Mankind has always interfered in the individual's right to have a one on one relationship with God in a way which they do not understand. George Bernard Shaw's play asks the question whether or not organized religion has the right to call someone a heretic because they have been given the gift of hearing God's voice and trying to spread their message in a way which the church doesn't approve. Like "The Song of Bernadette" and "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", it is a woman who is the vessel of God's word, a taboo back in the day, especially in Joan of Arc's era. The fact that she dresses in man's clothes also makes her a target, especially when she goes into battle wearing a suit of armor and carrying a sword.
This is a difficult film to assess, and even more difficult to get into, but once the message does get through and you accept Jean Seberg in the part (which many believe she was miscast in), the film will grab your soul and you will feel the emotional pain Joan must have felt as she realizes what denying her quest means in her spiritual journey. Seberg's Joan is much more waif like than Ingrid Bergman's was, and she seems more age appropriate. Of course, there are those who are going to use her lack of acting experience against her, even though her vulnerability does shine through amongst the more experienced actors. The fact that she does appear to be an emotionally fragile 19 year old works totally for her as she must face the variety of zealots and chauvinistic men who hold her future in their hands. It certainly was daring of director Otto Preminger to cast her, and in various aspects of her performance, it is a wise choice rather to have cast someone more well known like Natalie Wood.
On the other hand, the presence of such veteran actors as Richard Widmark, Felix Aylmer, John Gielgud and Anton Walbrook add authority as the men, so her almost emotionless performance becomes more profound as their judgments against her get more and more authoritarian. This is a film which builds emotionally as her fate becomes more sealed, filmed sort of like Orson Welles' "MacBeth" and Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" in a dark, dream-like state that is half dream, half nightmare. The minutes leading up to her execution are profoundly intense, and the burning itself is almost unbearable.
Told as if a ghostly visit after her demise, "Saint Joan" is perhaps not the definitive film version of Shaw's classic play, but for what Preminger did, it deserves to be noticed more than the mediocre reviews it initially received. Pretty much every character is given a chance to identify the fact that they are aware that if they are revealed to have been wrong about her, they know they are damned, and yet Joan's ghostly return offers a chance of atonement for some, damnation for others. At any rate, it is one of those spiritual dramas which deserves to open discussion on many fronts, especially with the idea that God speaks to everybody in different ways, that God does show many faces, and that as human beings with weaknesses, strengths, vulnerabilities and passions, we can never understand why God chooses to deal with humanity the way he does.
This is a difficult film to assess, and even more difficult to get into, but once the message does get through and you accept Jean Seberg in the part (which many believe she was miscast in), the film will grab your soul and you will feel the emotional pain Joan must have felt as she realizes what denying her quest means in her spiritual journey. Seberg's Joan is much more waif like than Ingrid Bergman's was, and she seems more age appropriate. Of course, there are those who are going to use her lack of acting experience against her, even though her vulnerability does shine through amongst the more experienced actors. The fact that she does appear to be an emotionally fragile 19 year old works totally for her as she must face the variety of zealots and chauvinistic men who hold her future in their hands. It certainly was daring of director Otto Preminger to cast her, and in various aspects of her performance, it is a wise choice rather to have cast someone more well known like Natalie Wood.
On the other hand, the presence of such veteran actors as Richard Widmark, Felix Aylmer, John Gielgud and Anton Walbrook add authority as the men, so her almost emotionless performance becomes more profound as their judgments against her get more and more authoritarian. This is a film which builds emotionally as her fate becomes more sealed, filmed sort of like Orson Welles' "MacBeth" and Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" in a dark, dream-like state that is half dream, half nightmare. The minutes leading up to her execution are profoundly intense, and the burning itself is almost unbearable.
Told as if a ghostly visit after her demise, "Saint Joan" is perhaps not the definitive film version of Shaw's classic play, but for what Preminger did, it deserves to be noticed more than the mediocre reviews it initially received. Pretty much every character is given a chance to identify the fact that they are aware that if they are revealed to have been wrong about her, they know they are damned, and yet Joan's ghostly return offers a chance of atonement for some, damnation for others. At any rate, it is one of those spiritual dramas which deserves to open discussion on many fronts, especially with the idea that God speaks to everybody in different ways, that God does show many faces, and that as human beings with weaknesses, strengths, vulnerabilities and passions, we can never understand why God chooses to deal with humanity the way he does.