Joan of Arc

1948. USA. Directed by Victor Fleming. Screenplay by Maxwell Anderson, Andrew Solt. With Ingrid Bergman, José Ferrer, Robert Barrat, Irene Rich. The strength and purity of Bergman’s film persona made it practically inevitable that she should play the Maid of Orleans, and in 1947 she formed a partnership with the director Victor Fleming and the producer Walter Wanger to mount this Technicolor spectacular as an independent production. Although the scale is vast, Bergman’s performance is limpid and intimate. “What we tried to do in the movie was the real Joan...the girl who went out onto the battlefield and cried when she saw the horrors of medieval battle,” wrote Bergman in her autobiography. In his first film appearance José Ferrer earned a best supporting actor nomination for his portrayal of the wavering Dauphin. Joan of Arc would prove to be the last work of veteran filmmaker Fleming (Red Dust, Captains Courageous), who died of a heart attack shortly after the film’s premiere. 35mm restored print courtesy the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by The Film Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, American Movie Classics, and the AFI/NEA Film Preservation Grants Program. Courtesy CBS. Selected by Ingrid Rossellini. 145 min.