Danish filmmaker Carl Dreyer’s 1929 film, “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” is a recognized classic of silent cinema. But for many years, the original film, destroyed in a fire, was thought to be lost. In 1981, an original copy was found in Norway, and since then, film lovers have been able to see the film as Dreyer conceived it.
On Oct. 5, San José’s Hammer Theatre will screen “The Passion of Joan of Arc” accompanied by Richard Einhorn’s oratorio “Voices of Light.”
Silicon Valley Arts Coalition and SJSU School of Music & Dance are presenting the film as part of a downtown San Jose arts weekend, preceded by a First Friday Art Walk on Oct. 4, with musical performances at the Institute of Contemporary Art and the San José Museum of Quilts & Textiles.
A Uniquely Intimate Drama
“The Passion of Joan of Arc” straddles the end of the silent era and the beginning of talkies, explains film historian and William M. Drew, another longtime Santa Claran and author of several early film industry histories, most recently, “The Woman Who Dared: The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials.”
“Dreyer said he would have liked to have made the film as a sound film,” said Drew. “He was filming it from May to November of 1927, which also saw release of the Jazz Singer. He wasn’t necessarily trying to make a film that would be ‘the epitome of silent filmmaking.’ He was making it because silent film technology was [what was] available.”
“The film was released in the fall of 1928 in France and made its way to the US the next year,” Drew continued. “Sound was coming in by 1929 in the West, but not in Asia, the Soviet Union, Latin America. They continued to make silent films well into the 1930s.”
Dreyer’s film wasn’t the first film treatment of the Joan of Arc story.
“One of the first film representations was an early one-reeler in 1900,” said Drew. “The first major feature-length version was Cecil B. DeMille’s, ‘Joan, The Woman,’ made in 1916 and the first of his big spectacular films.”
Unlike other films about Joan, “Passion” eschews battle scenes and spectacle to tell the story of the Maid of Orleans’ final hours, bringing the viewer into Joan’s subjective experiences — both mystical and terrifying.
“It was a different approach,” said Drew. “It was not a war spectacle, although it was produced on a large scale. That is a big set. Although you don’t really see much of it in the film, you get glimpses of it. Dreyer felt that it helped inspire his players to have a vivid reconstruction, a replica of medieval structures.”
Dreyer used several techniques to bring the viewer into Joan’s experience — close-ups, expressionistic lighting, interconnected sets.
“It’s a very intimate drama,” said Drew. “I think it was the psychological aspect that was considered revolutionary. It was telling us the emotion and everything through the close up reactions of the character.”
About Voices of Light
Composer Richard Einhorn is known for concert music and film scores. But, he says “Voices of Light” isn’t a movie score but a piece that “incorporates a screening of the film, but would comment on the themes of the film, rather than on the action.”
When researching a different project in the NY Museum of Modern Art Film Archives, he continued, “I saw a notice about this great movie, ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc.’ I asked to screen it and thought, this is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. Absolutely perfect for what I had in mind.”
Einhorn decided to use medieval texts.
“Joan was a warrior — I looked for themes of war and peace,” said Einhorn. “Joan was a mystic — so I looked for mystical texts. I found wonderful texts by medieval female mystics, and arranged them around themes of Joan’s life.
“I broke the movie into 15 sections,” he continued. “Each of which became a movement with a different theme that related to the movie, but with its own musical integrity.”
Einhorn uses medieval harmonies in an unmistakably contemporary composition to create what he describes as Joan’s “timelessness.”
“If you read the trial transcripts where Joan speaks, you get the sense of somebody who is timeless,” he said. “She could have been living yesterday, not in the 15th century. Dreier’s film has that same quality of being timeless.”
Tickets for “The Passion Joan of Arc” are $28, $17 for San Jose State University students, faculty and staff. The film starts at 2:00 p.m. at the Hammer Theatre in San Jose, pre-show talk at 1:00 p.m. Information and tickets at https://www.artssiliconvalley.org/schedule-and-tickets.
In the interest of full disclosure, Carolyn Schuk is an SVAC volunteer board member.
Richard Einhorn calls Joan of Arc a “warrior”, but she herself said bluntly (during the fourth session of her trial) that she didn’t fight but instead carried her banner in battle, confirmed by numerous eyewitness accounts. He also claims her words in the trial transcript make her seem timeless as if he’s claiming she seems modern, which is curious because her main theme was stating that God had sent her to help Charles VII gain his throne because he was the rightful heir under feudal law, which is certainly not a “modern” theme.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply — it’s a compliment:)