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Saul Bass' opening titles state the style and theme, impressionistic pendulums and shattered armors. King Charles (Richard Widmark) in his sleeping cap might be Ebenezer Scrooge, and sure enough there's the phantom of Joan the maid (Jean Seberg) by the bed silhouetted, vindicated by time. "Can they unburn me?" The story is recounted wryly, the miracle of eggs in the village then the Dauphin's castle in soldierly pixie crop. Her prayers change the winds at the Orleans siege, yet Otto Preminger remains pragmatic about divine matters: Dreyer is acknowledged with a close-up or two, though the camera favors the eye-level objectivity of analysis over the high and low angles of subjective ardor. At the center of a grid of interests, the inspired lass finds herself discarded by France and tried by England. "Not content with being Pope, Joan, you must be Caesar and Alexander as well." Shaw by way of Graham Greene, the Inquisition studied by the greatest director of courtrooms. The Earl of Warwick (John Gielgud) has a sober view of the various spectacles (torture is off-limits, he can't stomach violence), the Archbishop of Reims (Finlay Currie) is a jaded businessman but Bishop Cauchon (Anton Walbrook) insists on a fair hearing. Unseen battles and extended coronations, a most stark sumptuousness from Georges Périnal. Itchy in royal robes and playing hopscotch bow-legged, Widmark is just one in a gallery of surprising performances, but this is chiefly a work about Seberg—a document on the raw Iowa teenager and her nervous affinities with the angel of "infernal impertinence" she's playing. An ascending crane through the crowds spots stake and pyre in a note from Murnau's Faust. "In faith and in morals..." "But this is politics." A key Preminger project, Bonjour Tristesse and Advise & Consent and The Cardinal elaborate on it. With Richard Todd, Felix Aylmer, and Harry Andrews. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |