You know that feeling that washes over you when you sit down and start watching as movie, one you've never seen but already has a formidable reputation for greatness long attached to it, and you realize that goddamn everybody was right? I've got vivd recollections of feeling that way my first times watching, say Casablanca or The Godfather... well last night it washed over 
me anew as I watched Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc for the first time. Yes, I somehow made it through film school without seeing this film. Blame my professors. Anyway, I kept finding myself just hitting the pause button to gawk at Dreyer's compositions... which leads to me deciding I've got to take a bunch of screen-grabs this morning. Hence... this post. A gorgeous, perfect film. Really stunning. It made me sad that we don't have enough people using the space inside the frame so interestingly these days, ya know? Any single random frame of this movie could hang in a museum. I tried to limit the number of grabs I took of Maria Falconetti's face, which seriously has got to comprise like 50% of the film's running-time.... and it's never feels gratuitous. I could just keep staring at her for ages.
me anew as I watched Dreyer's 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc for the first time. Yes, I somehow made it through film school without seeing this film. Blame my professors. Anyway, I kept finding myself just hitting the pause button to gawk at Dreyer's compositions... which leads to me deciding I've got to take a bunch of screen-grabs this morning. Hence... this post. A gorgeous, perfect film. Really stunning. It made me sad that we don't have enough people using the space inside the frame so interestingly these days, ya know? Any single random frame of this movie could hang in a museum. I tried to limit the number of grabs I took of Maria Falconetti's face, which seriously has got to comprise like 50% of the film's running-time.... and it's never feels gratuitous. I could just keep staring at her for ages.
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5 comments:
JA, glad you wrote about your experiencing watching Dreyer's "Passion" -- I went to film school, too, and remember falling in and out of sleep watching it in one of my film history classes -- it wasn't until years later that I saw and understood what a great work of art this is and I urge you to watch Dreyer's "Day Of Wrath" -- especially since you're a horror fan and can appreciate the subtlety of Dreyer's filmmaking prose. It can hit you over the head with its beauty, right?
Exactly, nbewsey. Those last fifteen minutes or so, I felt as if I was dizzy, the way everything was being edited together and the loveliness of his compositions... it worked so well together, I felt like my head was spinning. I could have sit there and watched it in slow motion. And I very well may sometime.
I'm totally gonna find Day of Wrath, thanks for the suggestion.
Is that the first A+ you've given?
I don't think so, harry. I'd have to check, it's been awhile, but I know I've given an A+ before. There are probably dozens of movies I'd rate as PERFECT. I'm not terribly stingy that way.
gorgeous movie!
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