condenses Shaw without sacrificing complexity.The piece has the look of a made for TV movie, and is certainly studio bound but none the worse for that. Too many contemporary movies on 'historical' themes cannot resist dumbing down. What would Mel Gibson have made of the Maid? Many drooling shots of her on the rack probably, then crisping up on the BBQ as the flames take hold. Preminger does none of this. The burning is shown mainly through a guilt-stricken reaction. There are a few weak performances, but not enough to cause any serious damage. I caught this movie on TV and was not expecting to watch it through, but I was gripped . In our age of religious fundamentalism and sacrifice, Joan's story has unexpected resonance.

Otto Preminger's much-maligned version of Joan of Arc's inquisition and defeat came under critical scrutiny for, among many things, the casting of an unknown in the demanding leading role. Jean Seberg was touted as Preminger's discovery, and her youthful energy and doe-eyed rebelliousness are the right ingredients for the Maid of Orleans. What Seberg lacks is forceful projection--though, with so much talent surrounding her, one hardly notices. After promoting the foppish Dauphin as the next King of France, a simple but fierce country girl heads the French Army into battle against England; sadly, with her triumphs passed her and her usefulness run dry, she was turned over to the courts where she was declared a heretic, her talk of voices the ramblings of a demonic influence. Graham Greene adapted George Bernard Shaw's celebrated play, putting much of the emphasis on Joan's trial; still, one clearly senses Preminger's pithy hand in the playful framework complete with ghosts and a music-box score. The costumes are plushy, the sets passable, yet one longs for more involving action (there's the set-up for battle, but no fighting); without a grander design, a more florid visual scope, what we're left with is textbook history. Certainly the performances make the film worth-seeing, and Seberg shouldn't be counted out in this regard. Hers is an empathic reading and, while she isn't yet a riveting presence, the newcomer manages a connection with the material (translating it to the viewer) which many seasoned pros might have found unmanageable. **1/2 from ****

Perhaps it's just my weakness for short-haired brunettes that made me think that this film had far more in it's favour than it had detracting from it. The direction was admittedly slow, nay stationary, and some of the actors did not help this much.

What was not originally appreciated about this film is that the story of Joan of Arc is an exceptionally simple one, but yet cloaked in mystery. Where the film failed was perhaps in not making us empathise with Joan, because we are given nothing of her motivations or her life before or after the seige at Orleans. Compare this to the Besson film, that fails in my eyes for the exact opposite reason, it gives us too much! I liked the film, but I liked it because although I couldn't empathise with a saint, I could empathise with a young woman who knew what she was doing, but didn't know where she was going. What I shall always remember about this film is Seberg's transformation from trusting, coy and innocent to bewildered, bothered and (dare I say it) bewitched. A great performance, and she really ought to have gone on to greater things.

Most of the comments made on this film suggest that the writers have neither read nor seen the George Bernard Shaw play on which it is based. Shaw in "St. Joan," as in every single one of his plays, is all about talk. It's impossible to make an action movie out of a Shaw play without doing it irremediable violence. "St. Joan" is a play about Nationalism and Protestantism, ideas that did not even exist in the period when the play is set. Shaw's St. Joan IS a French nationalist, which is what makes her an anathema to the British. Shaw's St. Joan IS a Protestant, inspired directly by the spirit of God, un-mediated by the Church, and that is why she is an anathema to the Catholic authorities. Preminger's "St. Joan" is an adaptation of the play and, because the play (in important respects) utterly defies film conventions, the movie is mediocre. Anyone who wants to understand "St. Joan" as Shaw conceived her needs either to read or see the play, preferably both. Unfortunately, "St. Joan" is rarely performed these days, partly because Shaw has fallen out of fashion but also because it takes an extraordinary young actress to perform convincingly as Shaw's Maid, a warrior child whose voices speak common sense to her, , and there aren't too many of those around. If a director wishes to make another FILM about Jean d'Arc, as someone, somewhere, some time will undoubtedly want to do, Shaw's play is not the place to look. It belongs to the stage or the page, not the movies.