The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): trivia & fun facts

Fun facts

• In 1983, the Danish composer and conductor Ole Schmidt composed a score, which was premiered in Los Angeles in 1983 and released on CD by Dacapo Music in 1999.
• The print had been shipped from Copenhagen (where the film had premiered) to Asker, still in its 1928 packaging, which was addressed to Harald Arnesen, the director of the hospital.
• Production designers Hermann Warm and Jean Hugo were inspired by medieval miniatures for their designs, adding unnatural angles and perspectives to add to Joan's emotional state of mind.
• In the director's poll, the film was tied for the highest-ranked silent film in the poll tying with Man With a Movie Camera.
• The rights to Joseph Delteil's 1925 anti-conformist book on Joan were bought for the production.
• In 1981, a janitor found three film canisters in a closet during a cleanup at Dikemark Hospital, a mental institution in Asker, Norway.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc has appeared on Sight & Sound magazine's top ten films poll five times: as number seven in 1952 and 1972, as number ten (Critic's List) and six (Director's List) in 1992 and as number nine in 2012 (Critic's List).
• In the 2022 Sight and Sound's critic's poll, it was tied with Late Spring in 21st place, while in the director's poll it was tied for 30th place.
• In 1981, a print of Dreyer's final cut was discovered in Dikemark Hospital, a mental institution just outside Oslo, Norway, and re-released.
• Dreyer spent over a year and a half researching her; the script was based on the original transcripts of her trial, condensing 29 interrogations over the course of 18 months into one day.
• Dreyer was able to patch together a new version of the original cut using alternate and initially unused takes.
• Lo Duca then made several significant changes, including the addition of a Baroque score and the replacing of many intertitles with subtitles.
• Of the star, he wrote "it is the gifted performance of Maria Falconetti as the Maid of Orleans that rises above everything in this artistic achievement."
• Dreyer's final version of the film was cut down due to pressure from the Archbishop of Paris and government censors.
• The film was voted number 4 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo.

Source: Wikipedia

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