#renée jeanne falconetti

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THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928) La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer Cinematography by Rudolph Maté

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La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928) - dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer

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study of renée jeanne falconetti as joan of arc (referenced from The Passion of Joan of Arc, 1928)

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Renée Jeanne Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1928)

Cast: Renée Jeanne Falconetti, Eugène Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz, Antonin Artaud, Gilbert Dalleu, Jean d’Yd, Louis Ravet, Camille Bardou. Screenplay: Joseph Delteil, Carl Theodor Dreyer. Cinematography: Rudolph Maté. Film editing: Marguerite Beaugé, Carl Theodor Dreyer. Over the years, since its rediscovery, there have been many attempts to add a music track to The Passion of Joan of Arc, including a pastiche of music by Baroque composers like Bach and Vivaldi that its director, Carl Theodor Dreyer, heard and disliked. But the last time I watched it was with no music track, for which I was grateful: The Passion shines forth in silence, allowing you to reflect on the spareness of its images and the astonishing performance by Renée Jeanne Falconetti as Joan. We don't need underscoring for Joan's emotions: They are present on Falconetti's face and in her extraordinarily expressive eyes. Dreyer's celebrated use of closeups throughout the film is varied with remarkable compositions of figures in groups that always feel organic, not something imposed by the director, and when the film erupts in violence as the soldiers attack the crowd at the film's end, the irruption of action is startling. The cinematographer was Rudolph Maté, who later turned director, and his low-angle camerawork -- Dreyer reportedly had holes dug in the floor of the set to get the angles he wanted -- anticipates that of Yasujiro Ozu, giving us a sense on the one hand of Joan as floating above us and on the other of her judges as looming menace. The final shots of Joan's slumped, burned body seen through the smoke and flames are harrowing and poignant without being grisly. There aren't many greater films than this one.

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La passion de Jeanne d'Arc , Carl Theodor Dreyer , 1928

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Renée Jeanne Falconetti's in the Passion of Joan of Arc

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renée jeanne falconetti's grave at the montmartre cemetery

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welcome back renée jeanne falconetti 🙌🏻🙏🏻

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renée jeanne falconetti in the passion of joan of arc (1928) // gerard way in the famous last words music video (2007)

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2 5 7 28 29 38 60 67 (Movie Buff Questions)

2. What movie(s) could you watch over and over and not get tired of?

"Simon of the Desert"

"Gone with the Wind"

"Bringing Up Baby"

"All About Eve"

"The Piano"

"Barton Fink"

"No Country For Old Men"

Almost all Hitchcockian films ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith" is the exception to the rule)

Almost all Almodóvarian films

Almost all films by Ozu

Almost all films by Kiarostami

"Some Like It Hot"

"The Handmaiden"

"The 400 Blows"

"The Blue Angel"

"In the Mood for Love"

"Rome, Open City"

"Three Colors: Blue"

"Laura"

"8 Femmes"

"Ninotchka"

"The Circle" (2000)

"Double Indemnity"

"Shanghai Express"

"Sunset Boulevard"

"Touch of Evil"

"Tokyo Story"

"To Have and Have Not"

"Persona"

"The Big Sleep"

"The Red Shoes"

"Rocco and His Brothers"

"Kes"

"Gloria"

"A Woman Under The Influence"

"The Conformist"

among others.

5. Favorite dead actor/actress?

Actresses:

Emmanuelle Riva, Smita Patil, Kinuyo Tanaka, Anna Magnani, Machiko Kyō, Setsuko Hara, Danielle Darrieux, Ingrid Thulin, Jeanne Moreau, Hideko Takamine, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Giulietta Masina, Renée Jeanne Falconetti.

Actors:

Marcello Mastroianni, Jack Lemmon, Toshiro Mifune, Orson Welles, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Uttam Kumar, Anthony Perkins, Soumitro Chattopadhyay, Saro Urzì, Omar Sharif, Gian Maria Volonté, Utpal Dutta, Cary Grant, Anthony Quinn, Ezatollah Entezami.

7. Ever been/are you such a hardcore fan of an actor actress you watched/will watch any movie they were/will be in?

Isabelle Huppert comes to mind.

28. Top 5 actresses?

Already answered this here.

29. Movie you completely regret seeing?

All of Gaspar Noé's pseudointellectual films to be honest, but mostly "Irreversible." I find his filmmaking unintelligent af.

"Noah" by Darren Aronofsky is another example. Most of his films are.

"Martyrs" (2008), because I'm a total wuss.

38. Film(s) you’ve watched on a date?

Already answered this.

60. Most visually stunning movie you’ve seen?

Already answered this.

67. A movie that started a passion for you?

Almodóvar's "All about my mother" got me into cinema.

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My four favorite film performances, I think

Renée Jeanne Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc

Ann Savage in Detour

Isabelle Adjani in Possession

Anna Faris in Smiley Face

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Sheryl Lee's performance in this film is akin to Renée Jeanne Falconetti's in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Just watching them emote is entrancing. I get completely absorbed by every slightest movement on their faces. Absolutely hypnotic.

Sheryl Lee is such a criminally underrated actress.

SHERYL LEE AS LAURA PALMER Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - (1992)

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CC's New Watch Ranking 2022: #7 - The Passion of Joan of Arc (and Immortality)

1928, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer

Every year on Letterboxd, I make a list of the 100 best films I’ve seen for the first time. It’s a fun way to compare movies separated in time, genre, and country of origin, and helps me keep track of what I’m watching! This is a series of posts about my Top 10.

Insightful writers have been commenting on this film for nearly a century. I don’t expect to add anything very meaningful to that discourse, but I would like to use this film as a launching point for discussing the best game I played this year, one that I started the day after watching this masterpiece - Immortality. Perhaps it’s the adjacency with which I engaged in these two pieces, but they seemed to be intentionally, brilliantly in dialogue with one another. Immortality is a game about legacy, sacrifice, and the dangers of making art. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a living example of those lessons. 

First, the film - Passion is a psychological study of the last days of Joan of Arc’s life. It takes its sparse dialogue from the real transcripts of the martyr’s trial. The dominant image is extreme close ups on Joan, played by Renée Jeanne Falconetti, as she stares and responds to the priests who are persecuting her. Cutaways to them is almost always from Joan’s point of view - the camera is her gaze, transforming this from a history film into a character study. Joan’s despair, her strength, her disbelief in the injustice she’s facing, the cycles of emotion as she approaches her end - they emanate from Falconetti with the force of gales. This is one of cinema’s great performances. 

The palpable discomfort, the central element of its atmosphere, is reinforced through every other production aspect. The sets are claustrophobic, the priests act grotesque, every element seems to linger in suffering. There are popular rumors that Dreyer was a tyrant on set and evokes Falconetti’s performance with heavy handed cruelty, but most sources I’ve found seem to show that she and other crew members denied such behavior ever happened. What is sure is that Falconetti struggled with internal suffering for most of her life. After filming was done, she did not act on film again. She died in tragic circumstances. Falconetti’s masterful performance is born out of some connection with the immense suffering Joan, the historical figure and this telling’s character, experienced throughout her own tumultuous life. Everything about this film, from its literal contents to the context of its production, provokes the viewer into a meditation on suffering. It provokes thorny questions, and after a century of doing so, it’s safe to say it will continue to prod audiences for as long as we’re around. This movie has a kind of eternal power, a lasting quality that keeps it relevant. 

It has a kind of immortality. 

Immortality is a game by Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story, that has the player explore a fictional archive of films. All three were never released, sharing a lead actress named Marissa Marcel (player by Manon Gage). By clicking through objects and people in the clips, you can match-cut to a similar image in another clip, and go through the game spinning through footage, trying to learn the plot of the films, as well as the behind-the-scenes footage that shows Marissa’s life. (Spoilers ahead.) Eventually, the player will discover that by reeling the footage backwards, and feeling out a certain sweet-spot through controller vibrations and a sound effect, you can access secret footage. Marissa is possessed by a supernatural figure called The One, played by Charlotta Mohlin, a sort of demonic spirit that feeds off and influences humanity. They - and I’ll refer to them as a them, as they seem to the sort of species that transcends a gender binary - address you directly, telling the story of how they first became Marissa, their life, and what they were trying to achieve in becoming mortal. You learn about their tragic end at the hands of The Other One, another spirit that is inextricably paired to them. 

This many layered narrative revolves around themes of suffering, manipulation, and sacrifice in the pursuit of fulfillment. The content of the three fictional films have plots with similar themes. Behind the scenes, Marissa retires from acting after accidentally killing her co-star in her second film - an act orchestrated by the possessing One to murder The Other One who is in the co-stars body. Maris emerges from retirement decades later, only to be murdered in turn by The Other One who has possessed yet another actor. It is the fulfillment of their eons-long struggle for control and independence. You learn their story through black-and-white shots, mostly closeups of The One’s face. They address the viewer directly, occasionally cutting away to them literally possessing the actors in a scene, inserting themself in the action. A strong sense of fear, of discomfort, emerges as you search for The One’s footage, as they break the cinematic language of the rest of the game. They pop up like a jump scare - the intensity of their gaze, the cruelty and desperation, is on full display. Every element, from the music, to the controls, to the performances throughout the films, provokes thorny questions about the act on creation. 

And The One meets their end by being burnt alive. 

It surprises me, given these parallels, not to see this particular version of the Joan of Arc story on Half Mermaid’s own Letterboxd list of films that inspired the game. The 1957 version, directed by Otto Preminger, is listed instead. Though I strongly suspect this inspired certain moments in the game, what matters is that the elements that make Passion so powerful are the same that make Immortality one of the best games I’ve ever played. Barlow understands the power of faces. His other game, Her Story, is entirely comprised of close-ups of a single actress, as you see her character’s responses to questions asked off-screen. In Immortality, the One’s appearances are shot with even more focus on Charlotta Mohlin’s powerful gaze. She has an otherworldly air, and the stark black-and-white photography stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the colorful footage. In Passion, Joan tends to be shot with a softer lighting scheme compared to establishing shots of her prison and the priests she’s interacting with. They are sharp, harsh, and alienating. 

The contrast between these shots, in both works, creates a sense of reality for their central figure. The One feels like a real entity that has possessed your screen, a creepypasta legend come to life. She can be shot in full definition, compared to the grainer footage of the three films that emulate moviemaking of their decade. She can enter the frame in ways no one else depicted can. Joan’s presence is likewise ethereal, and the realness of her portrayal of pain makes her come to life like no other figure in cinema. She really seems to leap through the screen, boring into your soul. 

Passion’s exploration of suffering ultimately leads to - unsurprisingly - a rather Christian message of martyrdom. Through Joan’s sacrifice the peasantry revolt, inspired and moved by the suffering she volunteers for. She is depicted as a Christ figure. The One, by contrast, claims to be responsible for that particular myth. Their demise, their suffering, appears to be more self-serving. The One wishes to be immortalized, to be loved forever, to always exist through being viewed, being understood. That’s what you give them by playing the game. Their death serves their mission, much like Joan’s sacrifice makes her a martyr and completes her cause. 

The greatest works of art embody their subject matter on every level. The controls reinforce the story; the images reflect the theme. This is the quality I’ve grown to appreciate the most as I contemplate the works of art that have moved me this year. Right now we seem to be subsumed in media that feels disposable, stuff that is meant to occupy our time without offending our sensibilities too much. Everything is algorithmically calculated to provide just enough. If it wants discussion, it’s only provoking discourse for advertising purposes. Engaging with works of art that really seem to be hammering at some essential, something shared between people, is what’s keeping me going. I think works like these can inspire people to demand more of their media, to be open to receiving challenging ideas. To be satisfied with a series of question, rather than a prescribed list of answers. I came away from both these works filled with wonder and curiosity. The Passion of Joan of Arc has been inspiring interest for a century and forever. I can’t say for sure if Immortality has that potential… but I do wonder. 

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Thank you for reading! If you made it this far why don't you give me a follow on Letterboxd, where I post reviews and keep obsessive track of all the movies I watch. Feel free to drop a line if you checked this movie out and want to share your thoughts!