The Trial of Joan of Arc [Procès de Jeanne d’Arc] **** (1962, Florence Delay, Jean-Claude Fourneau, Roger Honorat) – Classic Movie Review 10,921

Joan of Arc is played by the 21-year-old future academician Florence Delay in writer-director Robert Bresson’s low-key, minimalist, now acclaimed 1962 French historical film The Trial of Joan of Arc [Procès de Jeanne d’Arc]. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.

Typically, it employs non-professional performers, is filmed in a spare, restrained style, and Bresson’s screenplay is drawn from the transcriptions of Joan’s trial. It is strikingly shot in black and white by Léonce-Henri Burel.

In the well-known, much-filmed story, French peasant girl Jeanne is imprisoned for heresy in 1431 and brought to trial at Rouen.

Bresson compared Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc unfavourably with his own, expressing his dislike for what he called the actors’ grotesque buffooneries.

It runs only 65 minutes.

The cast are Florence Delay (credited as Florence Carrez) as Jeanne d’Arc, Jean-Claude Fourneau as Bishop Cauchon, Roger Honorat as Jean Beaupère, Marc Jacquier as Jean Lemaître, Jean Gillibert as Jean de Chatillon, Michel Herubel as Frère Isambert de la Pierre, André Régnier as D’Estivet, Arthur Le Bau as Jean Massieu, Marcel Darbaud as Nicolas de Houppeville, Philippe Dreux as Frère Martin Ladvenu, Paul-Robert Mimet as Guillaume Erard and Gérard Zingg as Jean-Lohier.

Florence Delay (born 19 March 1941 in Paris) is a French academician and actress.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,921

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