Carl Theodor Dreyer / 卡尔·西奥多·德莱叶 · 1928
The Passion of Joan of Arc
La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
Close-ups strip the courtroom of continuous space, confronting Joan’s eyes, tears, and lips with the judges’ wrinkles. The face ceases to serve action and becomes a surface of intensive variation; fear, faith, and cruelty are perceived directly as qualities.
Film details
- Original title
- La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc
- Director
- Carl Theodor Dreyer / 卡尔·西奥多·德莱叶
- Year
- 1928
- Region
- France
Film analysis: how shots organize concepts
Backgroundless faces no longer explain action; they directly bear variations of fear, faith, and cruelty.
- 01Close-up withdraws space
The courtroom lacks a stable establishing view; Joan and the judges confront one another through shifting directions.
Continuous action-space weakens, and the face detaches from the body as a whole. - 02Face becomes intensive surface
Eyes, tears, lips, wrinkles, and shaved hair occupy the image through minute variations.
Affect appears directly as quality and power without psychological explanation. - 03Faith confronts the institution
The judges’ collective faces and Joan’s isolated face form two distinct affective series.
Judicial action recedes, and conflict among intensities becomes the event.
Close-reading questions
- 01When close-ups cut Joan's and the judges' faces out of architectural space, how do wrinkles, tears, and gazes replace spatial coordinates and directly bear fear, conviction, and cruelty?
- 02How do unstable eyelines and abrupt changes of scale prevent the courtroom from forming a continuous space and make each face an autonomous affective surface?
- 03How do instruments and the spinning wheel produce terror before punishment, and how do bodily details of bloodletting and burning turn possible injury into present affect?
Analysis and scene sources
Shots and scenes
Primary texts, scholarship, and locators
Theory coordinate: Cinema 1, Minnesota 1986, ch. 2, p. 15; ch. 4, p. 70; ch. 7, pp. 106–108
- 01Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
Standard Minnesota English translation and a principal citation edition in Anglophone scholarship.
Open the atlas source record →
This film in books and research
《吉尔·德勒兹身体创造学研究》 · Atlas extension
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Film relation: Site extension: close-ups detach faces from action-space and turn them into intensive surfaces of tear, skin, gaze, and judicial force.
Shot question: Does the face express a psychological role or render the invisible pressure of judgment directly sensible?
Viewing gateways and editions
- Verified complete Bilibili carrier: 圣女贞德蒙难记 (1928)【卡尔·西奥多·德莱叶】bilibili.comOpen film page ↗
- Page access
- Accessible when checked
- Version extent
- Recorded as a complete version
- Source type
- User-uploaded page
Edition note: Complete single-part film · 1:36:13. Projection speed accounts for runtime differences among silent-film restorations.
Link checked: 2026-08-14
- Criterion Collectioncriterion.comOpen film page ↗
- Source type
- Distributor or streaming platform