Saint Joan Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan | |
---|---|
Directed by | Otto Preminger |
Screenplay by | Graham Greene |
Based on | Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw |
Produced by | Otto Preminger Douglas Peirce |
Starring | Jean Seberg Richard Widmark Richard Todd Barry Jones Anton Walbrook John Gielgud Felix Aylmer Harry Andrews Finlay Currie Bernard Miles Patrick Barr Kenneth Haigh |
Cinematography | Georges Périnal |
Edited by | Helga Cranston |
Music by | Mischa Spoliansky |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
Countries | United Kingdom United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1 million [1] |
Box office | US$250,000 (domestic) [1] |
Saint Joan (also called Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan) is a 1957 historical drama film adapted from the 1923 George Bernard Shaw play of the same title about the life of Joan of Arc. The restructured screenplay by Graham Greene, directed by Otto Preminger, begins with the play's last scene, which then becomes the springboard for a long flashback, from which the main story is told. At the end of the flashback, the film then returns to the play's final scene, which then continues through to the end.
This was the film debut of actress Jean Seberg, who won a talent search conducted by Preminger that reportedly tested more than 18,000 young women for the role.
In 1456, Charles VII (Richard Widmark), experiences dreams in which he is visited by Joan of Arc (Jean Seberg), the former commander of his army, burned at the stake as a heretic twenty-five years earlier. In the dream he tells Joan that her case was retried and her sentence annulled. He recalls how she entered his life as a simple, seventeen-year-old peasant girl; how she heard the voices of Saints Catherine and Margaret telling her that she would lead the French army against the English at the siege of Orléans and be responsible for having the Dauphin crowned king at Reims cathedral. When Joan arrives at the Dauphin's palace at Chinon she discovers that he is a childish weakling with no interest in fighting. After being tested by the members of the court, who conclude that she is mad, Joan imbues the Dauphin with her belief and fervor and he gives her command of the army.
Shortly thereafter, Joan witnesses the coronation of Charles. Although her military triumphs have made her popular with the masses, her voices, beliefs, self-confidence and apparent supernatural powers have given her fearful enemies in high places. Charles, who has no further use for her services, expects her to return to her father's farm. When Joan challenges Charles to retake Paris from the English, he tells her he would rather sign a treaty than fight. All refuse Joan's plea to march on Paris, and the archbishop warns her that if she defies her spiritual directors, the church will disown her. Nevertheless, Joan puts her faith in God and appeals to the common people to march on Paris. She is captured and handed over to the English. To assure that Joan will never again become a threat to England, the English commander hands her over to the Catholic Church to be tried for heresy. Joan spends four months in a cell and is visited frequently by the Inquisitor (Felix Aylmer). The English become impatient with the delay in her prosecution and press for the trial to begin. Joan holds to her faith, as always, refusing to deny that the church is wiser than she or her voices.
In a moment of panic when she learns she is to be burned at the stake, and worn down by the constant pressures applied by the Inquisitor, Joan signs a document of recantation in which she confesses that she pretended to hear revelations from God and the saints in the belief that this will result in her freedom to return to her life as a peasant girl. When she learns that the sentence of the Inquisition is her perpetual, solitary imprisonment, Joan destroys the document, refusing to face a life away from nature, the life that opened her spirit to hear God and the saints. She now believes that God wants her to come to him through the ordeal of being burned at the stake. After Joan is excommunicated, the English commander, weary of the Church's endless and delaying rituals, decides that Joan can be executed long before the Vatican learns about it, and so orders his soldiers to drag her to the square to be burned. The Inquisitor chooses to look the other way and let the English burn her. Those who witness Joan's death are stricken with remorse. The King's dream continues as he and Joan are visited by other significant figures from her life. Growing weary of all the spirit visitors, Charles tells Joan he has dreamed of her long enough and returns to his bed and his troubled sleep.
Richard Todd claims Preminger was courteous to him but Jean Seberg "had a dreadful time." [2]
Several reviews, including two in The Times , noted that Greene's condensation of the play resulted in
"some odd omissions, interpolations and additions" and that "the result is a certain scrappiness and confusion in the first half of the film in place of Shaw's slow and careful build-up."
Other reviewers complained that an epilogue Shaw wrote was used as a prologue and recurring scene throughout the film. The released film lacks any foreword or historical introduction. The film does not mention that Joan was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1909 and canonized in 1920, unlike Shaw's play, where a "Gentleman" appears in the last scene and announces that Joan has been canonized "in Basilica Vaticana, the sixteenth day of May, nineteen hundred and twenty." [3] ) However, in both play and film, Joan's last line is "O God that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive Thy saints? How long, O Lord, how long?"
Stanley Kauffmann called Saint Joan a disaster. [4]
Upon release of the film, Jean Seberg's performance as Joan was soundly panned, and Preminger was heavily criticised for casting an inexperienced unknown in a role which required her to act with veteran actors such as John Gielgud, Anton Walbrook, Felix Aylmer, and others. [5]
Joan of Arc is a patron saint of France, honored as a defender of the French nation for her role in the siege of Orléans and her insistence on the coronation of Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Claiming to be acting under divine guidance, she became a military leader who transcended gender roles and gained recognition as a savior of France.
The Medieval Inquisition was a series of Inquisitions from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). The Medieval Inquisition was established in response to movements considered apostate or heretical to Roman Catholicism, in particular Catharism and Waldensians in Southern France and Northern Italy. These were the first movements of many inquisitions that would follow.
The siege of Orléans marked a turning point of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. The siege took place at the pinnacle of English power during the later stages of the war, but was repulsed by French forces inspired by the arrival of Joan of Arc. The French would then regain the initiative in the conflict and began to recapture territories previously occupied by the English.
Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. His reign saw the end of the Hundred Years' War and a de facto end of the English claims to the French throne.
Jean Dorothy Seberg was an American actress. She is considered an icon of the French New Wave as a result of her performance in Jean-Luc Godard's 1960 film Breathless.
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Bonjour Tristesse is a 1958 British-American Technicolor film in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Otto Preminger from a screenplay by Arthur Laurents based on the novel of the same name by Françoise Sagan. The film stars Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Jean Seberg, Mylène Demongeot and Geoffrey Horne, and features Juliette Gréco, Walter Chiari, Martita Hunt and Roland Culver. It was released by Columbia Pictures. This film had color and black-and-white sequences, a technique unusual for the 1950s, but widely used in silent movies and early sound movies.
Joan of Arc is a 1948 American epic historical drama film directed by Victor Fleming, and starring Ingrid Bergman as the eponymous French religious icon and war heroine. It was produced by Walter Wanger and is based on Maxwell Anderson's successful Broadway play Joan of Lorraine, which also starred Bergman, and was adapted for the screen by Anderson himself, in collaboration with Andrew Solt. It is the last film Fleming directed before his death in 1949.
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw about 15th-century French military figure Joan of Arc. Premiering in 1923, three years after her canonization by the Roman Catholic Church, the play reflects Shaw's belief that the people involved in Joan's trial acted according to what they thought was right.
Joan of Arc is a 1900 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the life of Joan of Arc.
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, by the Sieur Louis de Conte is an 1896 novel by Mark Twain which recounts the life of Joan of Arc.
Pierronne, also known as Pierrone, Pierronne la Bretonne and Perrinaïc, was a Breton woman who said she saw visions of "God dressed in a long white robe with a red tunic underneath". Pierronne, who may have met Joan of Arc in 1429, tried to defend her reputation at Corbeil. For this, Pierronne was arrested by pro-English authorities in March 1430 and burned at the stake.
Joan of Arc is a 1999 Canadian two-part television miniseries about the 15th-century Catholic saint of the same name. The miniseries stars Leelee Sobieski as Saint Joan. A joint production of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Alliance Atlantis Communications, it was shown internationally in 1999.
The Trial of Joan of Arc was a 15th century legal proceeding against Joan of Arc, a French military leader under Charles VII during the Hundred Years' War. During the siege of Compiègne in 1430, she was captured by Burgundian forces and subsequently sold to their English allies. She was prosecuted by a pro-English church court at Rouen, Normandy, in 1431. The court found her guilty of heresy and she was burned at the stake. The verdict was later nullified at Joan's rehabilitation trial, which was overseen by the Inquisitor-General, Jean Bréhal, in 1456. Considered a French national heroine, she was declared a saint by the Roman Catholic Church in 1920. The trial is one of the most famous in history, becoming the subject of many books and films.
The conviction of Joan of Arc in 1431 was posthumously investigated on appeal in the 1450s by Inquisitor-General Jean Bréhal at the request of Joan's surviving family—her mother Isabelle Romée and two of her brothers, Jean and Pierre. The appeal was authorized by Pope Callixtus III.
French history has been the basis of plays in the English-speaking theatre since the English Renaissance theatre.
After the French lifted the siege of Orléans and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Patay, the English and Burgundians no longer posed a threat. Joan of Arc convinced the Dauphin Charles to go to Reims for his coronation. Successfully marching their army though the heart of territory held by the hostile Burgundians solidified the Dauphin’s regrasp of the throne of France. He had been disinherited from it through the Treaty of Troyes.
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