The Favorites - Day of Wrath (#4)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. Day of Wrath (1943/Denmark/dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer) appeared at #4 on my original list.

What it is • In a rigid, codified society, dominated by a theocratic order, Anne (Lisbeth Movin) doesn't quite fit in. Married to a much older pastor (Thorkild Roose), she is in love with his son from a previous marriage (Preben Lerdorff Rye). Aside from this menage a trois, she has no living family that we meet - although we do learn that her late mother, unbeknownst to Anne, was alleged to be a witch. Perhaps instinctively, Anne empathizes with Herlof's Marte (Anna Svierkier), an accused witch whom she hides away, vainly trying to protect the old woman from being burnt at the stake. In a society with no avenue for alternation, the slightest deviation from the central path sends one into a kind of disorienting freefall. Discovering her family history, and becoming enamored with a dashing young man so different from her dour husband, Anne no longer quite knows what to think. Perhaps she has been deceived into accepting a repressed, unhappy life. Perhaps she is a wicked sinner, disobeying God's laws despite her fortunate position. Or perhaps she is a witch, with the power to change her circumstances, an amoral force that is good or evil depending on how she perceives it. Shot under Nazi occupation (a condition Jonathan Rosenbaum, among others, considers central to the film's sensibility), Day of Wrath was initially rejected - as were many of Dreyer's films - before critics embraced it as a towering achievement. It is visually striking, between the innovative camera style and the iconographic power of its stark monochromatic imagery, the white aprons and cuffs contrasting with the deep black dress material. There are many great films about witchcraft, but this is one of the greatest, despite - or perhaps because of - its refusal to clearly come down one way or another on whether these supernatural phenomena are real, let alone if they are moral. Anne is eminently comprehensible, but the other characters are not stereotyped; each seems authentic and ambiguous. Anne's terror, delight, and curiosity are palpable, and if we embrace them we also fear their consequences, for others but especially for her.

Why I like it •

The Favorites - The Passion of Joan of Arc (#8)

The Favorites is a series briefly exploring films I love, to find out what makes them - and me - tick. The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928/France/dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer) appeared at #8 on my original list.

What it is • Joan of Arc lived from 1412 to 1431, dying when she was still a teenager; her legendary accomplishments - turning back a British invasion of France, following the voices she heard in her head - were achieved nearly six centuries ago. In over a hundred years of cinema, there have been dozens of adaptations of her life (Wikipedia counts forty - including Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure!). Nine countries have participated (all Western except for Japan - which aired a French opera). Acclaimed directors, including Georges Méliès, Cecil B. DeMille, Victor Fleming, Roberto Rossellini, Otto Preminger, Robert Bresson, Paul Verhoeven, Werner Herzog, Jacques Rivette, and Luc Besson, have offered their interpretations. Geraldine Ferrar, Michèle Morgan, Jean Seberg, Hedy Lamarr, Julie Harris, Geneviève Bujold, Janet Suzman, Sandrine Bonnaire, and Leelee Sobieski have all played Joan - Ingrid Bergman even played her twice, once for her husband (joining a tradition stretching from Méliès' wife Jeanne d'Alcy,  to Besson's wife Milla Jovovich, though d'Alcy didn't marry Melies for another thirty years and Jovovich divorced Besson between the film's production and release). With such a storied history - and I haven't even mentioned the excellent La Marveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d'Arc, which followed the film being reviewed by barely a year - you'd think there would be some difficulty in determining the Joan of Arc masterpiece. But there isn't. The Passion of Joan of Arc routinely appears near the very top of all-time great lists, Carl Theodor Dreyer is widely considered the greatest filmmaker to tackle the topic, and Falconetti is praised as the most superb Joan. That's an understatement, actually; many would rank her performance as the greatest in the entire history of cinema. The Passion of Joan of Arc, which focuses exclusively on the trial and execution of Joan, has a tumultuous history. It was controversial when it was shot - territorial French critics despised the idea of a Dane reproducing their saint - and it was frequently banned and censored. Multiple, corrupted versions existed for decades until the original cut was discovered in the early eighties in, of all places, a Norwegian mental institution. Rather differently from Dreyer's sound films, Passion (considered by many the apex of silent cinema) consists almost entirely of close-ups of actor's faces, a riveting, hypnotic symphony of actors' expressions exemplifying the art of intercutting reaction shots.

Why I like it •

The Passion of Joan of Arc

This is an entry in "The Big Ones," a series covering 32 classic films for the first time on The Dancing Image. There are spoilers.

Few people remember that The Passion of Joan of Arc ends with a rousing action sequence. It’s as good, in its own way, as anything Eisenstein ever did, yet with its own very unique character. Dreyer, unlike Eisenstein, is linking shots which create a fluid meaning yet, pregnant with a kind of integral power, could also stand alone – they are not dependent on their connections with one another for their sense of purpose. This is Dreyer’s approach throughout Passion, neither foregrounding montage nor mise en scene, or rather foregrounding both – the propulsive music of his editing and the graceful aura of each individual close-up.

Sometimes I feel that cutting between close-ups robs us of the power in character interaction, in which two different people share the same space. Not here: the intensity of the back-and-forth not only suits the subject matter, in which Joan is isolated (“alone with God” as she puts it) against her interrogators, it also carries a sharp aesthetic power, the power, perhaps, of individual realities, states of consciousness which share the same space but not the same experience (hence, in a visual medium which communicates the metaphysical by way of the physical, not even the same space).

At any rate, viewers tend to forget, or not talk about, the violent conclusion because what comes before is so overpowering, so fundamentally sound and right, that it puts even this riveting finale to shame. The Passion of Joan of Arc is much like Joan herself, at least as she’s represented in this film: so pure and sure of itself, so able to allow to its inner integrity to dictate its every choice and action, that it shines like a beacon from the screen, right back at the projector which cast it out, as if to challenge and discredit its genesis in mere material.

Remembering the Movies, Jan. 21 - 27

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.

Visit Remembering the Movies to further peruse the past

On schedule this week (finally! - and from now on, I promise), we've got devils, werewolves, masked wrestlers, and Cruella De Vil. And the Disney's not the only cartoon; there's also a Suess-authored short with an imaginative soundtrack. Add in one of Bogart's best tough-guy roles, and it's a surprisingly strong field this Friday, perhaps breaking the January doldrums. Then again, there's a fair share of critical grumbling to be savoured, and early Oscar winners are not exempt...

Remembering the Movies, Oct. 1 - 7

Every Friday, we look back at films released 10-100 years ago this week.

An enslaved gladiator asserting his liberty, a deformed "freak" clinging to his dignity, a masked avenger lurking in an ancestral castle...and an anonymous prop man who would become Hollywood's biggest star. Oh, and lest you stop reading before the post is over, a 1910-era trickster whose shapeshifting stymies the fuzz (not to be missed!). Appearances are not what they seem as we begin the month of Halloween on "Remembering the Movies."

Share your own thoughts below: Have you seen these films? What did you think? Do you remember their original run? Any historical anecdotes to share?

Visit Remembering the Movies to further peruse the past.

Handcrafted Cinema and Figuring Out Day of Wrath

Two excellent essays from the Criterion Collection: one on Il Posto, written by Kent Jones, one on Day of Wrath, written by Jonathan Rosenbaum. Tonight, I just read the latter and re-read the former and was so taken with both that I had to link them up here.

Jones' sensitive piece wonderfully conveys both the humanist spirit of Il Posto and the larger context in which it was birthed; Rosenbaum's brief but penetrating discussion of Day of Wrath manages to be both subjective (memorably conveying his own initial indifference and later emotional engagement with the film) and objective (placing the film in its various historical contexts, that of its making and that of its telling; also, thrillingly conveying the formal audacity of the Great Dane).

Two selections, to convey the flavor. From Jones:

One of the most unusual features of Italian cinema of the late ’50s and ’60s is the way that it affords us multiple perspectives on the same event, namely the economic boom following the postwar recovery. Where the directors of the French New Wave each created his or her own unique poetic universe, Italian cinema of the same period feels like a series of moons circling around one planet. Again and again, one encounters the same sociological material, filtered through Michelangelo Antonioni’s elegant precision, Luchino Visconti’s luxurious emotionalism, Dino Risi’s exuberance, or Valerio Zurlini’s sobriety. Again and again, one sees the construction sites, the quick-stop cafes, and the cramped apartments owned by nosy landladies that were constants of postwar Italian society. Most strikingly of all, these movies feature a parade of young men fitted outfitted in regulation white-collar attire, betraying their essential inexperience. They are ill equipped for a life of work and responsibility in a mechanized, high-efficiency world, and lonesome for the nurturing comforts of home.

From Rosenbaum:

Set in 1623, when people still believed without question in witches, the film views that world from a contemporary perspective without for a moment dispelling our sense of what it felt like from the inside. Dreyer pulls off this difficult task through his singular style, involving a sensual form of camera movement he invented: the camera gliding on unseen tracks in one direction while uncannily panning in another direction. It’s difficult to imagine—a three-dimensional kind of transport that somehow combines coming and going in the same complex journey—but a hypnotic experience to follow. The film’s first real taste of it comes fairly early, when we follow Anne in her sinuous progress towards the torture chamber where Herlof’s Marte is being interrogated. The camera tracking with Anne around a pillar prompts our involvement while its simultaneous swiveling away from her establishes our detachment. And enhancing the strange sense of presence that results is Dreyer’s rare employment of direct sound rather than studio post-synching—giving scenes an almost carnal impact that becomes lost in smudgy and staticky prints.

Two of my favorite films, and two wonderful pieces of criticism. Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving.

This post was originally published on The Sun's Not Yellow.

The Passion of The Passion of Joan of Arc

I have to tiptoe around discussing The Passion of Joan of Arc, because I'm planning a series on 150 of my favorite classics, and Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterpiece will almost certainly be included in that series. What can I say now that I won't say then (a commitment to review all the films I've bought or received as Christmas or birthday gifts holds me to this task)? The metaphor of Plato's cave has occasionally been used to describe the cinema: movies are the shadows on the wall, depicting a simplified version of the reality which lies outside the cavern in the bright sunlight. But sometimes I wonder if this interpretation doesn't have it backwards: do the greatest films allow us to penetrate reality in a way that mundane everyday experience often does not? Does this shadowplay actually allow us to go forth into the sunlight and see more clearly; is it a kind of preparation for the initially bright and overbearing sunlight? In other words: can cinema put us closer into contact with the spiritual, the overwhelming force of the universe, that Ground of All Being, which some in the past and some today have labelled "God"? If so, Passion is one of those films, and Dreyer may be the greatest director of all time.

Well, I'll leave the rest of my ostentatious pontifications for a later occasion and step aside for the remainder of this post. I often have doubts about historical writing in the blogosphere - why rehash what you've already read elsewhere? (Sometimes, though, a blogger steps up the plate and knocks historical writing out of the park - see the Self-Styled Siren's recent musings on George Sanders for an outstanding example.) But the history of The Passion of Joan of Arc is so extraordinary that it bares repeating, and luckily the Criterion Collection includes a remarkable essay called "The Many Incarnations of Joan" which documents this history. It does not seem to exist on the Internet so I hereby present, in its online debut, the essay in its entirety (save a few minor modifications), following the jump.