Part II. Joan on Film: The Middle Age
May. 30th, 2005 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ealgylden(Part I. Joan on Film: In the Beginning)
And so on to the difficult middle years, with a pair of Joans more pawn than rebel.
Joan of Arc (1948), Ingrid Bergman:
"Death by fire is a horrible thing."
I'm a big fan of Ingrid Bergman. She was a luminous talent, warm, sensual and deceptively open, not to mention being one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the movies. So it pains me to say that I find her Joan and the movie that surrounds her completely, utterly dull. It's so... respectful. And it's not like I prefer the Luc Besson approach, with a Joan who's as big a whackjob as he is (I really, really don't prefer that), but Ingrid, Victor Fleming, and Maxwell Anderson are so respectful that they manage to suck every bit of blood out of this epic, tragic, complicated story. It had been Ingrid's lifelong dream to play Joan, and when she got the chance she glossed over the peasant, the soldier, and the heretic to go right for playing the saint. Oh sure, she looks gorgeous with her farmgirl braid trailing down her back and even more so in her velvet doublets and gleaming armor, but she's always exalted, always ecstatic, always the loving, sorrowing, distant saint. She's a passionless martyr. And much too old for the part, but that's hardly unusual (at least she's less matronly than Gerry Farrar).
Back to the film. The copy I have (for now) is the shortened and re-arranged 1950 release, not the reconstructed 145-min original version released on DVD last year, which means it's even more stodgily official than Fleming had intended. Rather than beginning with Joan at prayer over the horrors of war, we get a painted backdrop of St. Peter's in Rome and a voice-of-God male narrator telling us that, "In the year of our Lord 1920, with holy rite and ritual, Rome makes its uttermost reparation to one who five hundred years ago stood heretic accused before her enemies." Well isn't that nice. Joan herself is barely present at all, reduced to a generically feminine "one," and the Church gives itself a nice pat on the back. Any tension or grief the audience might have been inclined to feel for Joan's fate is dissipated with an "it's okay, we'll make her a saint." We have to have that "happy" ending, after all. Voice-of-God Man reappears whenever we need a dose of historical exposition, always avuncular, pitying and slightly condescending toward Joan.
The distancing from Joan-the-person continues with disembodied (male) hands opening the book of her life and leading us back into the film (right to the trial, poor victim girl), so long ago and far away. And really, the film does resemble a mid-20th century children's book come to life. Scenes are blocked in a static, iconographic manner. Everyone says just what she or he is supposed to and makes all the proper moves, never breaking the set pattern. Everything is clean, free of mud and sweat and blood. Even the battle of Orléans is clean. Compiègne happens offstage, while we skip to the aftermath of captured Joan headed for trial. It's all so tasteful. You won't scare the children with this version, but neither will you make them weep.
And yet, it does have moments. Ingrid looks smashing, positively radiant, during Joan's triumph at Orléans. Her costumes are lovely; I'm particularly fond of the teal velvet tunic with the canted metal belt and leggings that she wears in the scene where Charles cuts Joan loose when she wants to move on Paris (it's the outfit in the picture I linked). Speaking of Charles, Jose Ferrer is excellent. His Charles is poor and ineffectual, but a canny politician underneath. He needs the edge that Joan provides to grasp his power, yes, but Ferrer convinces that he will be able to do that grasping, and hang onto his power once he has it, no matter the cost (unlike, say, Richard Widmark's giggling halfwit).
In a lot of ways, this is the ideal Joan for the '50s. A strong female character played by a strong actress (who would be denounced on the floor of Congress as an adulteress not long after playing the saint), Joan is continually boxed and bordered by the men who surround her. Cast repeatedly as "the daughter of Jacques d'Arc" rather than an entity, even a disobedient, heretical one, in her own right, condescended to by courtiers, churchmen and the narrator, apologetic about stepping out of her "rightful" place even when she knows that this is now her place by divine fiat, Ingrid's Joan has been so firmly rehabilitated by the Church and the script that she's left no room of her own. This poor Joan was imprisoned from the start.
Saint Joan (1957), Jean Seberg:
"A dead saint is always safer for the Church than a living one."
Euch. Okay, this is really not a favorite of mine. It doesn't help that I've never really been a fan of the play (the deliberate anachronisms bug me, among other things), but the one-two miscasting punch of Jean Seberg and Richard Widmark is fatal. And Otto Preminger was certainly no help. It's a recurring theme in the publicity for movies about Joan that such-and-such actress wasn't acting at all, no, she was channeling the spirit of the Maid herself! That's fine (if exasperating) when it's confined to publicity, but Preminger decided that that would be his directing technique. He conducted a long, showy casting hunt for the perfect Joan before settling on untried, untrained teenager Jean Seberg, and then left her without direction or guidance. The actors around her, veterans all, were allowed to follow their usual intellectual and emotional preparations while Jean was kept isolated from any outside influences that might get in the way of her "channeling." It, um, didn't work. At all. Poor Jean. Shaw's Joan is a dauntless, levelheaded, strong-willed country lass who cleverly wields a mixture of common sense and coincidence against her miracle-hunting generation (if Shaw could have eliminated her Voices entirely without betraying the substance of her legend, he probably would have). On screen, though, this straightforward girl, whose feet are firmly on earth even if her head is in the heavens, becomes a vapidly smiling, slightly dimwitted twit. Jean's Joan is the saint as Forrest Gump.
Which makes her a good match for Widmark's Dauphin, I guess. Jose Ferrer's Charles was powerless, but he had potential. When he grew teeth, it wasn't a surprise. Widmark's Charles, by contrast, is a giggling, whining fool. His discarding Joan isn't a surprise, given how capricious he is, but the fact that this ninny held on to the throne for another thirty years definitely is. The contrast between Ferrer/Bergman and Widmark/Seberg (and the respective texts) is most striking when Charles casts off Joan following his coronation. Ferrer and his advisors are condescendingly respectful and serious toward Bergman's Joan, who despite, or because, she is a woman, has become an uncomfortable, awkward and yet dangerous artifact to have around. Widmark is snippily off-hand as Seberg's Joan is mocked and patted on the head before being sent home like a child. Ingrid's Joan is stifled and tamed, but it's hard to imagine Jean's Joan having been a threat to the social order in the first place. Even at the pyre, she comes across more as a broken toy than a defeated warrior or a martyr, needing to be carried round and moved into place by her executioners.
This movie also suffers from the staginess that often afflicts filmed plays, though not as badly as some. Among other things, that means a story with no battles. I'm torn between missing them, because Orléans is so often the highlight of a Joan film, and being glad we're spared the sight of Jean trying to lead her armies. What an image. Still, it's hard to get a feel for what's at stake here (pun not intended, though that's part of it). Jean's lightweight performance as a naively childish Joan, the lack of any visible warfare, the defusing of any hint of the otherworldly, the nigh universally ironic attitudes toward the Church, ritual (secular and religious), and miracles... it's all so terribly clever, and all so terribly contemporary. I can't lay all the blame on Seberg or Preminger- Shaw must get his share- but this is easily one of the least medieval and lightest weight Joans I've seen. And that's counting the relevant episode of Wishbone.
Um, good points? Richard Todd is wryly bitter as Dunois, the George Sanders of the piece. And John Gielgud as Warwick is fabulous. He can't help but flatten Seberg, which is a pity, but when Widmark whines, "God made me a king," Gielgud gives the perfect twist to his answer, "We mustn't put all the blame on God." Ha!
Next- Ending the century with Wiedlin, Bonnaire, Jovovich and Sobieski.
And so on to the difficult middle years, with a pair of Joans more pawn than rebel.
Joan of Arc (1948), Ingrid Bergman:
"Death by fire is a horrible thing."
I'm a big fan of Ingrid Bergman. She was a luminous talent, warm, sensual and deceptively open, not to mention being one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the movies. So it pains me to say that I find her Joan and the movie that surrounds her completely, utterly dull. It's so... respectful. And it's not like I prefer the Luc Besson approach, with a Joan who's as big a whackjob as he is (I really, really don't prefer that), but Ingrid, Victor Fleming, and Maxwell Anderson are so respectful that they manage to suck every bit of blood out of this epic, tragic, complicated story. It had been Ingrid's lifelong dream to play Joan, and when she got the chance she glossed over the peasant, the soldier, and the heretic to go right for playing the saint. Oh sure, she looks gorgeous with her farmgirl braid trailing down her back and even more so in her velvet doublets and gleaming armor, but she's always exalted, always ecstatic, always the loving, sorrowing, distant saint. She's a passionless martyr. And much too old for the part, but that's hardly unusual (at least she's less matronly than Gerry Farrar).
Back to the film. The copy I have (for now) is the shortened and re-arranged 1950 release, not the reconstructed 145-min original version released on DVD last year, which means it's even more stodgily official than Fleming had intended. Rather than beginning with Joan at prayer over the horrors of war, we get a painted backdrop of St. Peter's in Rome and a voice-of-God male narrator telling us that, "In the year of our Lord 1920, with holy rite and ritual, Rome makes its uttermost reparation to one who five hundred years ago stood heretic accused before her enemies." Well isn't that nice. Joan herself is barely present at all, reduced to a generically feminine "one," and the Church gives itself a nice pat on the back. Any tension or grief the audience might have been inclined to feel for Joan's fate is dissipated with an "it's okay, we'll make her a saint." We have to have that "happy" ending, after all. Voice-of-God Man reappears whenever we need a dose of historical exposition, always avuncular, pitying and slightly condescending toward Joan.
The distancing from Joan-the-person continues with disembodied (male) hands opening the book of her life and leading us back into the film (right to the trial, poor victim girl), so long ago and far away. And really, the film does resemble a mid-20th century children's book come to life. Scenes are blocked in a static, iconographic manner. Everyone says just what she or he is supposed to and makes all the proper moves, never breaking the set pattern. Everything is clean, free of mud and sweat and blood. Even the battle of Orléans is clean. Compiègne happens offstage, while we skip to the aftermath of captured Joan headed for trial. It's all so tasteful. You won't scare the children with this version, but neither will you make them weep.
And yet, it does have moments. Ingrid looks smashing, positively radiant, during Joan's triumph at Orléans. Her costumes are lovely; I'm particularly fond of the teal velvet tunic with the canted metal belt and leggings that she wears in the scene where Charles cuts Joan loose when she wants to move on Paris (it's the outfit in the picture I linked). Speaking of Charles, Jose Ferrer is excellent. His Charles is poor and ineffectual, but a canny politician underneath. He needs the edge that Joan provides to grasp his power, yes, but Ferrer convinces that he will be able to do that grasping, and hang onto his power once he has it, no matter the cost (unlike, say, Richard Widmark's giggling halfwit).
In a lot of ways, this is the ideal Joan for the '50s. A strong female character played by a strong actress (who would be denounced on the floor of Congress as an adulteress not long after playing the saint), Joan is continually boxed and bordered by the men who surround her. Cast repeatedly as "the daughter of Jacques d'Arc" rather than an entity, even a disobedient, heretical one, in her own right, condescended to by courtiers, churchmen and the narrator, apologetic about stepping out of her "rightful" place even when she knows that this is now her place by divine fiat, Ingrid's Joan has been so firmly rehabilitated by the Church and the script that she's left no room of her own. This poor Joan was imprisoned from the start.
Saint Joan (1957), Jean Seberg:
"A dead saint is always safer for the Church than a living one."
Euch. Okay, this is really not a favorite of mine. It doesn't help that I've never really been a fan of the play (the deliberate anachronisms bug me, among other things), but the one-two miscasting punch of Jean Seberg and Richard Widmark is fatal. And Otto Preminger was certainly no help. It's a recurring theme in the publicity for movies about Joan that such-and-such actress wasn't acting at all, no, she was channeling the spirit of the Maid herself! That's fine (if exasperating) when it's confined to publicity, but Preminger decided that that would be his directing technique. He conducted a long, showy casting hunt for the perfect Joan before settling on untried, untrained teenager Jean Seberg, and then left her without direction or guidance. The actors around her, veterans all, were allowed to follow their usual intellectual and emotional preparations while Jean was kept isolated from any outside influences that might get in the way of her "channeling." It, um, didn't work. At all. Poor Jean. Shaw's Joan is a dauntless, levelheaded, strong-willed country lass who cleverly wields a mixture of common sense and coincidence against her miracle-hunting generation (if Shaw could have eliminated her Voices entirely without betraying the substance of her legend, he probably would have). On screen, though, this straightforward girl, whose feet are firmly on earth even if her head is in the heavens, becomes a vapidly smiling, slightly dimwitted twit. Jean's Joan is the saint as Forrest Gump.
Which makes her a good match for Widmark's Dauphin, I guess. Jose Ferrer's Charles was powerless, but he had potential. When he grew teeth, it wasn't a surprise. Widmark's Charles, by contrast, is a giggling, whining fool. His discarding Joan isn't a surprise, given how capricious he is, but the fact that this ninny held on to the throne for another thirty years definitely is. The contrast between Ferrer/Bergman and Widmark/Seberg (and the respective texts) is most striking when Charles casts off Joan following his coronation. Ferrer and his advisors are condescendingly respectful and serious toward Bergman's Joan, who despite, or because, she is a woman, has become an uncomfortable, awkward and yet dangerous artifact to have around. Widmark is snippily off-hand as Seberg's Joan is mocked and patted on the head before being sent home like a child. Ingrid's Joan is stifled and tamed, but it's hard to imagine Jean's Joan having been a threat to the social order in the first place. Even at the pyre, she comes across more as a broken toy than a defeated warrior or a martyr, needing to be carried round and moved into place by her executioners.
This movie also suffers from the staginess that often afflicts filmed plays, though not as badly as some. Among other things, that means a story with no battles. I'm torn between missing them, because Orléans is so often the highlight of a Joan film, and being glad we're spared the sight of Jean trying to lead her armies. What an image. Still, it's hard to get a feel for what's at stake here (pun not intended, though that's part of it). Jean's lightweight performance as a naively childish Joan, the lack of any visible warfare, the defusing of any hint of the otherworldly, the nigh universally ironic attitudes toward the Church, ritual (secular and religious), and miracles... it's all so terribly clever, and all so terribly contemporary. I can't lay all the blame on Seberg or Preminger- Shaw must get his share- but this is easily one of the least medieval and lightest weight Joans I've seen. And that's counting the relevant episode of Wishbone.
Um, good points? Richard Todd is wryly bitter as Dunois, the George Sanders of the piece. And John Gielgud as Warwick is fabulous. He can't help but flatten Seberg, which is a pity, but when Widmark whines, "God made me a king," Gielgud gives the perfect twist to his answer, "We mustn't put all the blame on God." Ha!
Next- Ending the century with Wiedlin, Bonnaire, Jovovich and Sobieski.
