Best movie of this year hands down!

the audience applauded

Simply A Masterpiece

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

In our era there are women warriors in film and TV, from Xena to Beatrix Kiddo, but back in Hollywood's classic era they were an extreme rarity. Joan of Arc was an exception that was acceptable partly because she came from history not fiction and, more crucially, she was a saint and a miracle worker. The tale was told in the only way it could be then, as one of the religious epics that would become a major presence in the cinema of the following decade.Appearing a few years before the epic genre really took off, and while studios were still recovering from the lowered budgets of WW2, Joan of Arc is not quite as grandiose as the biblical movies that would come later on. Based on a play (Maxwell Anderson's Joan of Lorraine), upon its release it was accused of being too talky and lacking in action. But this is made up for in a number of ways, not least of which is its lavish period detail. It is epic in scope and scale, but only so far as the history requires. There is no spectacle for spectacle's sake. The movie is exactly as big and spectacular as it needs to be.The movie is also buoyed by a leading performance from Ingrid Bergman. Bergman brings a necessary presence to the role, not in her delivery of lines but in the power of her emoting, which transcends any stolidness in the screenplay. An especially notable moment is her look of genuine disappointment when she realises that the dauphin has been replaced by one of his lackeys. The other standout performance is that of José Ferrer as the real dauphin. Fresh from the stage, Ferrer is theatrical, Shakespearean even, but that is just the sort of exuberant touch the movie needs to stop it becoming staid.This was the final project of ace director Victor Fleming, who had earlier helmed (most of) Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Joan of Arc sees him taking a more relaxed pace (his trademark was speed and punchiness), but with no less of an eye for intelligent staging and shot composition. There's an excellent scene where a young Joan wanders distractedly away from the chattering of her family to sit alone by the fire, framed in profile with the flames forming a corona about her head. This isn't just some obscure bit of symbolism or foreshadowing, it's a way of showing her in clear isolation while still keeping her image dynamic and vibrant.The presentation and performance of this edition of the Joan of Arc story compensates for its dramatic, dialogue-based format. And, while it remains very much a movie based on Joan's sainthood and Christian devotion, Bergman makes her touchingly human, and this allows the character to reach us from the past.

In the Fifteenth Century, France is a defeated and ruined nation after the One Hundred Years War against England. The fourteen years old farm girl Joan of Arc (Ingrid Bergman) claims to hear voices from Heaven asking her to lead God's Army against Orleans and crowning the weak Dauphin Charles VII (José Ferrer) as King of France. Joan gathers the people with her faith, forms an army and conquerors Orleans. When her army is ready to attack Paris, the corrupt Charles sells his country to England and dismiss the army. Joan is arrested, sold to the Burgundians England and submitted to a shameful political trial in Rouen castle, when in 1931 she is sentenced to burn at stake.The story of Joan D'Arc is one of the most beautiful I have seen in the cinema, and Victor Fleming's version is no exception. I have seen Carl Dryer's and Robert Bresson's (the best), Luc Besson's (the weakest – actually a means to promote his girlfriend Mila Jovovich), Christian Duguay's (a great television version with Leelee Sobieski in the lead role) and all of them a good movies because the story of this martyr and saint "Maid of Lorraine" is actually awesome and doomed to please the audiences. Her history shows faith, betrayal and corruption in a period of treachery and domination of the powerful Catholic Church in Europe. Ingrid Bergman is miscast in the role of a fourteen to nineteen years old girl that can be confused with a man, but she has a great and shining performance and deserved her nomination to the Oscar. The debut of José Ferrer could not be better, performing a shallow and corrupt king. The Oscar winning cinematography is very beautiful for a 1948 movie. The DVD released in Brazil is completely restored but unfortunately there is a bug in chapter 6, stopping the movie. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Joana D'Arc" ("Joan of Arc")

The only version I've seen of Joan of Arc is the VHS edited version. But what I saw convinced me that it was indeed a triumph for Ingrid Bergman. Unfortunately it had lousy timing in when it was released and poor editing that cut it to 100 minutes.Ingrid got her greatest stage reviews in this part and she does a grand job in playing the charismatic Maid of Orleans who rallied a nation with her simple faith and piety.This should really be seen in conjunction with Henry V either the Olivier or the Branagh version. Henry V is the 100 Years War from the English point of view, Joan of Arc is from the French. Henry V is also the prologue of the events leading up to Joan of Arc. Henry V has decimated the French army and has asserted his claim to the French throne as well as the English. He forced a treaty with the French, married the French princess and had the French king disinherit his son, the dauphin from the line of succession.Then Henry V died quite suddenly and his infant son Henry VI became the claimant to the French crown. All the politics surrounding that is dealt with in Shakespeare's Henry VI Part I. In the meantime the Dauphin is keeping up a rear guard action in exile. In this film he's played by Jose Ferrer in his screen debut. Ferrer captures the dauphin perfectly. Not exactly one of France's noblest kings, he's weak and unsure of himself. Still when Joan the Maid of Lorraine comes to him and convinces him of her sincereity, he believes in her.He's successful with Joan as a symbol at the head of his army and he starts taking back his kingdom, bit by bit. But Ferrer loses interest and signs a truce with the English. Joan keeps on fighting with some loyal followers and is captured by the nobles allied with the English.The high point of the film and her life is the trial where she is condemned as a witch and burned at the stake. Francis L. Sullivan plays Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais who does the dirty work for the English and he plays the part with relish.Did Joan really hear voices from on high and was actually divinely inspired? If you believe in results then yes she was. After she died she inspired a nation to revolt. By the end of the Dauphin's reign when he became King Charles VII the English were only controlling Calais and its suburbs.Poor Ingrid Bergman. The tabloids of the day did some job on her. As this film was in general release the scandal broke about her affair and the pregnancy resulting with Roberto Rosellini and the film tanked at the box office. Getting cast as a saint here and as a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's was just too much for the American public who back then really believed the images film stars conveyed.I'm glad this film is fully restored now. Hopefully we'll see it on DVD one day.

A very poor film translation of a stage play--rather than being tailored to the movie medium, this is very stagy, overly talky. The dialogue is arty and artificial. Everyone is obviously acting, giving a performance, though Bergman is radiant and her performance is passionate and sincere.All of the exteriors (outdoor shots) which feature close ups of the lead actors are obviously shot on a sound stage. Some beautiful outdoor footage is used occasionally for establishing shots or transitions between scenes, but Bergman never leaves the soundstage. On the positive side, the film is beautifully photographed, many individual shots are works of art, masterfully lit and composed. However, the camera moves only when necessary to follow the actors, the shots are static, adding to the staginess of the production. Which reminds me of CB DeMille; you could get a good idea of this film by saying it's like a DeMille film, only with more high art pretensions and less spectacle (no cast of thousands here).The most outstanding aspect of 'Joan of Arc' is the music, it's prominently featured, good and loud, and it deserves to be--it's gorgeous. The DVD has no extras at all, though the image and sound are excellent--a very good restoration job. A commentary track would have been very welcome; my guess is this was a challenging production, possibly with a long production period (three cinematographers are listed). It was a commercial failure, at least in part because of public condemnation of Bergman's personal life. I believe director Victor Flemming died soon after production. Lots of meat here for an interesting commentary or two.