JOAN THE MAID (JEANNE LA PUCELLE:1. LES BATAILLES 2. LES PRISONS) (director/writer:Jacques Rivette; screenwriter: Pascal Bonitzer/Christine Laurent; cinematographer: William Lubtchansky; cast: Sandrine Bonnaire (Jeanne d'Arc), Baptiste Roussillon (Baudricourt), André Marcon (Charles, dauphin of France), Jean-Louis Richard (La Tremoille), Marcel Bozonnet (Regnault de Chartres), Stephane Boucher (La Hire), Jean-Pierre Becker (Jean D'Aulon), Jean-Pierre Lorit (Jean of Alencon), Patrick Le Mauff (Bastard of Orleans), Olivier Cruveiller (Jean of Metz), 1994-France)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Part 1- The Battles
The often filmed story of Joan of Arc, but a story that is seldom successfully filmed, is attempted again by Jacques Rivette (UP/DOWN/FRAGILE (95)/La Belle Noiseuse (91) /La Religieuse (65)/Celine et Julie vont en bateau (74)), and the results for this epic study of Joan are more than pleasing but less than scintillating.
Rivette was born in Rouen, France, in 1928 and it is interesting to note, that was the year when Dreyer's magnificent silent version of Joan first appeared onscreen, which was made as a spiritual testament to Joan's moral courage. Rivette started out as an assistant to Jean Renoir and later was a camera operator for Francois Truffaut and Eric Rohmer. He was a critic at Cahiers du Cinema and the much praised movie director is now considered to be one of the more noted unorthodox directors around, who will be forever associated with the French New Wave.
In Joan, he divides the 336 minute film into two parts, The Battles and The Prison, each requiring a separate admission price, and approaches the film mainly from an historical perspective, relying on dates and accuracy in detail in telling the tale of the peasant's (Sandrine Bonnaire) birth in 1412 and her reaction to hearing voices from God, which started upon hearing Saint Michael's voice when she was 13 and persisted for the remainder of her life, as Saint Catherine and Saint Marguerite were the other voices from God she heard, the ones who counseled her that she was chosen to save France from the English. The first part of the film will detail how she received from the Dauphin (Marcon) her command of the troops at Orleans until her victory over the English at Tourelles, with their general, Classidas, drowned in the Loire.
Sumptuously filmed in brilliant color, it captures best the wonderful shades of France's fall and wintery colors.
In the film's opening scene, the earnest maiden announces to the captain that she has been chosen by God to save France from the English and urges him to take her to see the king. Scenes shift as dates change and are so indicated onscreen. On Febuary 12, 1429, the maiden is escorted to Chinon to see the king. She is characterized as someone who is very human, but who is possessed by the voices she hears of God and her sense of nationalism. When given a boy's doublet to wear, having her long girlish hair clipped short; and, at times, given to girlish fits of giggling, we see her being transformed from the young girl she is, into the soldier for God she envisions for herself.
We see in Rivette's Joan, that it is her sobering historical story that counts the most and the price Joan will pay for that, is that when compared with Dreyer's Joan, we don't have the same intense passion for her as we do for Dreyer's more spiritual and intense Joan. In this film, it is the king's coldness and the church's intrigue that strikes us, while Joan and the soldiers she fights with, are given a warm treatment, as if they were the heroes in a Hollywood war movie. Joan comes across as too nationalistic; she seems more like a naive pawn in the hands of evil leaders, who was placed in a position that she often didn't fully understand, rather than someone who is totally imbued with an all-encompassing spirituality.
She meets the Dauphin without being introduced to him in a crowded room. This turns out to be a way of him testing her to see what power of wit this illiterate nineteen year-old has, and it works out well for her, as she is able to identify him, and the future king takes a shine to her eagerness to serve him and get him crowned king in Rheims, which is one of her visions that is to take place after she defeats the British in Orleans.
The king's troubles begin with his own mother disinheriting him and the impoverished state of his own financial affairs, which result in him being treated without all the due respect he feels he deserves by his subjects. The floundering country is in such a bad state, that it is about to be completely taken over by the British. Therefore he seems pleased to hear that this naive girl who comes to him with the vision of being the savior of France, is ready to go to battle for him.
Her next test of approval, is to prove that she heard God's voice, and this comes about when a group of clergy in Poitiers, will question her for three weeks to authenticate her as a real visionary. She tells them what they want to hear: I dress like a man because that's my job. Saint Michael speaks in the language of angels. My sign from God, will be proven on the battlefield of Orleans. I guess that satisfied the questioners, as they stated she said nothing wrong and believes in God, and therefore they approve of her as God's emissary for the king of France.
In April,1429, she looks at the British from across the river and is anxious to attack, but is met with cautionary responses from the French commander, The Bastard of Orleans (Patrick Le Mauff), who says we are outnumbered five to one and the wind is blowing the wrong way for our boats to move. In a strong-armed soldier who walks with a limp, La Hire (Boucher), and in the Duke of Alencon (Jean-Pierre Lorit), the king's relative, Joan meets with bold soldiers who fiercely want to go into battle and they turn out to be just the kind of inspired soldiers she needs for victory.
In May of 1429, Joan gets an arrow in the shoulder, but after a brief rest, continues the frenzied attack on the British until victory is theirs, as the first part of the film ends on that high note.
Part 2- The Prison
With King Charles given the royal treatment and crowned as the French king, the church and state are shown sleeping in the same bed, politically speaking, and the king loses his appetite for further battle after being influenced by his inner circle of advisers to sign a truce with the British and forget about Paris. In June, 1429, Joan embarks on a series of French victories over the English throughout the Loire Valley, and when she is ready to seize Paris for her king, the king tells her to stop. Disappointed but not rebelling against her authority figure, she goes on her own, no longer supported by the king financially, fighting in cities outside of Paris that are loyal to the English. It is now September of 1429 and all her troops are scattered in different directions, fighting on their own. With a small band of troops, she is captured in May, 1430, and held prisoner by Prince Philippe, who is loyal to the British and detests King Charles for lopping off the head of his father, John the Fearless. In an arrangement made with the local bishop, she is sold to the British and put on trial for heresy by the church; it is a deal made in hell.
Caught in the web of a politics she, perhaps, refused to understand, she is faced with death at the stake if she doesn't recant her statements of being God's messenger on earth, wearing men's clothes, and refuses to submit to the word of the church. By May of 1431, she is told by the bishop at Rouen to either abjure or burn at the cross. When she decides to save her skin and abjures, she is shocked to see that the evil bishop has tricked her and pronounces a sentence of life imprisonment, with her to be kept in an English jail, where she is to be chained, and to be given only bread for pain and water for her sorrows. When the English soldiers taunt her and try to rape her, she has enough of this and tells the bishop he has condemned her to death, that she could have handled a church prison and lived with excommunication, but she would rather die than live in a British prison and not be allowed to hear mass. She says, "God has pity on me, I damned myself to save my life...but God sent me."
Her death sentence is assured now, as on May 30, 1431, she is dressed in a white sack cloth, wearing a white dunce hat, and given a cross, she requests, by an English soldier. In an act of hypocritical benevolence, the bishop allows her to receive Holy Communion for the last time. Her death scene is as cold as stone, there are no outcries, the clergy remains adament that they did the right thing getting rid of this so-called virus in the church. The last word is from Joan, engulfed by the flames at the stake, as she cries out for Jesus.
This film seems to be the most accurate version of all the Joan films, thus far, as Rivette followed the trial transcripts and whatever history of her battles were recorded by eyewitnesses, but it failed to move me in an intimate way as much as the Dreyer version did, which made more of a personal statement and an artistic response to those in power who try to stifle the voice of an individual's expression, while Rivette uses the visual epic scope of history to make his point, that the call for freedom is not necessarily separate from politics. He is sympathetic toward Joan, but I get the feeling he has a healthy skepticism about the voices she hears and her total obedience to authority figures and is not completely sold on all those miracles that seemingly occurred. After all, her soldiering was with professional soldiers and her prayers stopped being answered after the king was crowned. Perhaps, Rivette's Joan, is encapsulated by his choice of Sandrine Bonnaire, as a Joan who never lost her beauty, her girlishness, but also never convinced me fully that she was the sacrificing Joan of visions. Her performance was more than acceptable, but it was not memorable or moving. Rivette's version is good to see as a companion piece to Dreyer, as they both have things in their films that the other never attempted, and though Rivette's version is intriguing and colorful and politically savvy, it is not a masterpiece. It is just missing that magical ingredient in it, the something that Dreyer found when he went for the abstractions, the something that history couldn't tell.
REVIEWED ON 12/12/99 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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