Films

Passion de Jeanne D’Arc directed by Carl T. Dryer – 1927/1928 In 1431 Rouen, in the midst of a ravaging Hundred Years War with England, a nineteen year old French peasant girl named Jeanne (colloquially, Joan) was condemned to death by the church tribunal for heresy, and burned at the stake. Based on the historical transcripts of the actual trial, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is an eviscerating experimental film of faith, suffering, and redemption. The film opens with a tracking shot of the English guards outside the courtroom, then to the clerical judges, as Jeanne (Renee Maria Falconetti) is escorted inside. The inquisitors hover over Jeanne, relentlessly questioning her faith and patriotism, waiting for any incriminating statement that would seal her fate. Unable to ensnare her in their verbal traps, she is led away to her cell, only to be taunted by prison guards as the daughter of God, placing a woven crown upon her head. A monk named Loyseleur (Maurice Schutz) forges a letter from King Charles in an attempt to entrust him into her confidence. The judges follow Loyseleur to her cell to continue their questioning. Loyseleur initially reassures Jeanne through subtle visual cues, but then abandons her when asked if she is in a state of grace. A sympathetic young monk, Massieu (Antonin Artaud), warns of the danger of the posed question, to which Jeanne summarily replies: “If I am, may God keep me there. If I am not, may God grant it to me.” Her response confounds the calculating judges, and compel them to employ a different tactic: physical torture. Confused and afraid, Jeanne collapses at the sight of the barbaric devices in the chamber. Brought outside the courtroom as a public spectacle, a weak and delirious Jeanne reluctantly signs the confession, and her death sentence is commuted. Returned to cell, her courage and faith are restored by the sight of the woven crown, and implores Cauchon (Eugene Silvain) that she wishes to recant. Unable to force Jeanne into submission, the judges sentence her to death.
Dreyer’s startling and innovative camerawork in The Passion of Joan of Arc creates visual imbalance. The courtroom scene recreates the abusive atmosphere of the inquisition by filming the oppressive judges upward, which contrast with the images of a victimized Jeanne filmed downward. The pervasive use of variable distance close-ups (a technique similar employed in Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire) is claustrophobic, revealing the opportunistic judges’ ulterior motives, as they carefully craft a means to ensnare Jeanne with their leading questions and insincere actions. The odd angle shots of the street performers, prison guards, and judges further exaggerate their physical features, creating a sense of the grotesque – in essence, an external manifestation of their innate inhumanity. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a profoundly moving, indelible film of courage and perseverance, spirituality and conscience; a fitting tribute to the memory of the Maid of Orleans: a heroine, a martyr, a saint.

Duration : 0:6:7

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NOSTALGHIA by Andrei Tarkovsky – 1983 with Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano – Andrei Tarkovsky is almost certainly the most famous Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein. His visionary approach to cinematic time and space, as well as his commitment to cinema as poetry, mark his oeuvre as one of the defining moments in the development of the modern art film. Tarkovsky was born in 1932 in Zavrzhe in what is now Belorus. He was the son of noted poet Arseni Tarkovski and actress Maria Ivanovna. Tarkovsky studied Arabic at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Languages between 1951 and 1954 and geology in Siberia, before enrolling in the famous VGIK Moscow film school in 1959. In the early 1980s, Tarkovsky left Russia permanently. The few remaining years of his life were plagued by a constant struggle with the Soviet authorities to allow his family, particularly his young son, to join him. His filmmaking career started again in Italy where he followed the television documentary Tempo di viaggio (1983) with his most accomplished film since Mirror, Nostalgia, written in collaboration with the distinguished screenwriter Tonino Guerra. A gracefully sustained mood piece, Nostalgia is as concentrated as Mirror was expansive. A Russian poet played by Oleg Yankovsky arrives at an Italian spa accompanied by his interpreter (Domiziana Giordano). He is in Italy to research a book, but in spite of the extraordinary visual beauty of the spa, he is afflicted with homesickness. He befriends a local eccentric played by Erland Josephson who locked his family up for years to await the end of the world. The almost plotless simplicity of the narrative allows the viewer full access to the atmospheric richness Tarkovsky and his new cameraman, Giuseppe Lanci, create. The most richly textured, almost tactile film by a director without equal in bringing objects and surfaces to life, it is no exaggeration to say that the ever-present moisture of the spa at times seems to seep through the screen. The film’s conclusion, an extremely long take of a dying Yankovsky trying to cross a pool carrying a lighted candle in response to a request by Josephson, could be the most wrenchingly moving scene Tarkovsky ever shot. Tarkovsky died in 1986 and is buried in Paris. His influence is visible in the work of several major contemporary directors. —- The New York Times Review By VINCENT CANBY
Published October 5, 1983 = ”Nostalghia” (Nostaglia), which will be shown at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center today at 9:30 P.M. and tomorrow at 6:15 P.M., is the first film to be made outside of Russia by this relentlessly poetic, Soviet director. The setting is Italy, where the hero, Gortchakov (Oleg Yankovsky), has come to research the life of a 17th- century Russian composer who spent a long time in Italy, was terribly homesick, finally went home, became an alcoholic and committed suicide.

In the course of the film, Gortchakov does very little research and a lot of musing, which often takes the form of lovely flashbacks and fantasies, most of which are seen in monochrome as compared to the living color of the other lovely images. Loveliness, I’m afraid, is really what this movie is all about. The Italian landscapes, frequently heavily misted, the ancient churches, the old towns, the occasional peasant, and the leading lady (Domiziana Giordano) are so lovely one feels that Mr. Tarkovsky’s private world was created for camera-carrying tourists.

Gortchakov is homesick, but his homesickness is a kind of madness (I think). He is rude to his Italian guide, Eugenia (Miss Giordano), who would like to have an affair with him. He spends a lot of the time in very dark rooms. The only person who touches him is a genuinely mad fellow (Erland Josephson) who, when last seen, is setting fire to himself in Rome after exhorting citizens to seek the answers to their problems in nature.

Mr. Tarkovsky, whose earlier films include ”Andrei Rublev,” ”Solaris” and ”Stalker,” may well be a film poet but he’s a film poet with a tiny vocabulary. The same, eventually- boring images keep recurring in film after film – shots of damp landscapes, marshes, hills in fog, and abandoned buildings with roofs that leak. The meaning of water in his films isn’t as interesting to me as the question of how his actors keep their feet reasonably dry.

In ”Nostalghia” Mr. Tarkovsky also shows a new if unproductive fondness for the image with a dark door or a passageway in the middle of the screen. Sometimes actors walk in or out of those passageways and doors, but mostly we just wait and hope. Nothing happens

Duration : 0:2:45

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Tarboy is an animated short film about fighting robots, explosions and more fighting robots. Original score composed and performed by Hania Lee.

See more of our animated films on www.tarboy.com

Duration : 0:6:15

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