Carl-Theodor Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc is a beloved classic of the European silent cinema. Maria Falconetti's immeasurably moving performance as Joan, in a script based on actual transcripts of her trial, is etched in our memories by Dreyer and cinematographer Rudolph Maté's emphasis on extreme close-ups. Yet the version with which European and American audiences are familiar, beautiful as it is, is several generations from the Dreyer original which we present here tonight for the first time.
What happened to this artist's work is itself a harrowing epic. In brief, of the two prints of the film submitted to the Danish censors in 1928, both were soon lost and the negative destroyed in a fire at Ufa in Berlin. With not a trace left of the original, Dreyer proceeded to cut yet another Passion of Joan of Arc out of the outtakes and rushes of the first. This version was also considered lost until, in Paris in 1952, Lo Duca found a print, added a music track and actually re-edited the film. This version, detested by Dreyer, is the one which is generally shown. Recently, however, a print of the 1928 original was found in, of all places, an Oslo mental institution where, it seems, a doctor had requested it to show to his patients and simply never returned the print. Found to be in immaculate condition, it has been transferred from nitrate to safety film.
On viewing this rediscovered original, Mark Nash reported in Sight and Sound, “The differences are mainly aesthetic....: the original uses different camera angles, shots are held longer or cut off in mid-flow. Dreyer's idiosyncratic montage technique, his particular sense of rhythm and of keeping the spectator in suspense by constantly drawing up short in his editing, are much more in evidence in this print. In short, it fully confirms Dreyer's reputation as an avant-garde filmmaker.” We hope to present this print with the original score for orchestra and chorus, composed for the French premiere, next April.