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The compression staggers: Before she's a skinny body, la pucelle (Florence Delay) is a pair of manacled palms splayed dove-like on a Bible, two brief shots toward the end resume the avian element. No better depiction to Robert Bresson than "her words before the judges of Rouen," transcripts supply the lyrics for a strict recital. "I come from God and do not belong here. Send me back to him." Angels and voices, masculine attire and virginal tests, the crime of idolatry and the sin of pride. Downcast eyes in the courtroom, a single sob in her cell. Elongated as an El Greco bishop, Cauchon (Jean-Claude Fourneau) describes himself simply as "a judge in a matter of faith." Rhythmic champ contre champ keeps the interrogation pulsing, for the voyeuristic accusers (and audiences) the jagged iris-shot that is a peephole carved on the dungeon wall. Famously a rebuke of Dreyer's emotive close-up, though Hitchcock's The Paradine Case may have also been in the back of Bresson's mind as he assembled this merciless construction. Creaking doors, tolling bells, the scratching of a quill on paper and terse drumbeats comprise the soundscape, cries in English ("Burn the witch!") state the crowds somewhere beyond the frame. A moment on the rack is all the medievalism required in this most modern view of an impassive teenager still figuring out her own path to martyrdom, a very speedy hour. "I will die without the revelations that comfort me." (Her posthumous vindication comes by way of the preamble as her black-shrouded mother kneels with back to camera.) An ankle-level tracking shot follows the heroine to the pyre (somebody dutifully tries to trip her along the way), smoke dissipates to isolate the remarkable image of the charred stake. An autoportrait of the unyielding aesthete before the critics? "Next question." Cinematography by Léonce-Henri Burel. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |