The Cinematheque

“Perhaps the ultimate expression of Bresson’s unique cinematic voice … In the austere documenting of Joan’s imprisonment and trial, physical objects—chains, stones, walls, windows—become metaphors for her spiritual isolation.”

James Monaco

Bresson’s startling, searing take on one of cinema’s most filmed stories is based, like Dreyer’s silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc, on the actual transcripts of Joan’s trial—here distilled into the very essence of the spare Bressonian aesthetic. Guided by a desire to ​“make her real, to bring her close,” the director forgoes period costumes and other markers of the medieval world, and also gently modernizes her speech. The film’s unsettling focus on the physical torment of the teenage martyr led British critic Gilbert Adair to describe it as ​“Bresson’s essay in sadomasochistic voyeurism.” The Trial of Joan of Arc won a Jury Special Prize at Cannes in 1962 (shared with Antonioni’s L’eclisse) and was much admired by the filmmakers of the French New Wave—and by Tarkovsky, who cited it as a formative influence.

In French with English subtitles

“The most underrated of the director’s 13 features … A new way to access and appreciate history’s most remarkable adolescent visionary.”

Melissa Anderson, Village Voice