La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc). 1928. France. Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. Screenplay by Joseph Delteil, Dreyer. With Antonin Artaud, Renée Falconetti, Henri Maillard. 35mm. Silent, with musical accompaniment. English intertitles. Approx. 84 min.
“The Passion of Joan of Arc is largely made up of enormous pictures of faces, separated by dialogue titles. Although there is considerable amount of nervous movement on the part of the camera, the substance of the film as a whole is inherently static when compared to that of the best silent films of the period though not, of course, in comparison to contemporary talkies.” Iris Barry includes a comment by MoMA Department of Photography curator Beaumont Newhall concerning the camera work by Gösta Kotulla and Rudolph Maté: “The Passion of Joan of Arc is a display of the emotional power of photography.”