Medievalists might enjoy this - it's reasonably factual.
Joan of Arc was one of those individuals who quite literally changed the world. Had this insignificant little girl from an obscure Germanic part of France not believed that God was speaking to her and more importantly that she convinced Charles Valois and his friends that God wanted him to be king rather than a six year old English boy (who was the grandson of the previous French king), Europe and then the world would have ended up being very different.
Had she known that Charles, one of several pretenders to the French throne whom she helped become king was a duplicitous, homicidal tyrant she definitely would not have bothered. But that's another story........ this review is about very watchable if slightly flat technicolour extravaganza.
Why flat?
If a 14 year old girl were these days to walk into the Elysee palace or the White House and tell the president that God has commanded him to invade Russia, she would be quietly taken away to a dark room so it's difficult for our modern minds to understand how such a 'crazy' belief was so acceptable as being normal back then. Most people believed with the same absolute certainty of knowing that the sun will rise each morning that everything that happens happens because of God. To them and to Joan, God was as real to them as the food they ate or the air they breathed. It would therefore be impossible for any film to portray such a world whilst still being entertaining for a 'modern' audience but playwright Maxwell Anderson and the RKO team (including the great Victor Fleming) manage to create a reasonable compromise between our world and that of the 15th century.
Ingrid Bergman, even though double the age of the real Joan, is believable as a real person. She had wanted to play this role for years and her enthusiasm and commitment to being the innocent, naive inspiration for revolution really comes across. Although there are some spectacular '1950s Hollywood style' battles, her own performance is purposely not dynamic, it's restrained and thoughtful which makes you think there's a lot more we need to know about her. This enigmatic and somewhat frustrating persona does however create a distance in empathy between her and us. Other than 'modernising' the story, which is unacceptable, anything else would be almost impossible.
Joan of Arc was one of those individuals who quite literally changed the world. Had this insignificant little girl from an obscure Germanic part of France not believed that God was speaking to her and more importantly that she convinced Charles Valois and his friends that God wanted him to be king rather than a six year old English boy (who was the grandson of the previous French king), Europe and then the world would have ended up being very different.
Had she known that Charles, one of several pretenders to the French throne whom she helped become king was a duplicitous, homicidal tyrant she definitely would not have bothered. But that's another story........ this review is about very watchable if slightly flat technicolour extravaganza.
Why flat?
If a 14 year old girl were these days to walk into the Elysee palace or the White House and tell the president that God has commanded him to invade Russia, she would be quietly taken away to a dark room so it's difficult for our modern minds to understand how such a 'crazy' belief was so acceptable as being normal back then. Most people believed with the same absolute certainty of knowing that the sun will rise each morning that everything that happens happens because of God. To them and to Joan, God was as real to them as the food they ate or the air they breathed. It would therefore be impossible for any film to portray such a world whilst still being entertaining for a 'modern' audience but playwright Maxwell Anderson and the RKO team (including the great Victor Fleming) manage to create a reasonable compromise between our world and that of the 15th century.
Ingrid Bergman, even though double the age of the real Joan, is believable as a real person. She had wanted to play this role for years and her enthusiasm and commitment to being the innocent, naive inspiration for revolution really comes across. Although there are some spectacular '1950s Hollywood style' battles, her own performance is purposely not dynamic, it's restrained and thoughtful which makes you think there's a lot more we need to know about her. This enigmatic and somewhat frustrating persona does however create a distance in empathy between her and us. Other than 'modernising' the story, which is unacceptable, anything else would be almost impossible.