Robin Blaetz said it best: “As one of history’s few noted heroines, Joan of Arc’s cinematic incarnations provide a fascinating record of manipulation according to differing historical and cultural demands.” There are far too many Joan of Arc movies to list here, but the most common ones in these papers and books are Joan the Woman (1916), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Joan of Arc (1948), and The Messenger (1999). While there are some Joan of Arc aspects mentioned in the larger Medievalism on Screen bibliography, the following entries all focus exclusively on interpretations of Joan of Arc.
Introductions, Overviews, and Filmographies
The following papers and books are superb places to start with Joan of Arc on screen.
Aberth, John. “Movies and the Maid: Joan of Arc Films.” In A Knight at the Movies, 257-298. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Blaetz, Robin. “Joan of Arc and the Cinema.” In Joan of Arc: A Saint for All Reasons: Studies in Myth and Politics. Edited by Dominique Goy-Blanquet, 143-174. Surrey: Ashgate, 2003.
For anyone starting out with Joan of Arc on film, the best place to begin is with this chapter by Blaetz. Focusing on films about Joan, as opposed to films that borrow simply name or framework, Blaetz walks the reader through a chronology of films, starting with Edison’s production in 1895 and ending with The Messenger in 1999. Blaetz provides anecdotes on the production and reception of each film and actress. While there is not an overarching thesis per se, the work does borrow elements from the author’s PhD thesis, concluding, “As a female in the male game of war, Joan is an outsider who must either be sexual (as seen first in DeMille’s eroticized Joan), maternal (as in Delannoy’s ‘Jeanne’), or insane. She cannot be celebrated for doing the very things that are valued by men and thus definitive of masculinity.”
The chapter is especially useful for its filmography at the end.
Harty, Kevin J. “Jeanne au cinéma.” In Fresh Verdicts on Joan of Arc. Edited by Bonnie Wheeler and Charles T. Wood, 237-264. New York: Garland, 1996.
Harty provides a survey of Joan of Arc films from Georges Méliès Jeanne d’Arc (1897) up to Jacques Rivette’s two-part Jeanne La Pucelle (1994), analyzing the various political, religious, and secular angles directors tackled (or avoided). Harty concludes, “The filmmakers and their films have mirrored the continuing revisionism that complicates the story of an ignorant, simple fifteenth-century country girl who managed in the space of less than two years to change the course of European history.”
Harty, Kevin J. “The Lady Is for Burning: The Cinematic Joan of Arc and Her Screen Avatars.” In Medieval Women on Film: Essays on Gender, Cinema and History. Edited by Kevin J. Harty, 182-198. Jefferson: McFarland, 2020.
Harty provides a fresh perspective to a Joan of Arc filmography by dividing film into three general categories—“films which depict in whole or part the life of Joan, films in which characters play Joan on stage or screen, and films in which characters channel Joan as an avatar to advance a number of agendas.”
Flower, John. Joan of Arc: Icon of Modern Culture. Hastings: Helm Information, 2008.
Flower begins this book by retelling the story of Joan of Arc, continually pointing out the disagreements, myths, and traditions. The chapters then focus on how Joan has been appropriated, repackaged, and resold for nationalism, politics, religion, and entertainment. The chapters tend to flow chronologically with themes or genres such as nationalistic politics throughout the 19th- and 20th-centuries or songs. The chapter entitled “From Silent Movie to Television Soap” is of particular interest. By itself, it is the typical overview of Joan of Arc on screen quoting heavily from Blaetz, but in the context of this book, the reader can gain a greater appreciation for how and why Joan was portrayed on screen. The book is also useful for its nearly 150 images of depictions of Joan.
Hobbins, Daniel. “The Cinematic Maid: Teaching Joan of Arc Through Film.” Fiction and Film for French Historians: A Cultural Bulletin 2, no. 3 (2011).
Hobbins, translator of the most recent English edition of Joan of Arc’s trial transcripts, believes that “cinema on Joan opens the door” to “a fascinating world that is still largely hidden from view.” To guide their students through this door, Hobbins details how they shows scenes from four accessible Joan films–The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), Jeanne la Pucelle (1994), and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). During the process, Hobbins has students focus on “pressure points,” specifically depictions of Joan’s voices, villian(s), behavior and bearing, and death.
Margolis, Nadia. Joan of Arc in History, Literature, and Film. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990.
Margolis dedicates a chapter to Joan on screen. Along with the annotated commentary, readers will find the associations with other entries of literature and plays extremely useful. Although published in 1990, this work remains immensely useful to understanding depictions and interpretations of Joan.
Noth, Paul Dominque. “Burned by Celluloid: Joan of Arc in Film History.” In Joan of Arc at the University. Edited by Mary Elizabeth Tallon, 157-166. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1997.
Aside from the superb title, this essay is incomplete in its analysis with some incorrect statements there were wrong even in 1997 (e.g, Joan the Woman was a lost film, there are only 20 Joan films). Noth focuses on Joan of Arc (1948), St. Joan (1957), and La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928), as well as the fate of each actress. The most fascinating, yet unexplored statement is “the commercial film world’s interest in Joan is marked by fits and starts but mostly stops–long stretches of time when the story has been virtually ignored.” Includes filmography of 20 Joan films at the end.
Richey, Stephen W., “Joan of Arc at the Movies,” in Joan of Arc: The Warrior Saint (Westport: Praeger, 2003), 123-137.
In his biography of Joan of Arc, Stephen W. Richey examines films based on two criteria. First, “a movie’s fidelity to historical fact.” And second, which Richey tells us is “equally important,” is “how well or how poorly the leading actress interprets the character of Joan.” Richey focuses on films that are “easily available on VHS videotape and/or DVD in the United States.” These include Joan the Woman (1916), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Joan of Arc (1948), Saint Joan (1957), Joan the Maid (1993), Joan of Arc (1999), and The Messenger (1999).
Joan the Woman (1916)
Cecil B. DeMille directed the first feature-length film on Joan of Arc. As such, his work appears in many papers about the cinematic Joan. The following works focus almost exclusively on Joan the Woman (1916).
Birchard, Robert S. “Joan the Woman.” In Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood, 90-102. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008.
Birchard provides an extensive chapter on the production, promotion, and reception of Joan the Woman (1916).
Blaetz, Robin. “Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman.” Studies in Medievalism 6 (1994): 109-122.
Blaetz examines the American and French versions of Joan the Woman (1916) “within the context of the contemporaneous Joan of Arc vogue and the general trend toward medievalism which had arisen in the mid-nineteenth century and reached its peak during the First World War.”
Blaetz, Robin. “Joan of Arc Saved France, Women of America Save Your Country: Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman, 1916.” In Visions of the Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and Culture, 47-64. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001.
DeBauche, Leslie Midkiff. Reel Patriotism: The Movies and World War I. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
The first chapter of this book examines the US film industry in the context of the period before the country entered World War I. DeBauche focuses predominantly on the production, publicity, and reception of Joan the Woman. The author demonstrates how publicity changed toward the end of the movie’s run in 1917, as it became clear the US would enter the war on the side of the French. The chapter is particularly useful for its details on the production and promotion of the film.
Higashi, Sumiko. “The Historical Epic and Progressive Era Pageantry: Joan the Woman.” In Cecil B. DeMille and American Culture: The Silent Era, 117-141. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Higashi focuses on the reception of Joan the Woman, which was not the blockbuster DeMille and producers expected. The author provides context around where and why the film did well and did not do well, comparing and contrasting urban and rural parts of the country. In addition, there is focus on Catholics who were offended by portrayals in the film. The author provides details on how DeMille and his production company dealt with complaints from distributors about length and content, going so far as to give permission for them to recut the film from region to region.
Manning, Scott. “Joan of Arc’s Gunpowder Artillery in Cecil B. DeMille’s Joan the Woman (1916).” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal 52, no. 1 (2022): 18-31.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Although virtually every book and paper in this bibliography references Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), these entries deal exclusively with it.
Baetens, Jan. “Writing or Rewriting a Silent Movie: The Example of Carl Th. Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc and its Novelization by Pierre Bost.” Interférences littéraires/Literaire interferenties 11 (2013): 27-34.
Bordwell, David. Filmguide to La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.
Golden, Rachel May. “Polyphonies of Sound and Space: Motet, Montage, Voices of Light, and La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.” The Musical Quarterly 96, no. 2 (2013): 296-330.
Guðmundsdóttir, Arnfríður. “Joan as Jesus: A Feminist Theological Analysis of Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.” Theology in Film and Fiction 55, no. 4 (2016): 372-378.
Larson, Stephen. “The Birth, Death, and Re-Birth of an Auteur: the Analog to Digital Conversion of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Films.” PhD diss., North Carolina State University, 2015.
Dedicates a chapter to a “comprehensive purview of Passion’s print history from the time it was consumed by fires to its rise from the ashes.” Larson argues that today’s most accessible version of Dreyer’s film from Criterion is not the original. The author also posses suggestions on the best approach to generating a version of the film closest to the director’s original.
Larson, Stephen. “Risen from the Ashes: The Complex Print History of Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 17, no. 1 (2017): 52-84.
Margolis, Nadia. “Trial by Passion: Philology, Film, and Ideology in the Portrayal of Joan of Arc (1900-1930).” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27, no. 3 (1997): 445-493.
Murray, Ros. “‘The Epidermis of Reality’: Artaud, the Material Body and Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc.” Film-Philosophy 17, no. 1 (2013): 445-461.
Orgelfinger, Gail. “Carl Dreyer’s Passion Play in The Passion of Joan of Arc and Jesus.” Film & History CD-ROM annual Series (2003).
Pipolo, Tony. “The Spectre of Joan of Arc: Textual Variations in the Key Prints of Carl Dreyer’s Film.” Film History 2, no. 4 (1998): 301-324.
Pipolo examines the 1981 discovery of a nitrate print of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), comparing it with other versions of the film. The author concludes it “is essentially the same as the well-known version” housed in several museums.
Pipolo, Tony. “Metaphorical Structure in La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.” Millennium Film Journal 19 (1987): 52-84.
Redmon, Allen H. “‘Come Out of Here, My People’: Pandemonium and Power in Carl Theodor Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.” Studies in French Cinema 6, no. 3 (2006): 183-194.
St. Pierre, Paul Matthew. “Still Point, Turning World: Dreyer’s Close-Ups and Camera Movement in La passion de Jeanne d’Arc.” In Cinematography of Carl Theodor Dreyer: Performative Camerawork, Transgressing the Frame, 165-187. Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2019.
Van Ness, Wilhelmina. “Joseph Delteil: The Passion of Joan of Arc.” Literature/Film Quarterly 3, no. 4 (1975): 292-298.
The author examines how the Joseph Delteil and his work influenced Carl Dreyer in the production of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928).
White, Brandon. “Trying Truths: Dryer, Bresson and the Meaning Effect.” Film-Philosophy 19 (2015): 67-84.
Joan of Arc (1948)
These works focus almost exclusively on Victor Fleming’s Joan of Arc (1948).
Anderson, Maxwell and Andrew Solt. Joan of Arc: Text and Pictures from the Screen Play. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1948.
Promotional book for Joan the Woman (1948) containing over 80 black and white photos, as well as extracts from the screenplay. The last page contains production notes insisting on the films historical fidelity along with details on the research and experts involved in the film.
Bernstein, Matthew. “Hollywood Martyrdoms: Joan of Arc and Independent Production in the Late 1940s.” In Current Research in Film: Audiences, Economics, and Law. Volume 4. Edited by Bruce A. Austin, 89-113. New York: Ablex, 1988.
Santas, Constantine and James M. Wilson. “Joan of Arc (1948).” In The Essential Films of Ingrid Bergman, 86-93. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
Sragow, Michael. “Ingrid Bergman and Joan of Arc.” In Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master, 446-489. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2013.
Sragow provides a 43-page chapter on the production and reception of Fleming’s Joan of Arc (1948). The story follows the drama between the screenwriter, producer, director, and main star, Ingrid Bergman. Sragow accurately describes it as a “hydra-headed monster of collaboration,” demonstrating how each of the heads contributed unique aspects to the final product. Also interesting is Fleming’s claim of having read 200 books on Joan of Arc with Mark Twain’s being his favorite.
The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
These works focus almost exclusively on Luc Besson’s The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).
Besson, Luc. Aventure et découverte d’un film: l’histoire de Jeanne d’ Arc. Paris: Intervista, 1999.
Bowles, Brett. “Luc Besson’s The Messenger (1999): Remaking Joan of Arc for the New Millennium.” In Perspectives on European Film and History. Edited by Leen Engelen and Roel Vande Winkel, 51-73. Gent: Academica Press, 2007.
Canitz, A.F. Christa, “‘Historians… Will Say I Am a Liar:’ The Ideology of False Truth Claims in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart and Luc Besson’s The Messenger,” in Studies in Medievalism 8 (2004): 128-142.
Dastugue, Gérard. “An Unpublished Interview with Luc Besson.” Translated by Phil Powrie. In The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle. Edited by Susan Hayward and Phil Powrie, 175-178. Manchester: Manchester United Press, 2009.
Besson fields questions about his process and The Messenger shortly after its release in France.
Haydock, Nickolas. “Shooting the Messenger: Luc Besson at War with Joan of Arc.” Exemplaria 19, no. 2 (2007): 243-269.
Haydock, Nickolas. “Shooting the Messenger: Luc Besson at War with Joan of Arc.” In Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages, 111-133. Jefferson: McFarland, 2008.
Images from Joan of Arc: A Film by Luc Besson. Paris: Intervista, 1999.
Large coffee table book containing number stills and production photos from The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Aside from a short introduction (in French and English) from Luc Besson about what Joan of Arc means to him, there is no context throughout the book.
Ugrina, Lucianna. “Redeeming Sexual Difference: Stigmata, The Messenger and Luce Irigaray’s Bleeding Woman.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 21, no. 1 (2009).
Hayward, Susan. “Jeanne d’Arc: High Epic Style and Politicising Camp.” In The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle. Edited by Susan Hayward and Phil Powrie, 161-174. Manchester: Manchester United Press, 2009.
Hayward provides some background on the reception of The Messenger before diving into gender issues around the camp spectacle, which Joan features prominently.
Hayward, Susan. “Performance, Camp, and Queering History in Luc Besson’s Jeanne d’Arc.” In Queer Movie Medievalisms. Edited by Tison Pugh and Kathleen Coyne Kelly, 129-146. Surrey: Ashgate, 2009.
Maddox, Peggy. “Retiring the Maid: The Last Joan of Arc Movie.” The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 3, no. 1 (2003).
Channeling Joan of Arc
One of three general categories Kevin J. Harty establishes for Joan of Arc films is “channeling Joan.” Meaning, these are films “in which characters channel Joan as an avatar to advance a number of agendas,” whether titular (the character simply shares the name), or deeper (the character is inspired by or even parallels some of Joan’s story).
Blaetz, Robin. “Retelling the Joan of Arc Story: Women, War, and Hollywood’s Joan of Paris.” Literature/Film Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1994) 212-221.
Blaetz examines Joan of Paris (1942), finding that although it is a wartime film set in modern times, “references to Joan of Arc abound.” Using the “Joan of Arc romance” model, Blaetz walks through the film in detail comparing and contrasting the film to the traditional story of Joan of Arc.
Coker, Stephanie L. “Joan of Arcadia: A Modern Maiden on Trial.” In The Middle Ages on Television: Critical Essays. Edited by Meriem Pagès and Karolyn Kinane, 31-52. Jefferson: McFarland, 2015.
Coker focuses on Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005), examining “the intersection of the modern character Joan Girardi and the historical Jeanne d’Arc to address the lasting impact of the French saint upon a modern audience.” A close reading of the “St. Joan” episode reveals the main character’s “dilemma in responding to both her divine visitations and the school authorities—ultimately, the issue of reconciling two realms: faith and education.” Coker finds that the appeal of the show “is found in its refusal of the spectacle of Jeanne’s story in favor of confronting the ‘mysteries of faith in a non-religious age’ by focusing on notions of theology, divine calling, the voice of God, and the reception of His voice.” After a detailed analysis against the backdrop of the history of Joan of Arc, the author concludes “Joan of Arcadia is exceptional as an homage to the Maid that respects the historical Jeanne and proves that the Maid’s story is timeless.”
Elliott, Lisa M. “Transcendental Television? A Discussion of Joan of Arcadia.” Journal of Media and Religion 4, no. 1 (2005): 1-12.
Manning, Scott. “Channeling Joan of Arc in Doom Annihilation (2019).” The Year’s Work in Medievalism 34 (2019): 18-31.
On the surface, the comparisons end at the character’s name; a deeper reading of Doom: Annihilation, however, reveals that Joan Dark channels much of her namesake’s romanticized plot while also moving outside the director’s original aesthetic vision to provide parallels for often neglected aspects in Joan of Arc’s military career, particularly after her failure at Paris.
Maraschi, Andrea. “The Frozen Middle Ages: Elsa as a Contemporary Joan of Arc?” In 21st Century Medievalisms: Between the Global and Individual. Edited by Karl Christian Alvestad, 287-310. Budapest: Trivent Publishing, 2023.
Zanger, Anat. Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise: From Carmen to Ripley. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
Zanger dedicates three chapters to depictions of Joan of Arc in film, arguing that “Western culture has never really digested the Joan figure. By recurrently authorizing new versions of the story, each of which allegedly provides new historical or textual evidence, Western culture has revealed its inherent ambivalence toward Joan’s ‘initial story.’” In the author’s analysis, there four standard discourses in which the Joan story is told through film–hagiographic, patriotic, clinical-romantic, and finally, alternative, meta-discourse. Through these discourses, filmmakers present “acceptable” versions of Joan.
Most unique is Zanger’s analysis of “disguised” Joan stories in films such as Alien 3 (1992) and Breaking the Waves (1996). Zanger’s final conclusion on the cinematic Joan is superb: “The fact that Western culture returns again and again to the same story testifies to the fact that the conflict between the social order and Joan’s challenge to it has not yet been resolved. Thus, despite Joan’s official canonization (in 1920), night after night, at movie houses and theaters all over the world, she is still being burned alive.”
Miscellaneous
These are works that didn’t fit nicely into any of the categories above or that I simply haven’t read yet to classify appropriately.
Acocella, Joan. “Burned Again.” New Yorker, November 15, 1999, 98-104, 106.
Acocella reviews The Messenger (1999) in the broader context of Joan of Arc depictions in film and on stage, and in politics. They declare Jacques Rivette’s Joan the Maid (1994) “the best Joan movie ever made,” instructing readers to “go get it.” Throughout the article, Acocella emphasizes the misuses and lackluster portrayals of Joan throughout the centuries, emphasizing that the criticism around The Messenger will not “do Joan’s reputation any harm. Her cult is big enough to absorb it.”
Benson, Edward. “Oh, What a Lovely War! Joan of Arc on Screen.” In The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy. Edited by Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray, 217-236. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004.
Benson explores four different Joan of Arc movies, identifying useful scenes for reviewing in the classroom. The author emphasizes the flaws in the movies and even the contradictions in the medieval record.
Bernau, Anke. “Girls on Film: Medieval Virginity in the Cinema.” In The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy. Edited by Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray, 94-114. Jefferson: McFarland, 2004.
Using Joan of Arc on screen as the primary focus, Bernau explores the conflicting, fluid views and definition of virginity from the medieval Christian world and the 21st-century secular world.
Blaetz, Robin. “‘La Femme Vacante’ or the Rendering of Joan of Arc in Cinema.” Post Script 12 (1993): 63-78.
Blaetz examines the history of actresses playing Joan of Arc including their selection, and treatment by directors and the press during and after their performances. The author finds some recurring themes, as the press tends to focus on the weight, age, and nationality of actresses in the role. Blaetz provides some disturbing anecdotes on their treatment, wondering “if the chance to immolate Joan of Arc and the actress who plays her, or at the very least to make the latter succumb to male desire, is not the real reason that Joan of Arc haunts the history of cinema.”
In addition, “the unusual demand that the actress be unrecognized and/or nonprofessional is frequently made.” To this, Blaetz concludes, “For if any Everygirl can play Joan of Arc, then Joan of Arc is put into her place as an abstract quality; she is Chastity or Virtue rather than an actant in time and space.”
The article is particularly useful in its examination of films not commonly associated with Joan of Arc, but incorporate her story–Between Us Girls (1942), The Miracle of the Bells (1948), and The Beginning (1970).
Blaetz, Robin. “Strategies of Containment: Joan of Arc in Film.” PhD diss., New York University, 1989.
Blaetz, Robin. Visions of the Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and Culture. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001.
Blaetz analyzes the use of Joan of Arc in America. She transformed from a symbol of sacrifice and past glory during the First World War to an inspiration of fashion during the Persian Gulf War. New methods to use Joan arose as women entered combat as well. Blaetz examines a whole host appropriations of Joan throughout 20th-century America, concluding that “the fact she was both female and a successful warrior” will ensure her continual presence in American culture.
Blaetz dedicates an entire chapter to Joan the Woman (1916), but it is not a repeat of their 1994 article (see above). The appendix at the end chronicles various ways Joan has remained in popular culture from the mid-15th-century to the 19th-century.
Creed, Barbara. “The Neomyth In Film: The Woman Warrior from Joan of Arc to Ellen Ripley.” In Women Willing to Fight: The Fighting Woman in Film. Edited by Silke Andris and Ursula Frederick, 15-37. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007.
Barbara Creed re-structures Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey for the cinematic heroine in what they term as the “neomyth,” which analyzes “journey of the heroine as a mythic quest.” This includes “not just the journey of the female action hero but of the hero in all her manifestations.” In doing this, Creed argues that “Joan of Arc is the quintessential woman warrior” whose story “has exerted a profound influence on the cinema’s representation of female heroism.” Comparing Joan to Ripley, Creed argues that “Joan was an androgynous figure who threatened male power b/c she made it very clear that a woman can fight like a man yet retain her female identity. This concept has been carried through to the Alien films.”
Dahm, Murray. “Warrior, Saint, Martyr: Joan of Arc on Film.” Medieval Warfare Magazine 8, no. 3 (2018): 54-57.
Grace, Pamela. The Religious Film: Christianity and the Hagiopic. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
Grace dedicates a chapter that examines La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1928) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), “two films that are at opposite ends of the spectrum in their representation of Joan, and as hagiopics.”
Grantham, Bill. “‘Get on With the Burning! Put an End to This Trial!’: Representations of the Trials of Joan of Arc in Cinema.” Griffith Law Review 13, no. 3 (2004): 153-159.
Harty, Kevin J. “The Nazis, Joan of Arc, and Medievalism Gone Awry: Gustav Ucicky’s 1935 film Das Mädchen Johanna.” In Rationality and the Liberal Spirit: A Festschrift Honoring Ira Lee Morgan. Edited by Willie Cavett and Paul Marvin Brown, Jr., 122-133. Centenary College of Louisiana, 1997.
Harty provides one of the few academic pieces on this rare piece of Nazi propaganda, focusing on the Nazi overtones in the plot, production, and cast and crew, as well as the almost-universal praise from critics. Harty concludes, “It is hard to determine which is more troubling, the film itself or the critical myopia that greeted Das Mädchen Johanna in France, Great Britain, and the United States.”
Harty, Kevin J. “Warrior not Warmonger: Screen Joans during World War I.” In Magistra Doctissima: Essays in Honor of Bonnie Wheeler. Edited by Dorsey Armstrong, Ann W. Astell, and Howell Chickering, 132-141. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2013.
Harty examines appropriations of Joan of Arc in films to promote patriotic agendas. Films include The Joan of Arc of Loos (1916), Martyrdom of Nurse Cavell: England’s Joan of Arc (1916), The Little Patriot (1917), Joan of Plattsburg (1918), The Wild Cat of Paris (1918), and of course, Joan the Woman (1916). In these examples, Harty argues “the screen Joans of World War I are then role models for those at the front and inspirations for those at home in the great battle to defeat the Germans–these Joans are warriors not warmongers.”
Jones, Sara Gwenllian. “Myth and Tragedy: Representations of Joan of Arc in Film and Twentieth Century Theater.” PhD diss., University of Bristol, 1997.
Lerner, Gerda. “Joan of Arc: Three Films.” In Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies. Edited by Ted Mico, John Miller-Monzon, and David Rubel, 54-59. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1996.
Maddox, Margaret Joan. “Keeping Her In Her Place: The Perpetual Imprisonment of Joan of Arc.” PhD diss., University of Arkansas, 2004.
Maddox, Margaret Joan. Portrayals of Joan of Arc in Film: From Historical Joan to Her Mythological Daughters. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.
Morgan, Gwendolyn. “Modern Mystics, Medieval Saints.” Studies in Medievalism 12 (2002): 39-54.
Morgan explores the various recreations of Joan of Arc depicted on film to exhibit modern themes and agendas including feminism and gay rights. In addition, she has served as a conduit for “Marxist, democratic, populist, and patriotic political agendas.”
Margolis, Nadia, “Joan of Arc,” review of Joan of Arc, directed by Christian Duguay, Arthuriana 9.3 (1999): 117-119.
Norberg, Kathryn. “Joan on the Screen: Burned Again?” Perspectives on History (2000).
O’Brien, Charles. “Rethinking National Cinema: Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc and the Academic Aesthetic.” Cinema Journal 35, no. 4 (1996): 3-30.
O’Brien argues “that the international modernism of films such as La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc acquired significance in opposition less to the Hollywood cinema–itself widely regarded as an international cultural form–than precisely to national popular productions such as La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc.” To do this, the author covers the production and reception of both films, producing one of the more comprehensive works in English about La Merveilleuse Vie de Jeanne d’Arc, providing details I haven’t seen anywhere else.
Orgelfinger, Gail. “The Book of Joan of Arc on Trial: Dreyer and Bresson.” In Cinema Medievalia: New Essays on the Reel Middle Ages. Edited by Kevin J. Harty and Scott Manning, 97-111. Jefferson: McFarland, 2024.
Pipolo, Tony. “Joan of Arc: The Cinema’s Immortal Maid.” Cinéaste 25, no. 4 (2000): 16-21.
Pipolo reviews and compares 4 Joan of Arc films made available for home release–Joan of Arc (1999), The Messenger (1999), Joan the Maid (1994), and The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). These are not just reviews of the films, but an examination of their accuracy, their use of paratext (see Burt 2007), and in the case of Passion, the modification of the original film speed and soundtrack. Pipolo makes numerous points that will interest medievalism on screen scholars. For example, Joan the Maid is “the most authoritative chronicle of Joan’s story ever put on film” while “it eschews all the obvious opportunities for melodrama and spectacle.” Without any climaxes or known actors, it “is not an audience pleaser,” a point Pipolo makes without criticism, favoring historical accuracy over entertainment.
Rosenstone, Robert A. “The Reel Joan of Arc: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of Historical Film.” The Public Historian 25, no. 3 (2003), 61-77.
Despite its title, this paper has remarkably little to say about Joan of Arc or medievalism on film. Instead, Rosenstone reviews the Medieval Sourcebook‘s “Medieval History at the Movies” in detail, laments the lack of consistent methods for analyzing history on screen, and presents an approach on how historians can judge accuracy of historical films.
Scalia, Bill. “Contrasting Visions of a Saint: Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc and Luc Besson’s The Messenger.” Literature/Film Quarterly 32, no. 3 (2004): 181-185.
Scalia compares the filming styles of these two films, concluding, “we can see that Dreyer worked well within a style [André] Bazin would come to define as Neorealism in bringing the human story of Joan to life, while Besson pursued a kind of nation-founding mythic tale of epic scope, one that necessarily sublimates the divine mission of Joan to the historical qualities of his spectacle.” Scalia focuses on the stories, camera techniques, and framing of faces.
Van Houts, Elizabeth. “Joan of Arc Through Medieval Eyes and Modern Lenses: Dryer 1918 and Bresson 1962.” In Biography and History in Film. Edited by T.S. Freeman and D.L. Smith, 77-97. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Wilder, Thornton. “Joan of Arc: Treatment for Motion Pictures.” The Yale Review 91, no. 4 (2003): 1-34.
This work contains Thornton Wilder’s complete treatment for a Joan of Arc film in 1934, which he envisioned Katherine Hepburn as the lead role. He shopped it around to several production studios including RKO, the eventual distributor of Fleming’s Joan of Arc (1948). A Tappan Wilder provides a superb introduction about the history of the treatment and Wilder’s life and career at the time. Throughout the treatment, Thornton Wilder provides several interesting notes on what to include and exclude in the story.
Yervasi, Carina. “The Faces of Joan: Cinematic Representations of Joan of Arc.” Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 29, no. 3-4 (1999): 8-19.