How did an illiterate, 19-year-old peasant woman in the early 15th century become such a headache for the Bishop of Beauvais and his English controllers?

Well, that 19-year-old just happened to have made history by leading thousands of French soldiers to triumph over the English occupiers in the final phase of the Hundred Years' War (1337 to 1453). Even more amazing, that same woman had had no previous military training whatsoever. And yet the armies followed her bidding with little question, and for their pains, got results - big, history-making results, as in the eventual retreat of the English from France in 1453.

That woman, as you might guess, was Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc to the French).

Some Background.

So how exactly did she accomplish such feats? We get some illumination on the enigma of Joan from the amazingly preserved transcripts to her Trial of Condemnation held in Rouen in 1431. After a string of victories, Joan's fortunes began to turn, until her capture by Burgundians (who sided with the English) during the siege at Compiègne. Determined to destroy her, one whom they feared so well, the English had a panel of pro-English judges from the University of Paris convened, headed by Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais, to bring the young woman to trial on charges of witchcraft, heresy, impurity and wearing men's clothes.

During said trial, Joan was steadfast in claiming that God had put her on earth to do exactly what she did, which was to drive the English from France and install and legitimize the dauphin as King of France. Unlike military commanders of the day, Joan never did any killing herself. In fact, in an incident that is touching in its naïveté, she once stopped to comfort a dying English soldier on the battlefield. When she received a wound in the shoulder, she believed, like a young, helpless child, that she would die from it and feared death like the devil.

This odd mix of a rare courage, inner strength and a warrior-like aggression coupled with a childlike innocence, a humane compassion and an unshakable belief in her God and cause has made Joan of Arc one of the most fascinating historical personages to walk this earth. Today she is honoured as France's national heroine and patron saint (how's that for the feminist cause?), and yet the person of Joan of Arc remains clouded in mystery and controversy.

The question of whether she was a charlatan, saint, martyr or impostor still plagues the character of Joan, but for all that, her extraordinariness continues to fascinate us six centuries later. It might help to consider the cultural milieu in which a person like Joan could succeed - and also fail: that of medieval France, a time when religion dominated people's lives. Nevertheless, to French director Robert Bresson (1901-1999) (as she does to innumerable devotees today), Joan ranked as * the * most amazing person in history.

The Film.

No portrait, drawing or sculpture of Joan exists, but as Mr Bresson states in the introduction, something infinitely more invaluable remains - we have Joan's very own words recorded during the Trial of Condemnation. Joan's lines in this film were taken directly from these transcripts. (Jacques Rivette would follow suit some thirty years later in his similarly realistic and Spartan retelling of Joan's tale, 'Jeanne la pucelle'/'Joan the Maid').

The black-and-white 'Procès de Jeanne d'Arc'/'The Trial of Joan of Arc' (1962) adheres to the director's minimalist film diction. What's curious is that this simplified approach serves to highlight the drama inherent in a trial fraught with controversy.

Following the Bressonian filmmaking credo that had begun with 'Journal d'un curé de campagne'/'Diary of a Country Priest' (1950), only non-professional actors were employed (he called his actors 'models'), and they received heavy coaching from the director before the cameras rolled. Early on, Bresson came to the conclusion that film had to be used to tell nothing but the 'truth'. He cast his films based only on the person's look, and he had little use for the artifice utilised by professional actors.

When watching a Bresson film, you enter a rarefied atmosphere devoid of all but the essentials. His pictures are stark in their plainness, and sound - from disembodied shouts by offscreen characters to the scratching of a quill on paper here - gains more prominence than usual. A cleaner, leaner film results. Yes, Mr Bresson manipulates his audience, but in a most subtle way. His films require a great deal of concentration, and if we submit to the pull, we are quickly hypnotized, fully engrossed in the characters we watch on the screen.

The film opens with an unidentified person in black carrying a manuscript, assisted as she moves through a hallway. The shot is taken from an angle looking down, and we see only the shoes and hem of the robe. The camera stays put as she moves on. With her back to us she begins to speak, reading the document in her hands. We learn that she is Joan's mother. Although it's only implied here, this scene is based on the Trial of Rehabilitation carried out twenty-five years after Joan's death in 1431. (The original judgment was reversed in this later trial, which would lead centuries later to Joan's canonization by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.)

And then we meet Joan (Florence Carrez, a.k.a. Florence Delay), but first only through her chained hands that she lays upon an open Bible. She is about to face a barrage of questions from the tribunal, who try their best to trip up and corner Joan with unrelenting questions, with a view to extracting a confession about heretical practices. Underhanded tricks that include an attempted rape in her jail cell are also employed in a bid to break Joan's spirit.

Yet for all his efforts, Bishop Cauchon makes little headway towards his goal. Hardly a fearful accused person, Joan proves to be an agile opponent and perplexes her questioners, hitting some good ones back and parrying the rest. By refusing to give answers to certain questions, she frustrates her judges, who wish only to quickly despatch her to the stake in order to please their English superiors.

More than anything else, Joan's words take center stage. Listen to her replies to Bishop Cauchon (excellently played by Jean-Claude Fourneau), and tell me if she isn't one of history's most clever defendants.

As directed by Mr Bresson, Ms Carrez states her answers in direct, straightforward fashion, often casting her eyes downward after a reply (an action common to many Bresson films). Despite her repeated and firm assertions of her religious beliefs, Joan never assumes an obnoxious arrogance. A rare self-possession, an inner integrity and an unusual well of wisdom reside within her. Almost solely through her line delivery - flat as that seems to be - is the character shaped. And yet, it's through Ms Carrez's naturalistic and austere performance (not hurt by a quiet, dignified charisma) that we seem to get closer to Joan's essence, her soul. A resoluteness of character shines through, convincing us that legions of fighting men could very well have followed her lead in battle. Think about it: Joan was alone during her trial. Contrary to the usual procedure, she was offered no formal counsel to help her in her defense, and the fact that she gave excellent testimony on her own to a panel of highly educated scholars still astonishes to this day.

Joan may appear invulnerable before her interrogators, but we need only glimpse a very brief episode of weeping while in her prison cell to know that her fragile humanity is intact. She perhaps also realizes the enormity of the accusations flung at her person. The unalloyed, understated performance coaxed by Mr Bresson from Ms Carrez gives the film a power that few movies possess. Movement is measured, scenes emit a cold air of formality, and yet you're riveted to the medieval courtroom drama unfolding before you.

There is a slight difference in this version from, say, Jacques Rivette's ('Joan the Maid', 1994): the presence of a white-robed figure sitting to one side of the tribunal, who seems to be signalling to Joan when certain questions arise. Who is this man? Why does he communicate with Joan? Is there a secret collusion between Joan and him? Was this the director's attempt to portray Joan as less innocent than she seems? Or is he merely one of the few on the tribunal who were sympathetic to Joan's cause and tried to give her advice? No definite answers are on tap, although I would hazard to guess the last as the most plausible.

The film runs to just 65 minutes, but through some Twilight Zone-like time warp, it seems to last longer - and this is * not * a bad thing. Since Bresson has no use for extraneous matter, every second, every frame of film becomes more significant, seeming to expand with profundity - which does not equal ponderousness, however. The drama remains taut through the film's end, in which Joan, bound in chains and rope, meets her fiery death. After witnessing what she has heroically endured at the hands of her persecutors, the atrociousness of the punishment screams the injustice in deafening tones. In the final shot, all that remains are the burned stake and empty chains - a stunning scene pregnant with unspoken horror.

Just as Jacques Rivette's 'Joan the Maid' did, Robert Bresson's 'Procès de Jeanne d'Arc' served to reinforce this writer's own admiring fascination with the historical figure. Simply put, a work of genius.

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NOTES:

A word about the preceding Carl Dreyer silent classic, 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), to which the Bresson film cannot seem to escape comparison: Dreyer's Joan is emotionally naked, overwrought, and unbearable to the point of torture. Personally (and I contradict hallowed dogma here), I prefer Mr Bresson's - and Mr Rivette's, for that matter - interpretation of Joan of Arc.

I originally caught this film on the excellent Turner Movie Classics channel on US cable TV.

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DVD NOTES: (added 3/27/06)

I've finally viewed the M2K DVD, by the UK's Artificial Eye. Here is an overview, with some explanatory notes I've added for those unfamiliar with some citations (as I was).

Interview with Florence Carrez (Florence Delay).

Among the many special features, the most affecting to this writer is still the interview with Florence Carrez (she also goes by the name Florence Delay and currently holds a seat in the Académie française). She and the video crew return to the very same castle in Rouen where Joan was imprisoned and 'Procés de Jeanne d'Arc' was filmed, and she shares her recollections of the shoot. From her responses, it's clear that doing the film made a lasting impression upon her - even if it was later in the shoot that she came to realize the monumental significance of Joan's own words, words that she had mouthed at the explicit direction of Robert Bresson. Ms Carrez would become more interested in Joan with time. Reading 'La mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc' [1910] and other works by Orleans-born, fiercely Catholic poet and essayist Charles Péguy would further illuminate her understanding of Joan.

When asked about her being chosen of three girls being considered for the part, she hazards a guess as to why - without self-conscious pride, she volunteers that it was probably because of her 'gentleness', as she puts it, and it's not hard to see why. I think Ms Carrez is one of the more emotive of the director's 'models'- discreetly so, and only through her lines, per Bresson's instructions. The acting here is wholly internal, and yet in a paradoxical way, the apparent flatness of her expression coupled with a direct, almost rapid-fire line delivery underscores even more the tension of the trial and that within Joan.

Other Extras.

Other features include two interviews with Robert Bresson from 1962, one with French Catholic philosopher Jean Guitton. In these sessions director Bresson discusses mainly his unique views on cinema and his personal filmmaking style, all in relation to ‘Procés de Jeanne d’Arc’. These always distanced him then - and do so today - from the ordinary filmmaker.

Also included is a more recent interview conducted by Laure Adler (director of radio station France Culture) with historian George Duby, who reviews the history of Joan of Arc through, among other things, excerpts from an early silent film (I think it's 'La merveilleuse vie de Jeanne d'Arc', 1928, by Marc de Gastyne).

Then there's an audio track of the twenty-plus minute speech delivered by André Malraux, French author and then-Minister of Culture, to the town of Orleans in 1961. Finally, the original trailer rounds out the DVD extras.

The film is presented in widescreen format. Picture is sharp, clean and clear, with readable subtitles (that occasionally have bits of their tops trimmed away).

***** I find it very interesting that, for a country that strictly forbids religion from tainting its official affairs, France boasts a raft of Catholic philosophers, writers, poets and essayists, and their national heroine is most definitely a strong Catholic symbol. *****