Procès de Jeanne d’Arc (1962)

Procès de Jeanne d’Arc is a French period drama film first released in 1962, directed by Robert Bresson.  The film stars Florence Delay, Jean-Claude Fourneau, Roger Honorat, Marc Jacquier and Jean Gillibert.  It has also been released under the title: Trial of Joan of Arc.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


Having been arrested for her part in an unsuccessful uprising against the French government, Joan of Arc is to face a trial led by the Bishop Cauchon.  Her enemies have already decided that she should be burnt as a witch, but the trial must first establish her guilt - which means torturing her until she confesses...

This depiction of the Joan of Arc story is typical of Robert Bresson’s austere style of cinema, stripping the story to its bare bones and concentrating far more on the nature of the human ordeal than historical detail.   In stark contrast to Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928), the film is far more restrained in its use of cinematographic technique to paint Joan as a victim.  If anything, Bresson paints a distinctly atypical view of Joan, not a Saint or a martyr, but a fairly ordinary peasant girl who is out of her depth.

As in all of his films, Bresson attempts to go beyond the surface and reveal the soul of his subject, his purpose here being to show how it was, from an inner perspective, that Joan was driven to recant her faith and thereby seal her fate.  Whilst the film is far less moving than Dreyer’s masterpiece, it is an effective work which says a great deal about human nature, particularly the resilience of the human spirit.  The script is based on a transcript of notes taken from the actual trial of Joan of Arc, something which gives the film a curious timeless quality.  The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962.

© James Travers 2001

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