The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962)

 Robert Bresson's "The Trial of Joan of Arc"

While watching Robert Bresson's 1962 film "The Trial of Joan of Arc," it was very difficult not to compare it to the monolithic silent masterpiece of Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc." For one thing, Dreyer's version of the historical trial is without dialogue, save for the title cards. It's mostly about the emotion of Joan, whom is facing her execution at the hands of a corrupt state. In Bresson's version, the film is completely dialogue, without much visual action to accompany anything. 

The film only consists of the direct conversations between Joan and the bishops of the church. Joan is continuously tortured, interrogated, and molested. Everything she says is scrutinized and warped by the corrupt judges. Because this is a Bresson picture, the characters are played by non-professional actors and thereby, there is little emotionality to the performances. The dryness of the people and the scenes unfolding before us make the trial, interrogation, and all the maliciousness thrown at Joan all the more unsettling for some reason. I don't quite have the words to identity what exactly Bresson is accomplishing with this aesthetic for this story, but the master is able to somehow identify the banality in persecution, the lack of emotion that is paradoxically escorted with hatred, and the empty sense of terror felt by this poor child about to be burned alive.

I don't think this particular film was able to penetrate me as a typical Bresson film would. For that, I think this piece falls short of his other masterworks. That is not to say this film shouldn't merit praise, it absolutely should. It still makes for a quietly disturbing picture and has a breadth of complexity confined in its images. However, I can't help but place it up against the Dreyer film, which one should never do with art. In this case, "The Trial of Joan of Arc" seems to fall through the crevasses somehow.