'The Passion of Joan of Arc'

A great film.

It's greatness can be kinda realized in the photo I've embedded here. This movie was released in the 1920s, not too long after D.W. Griffith and others were making silent films with one camera showing one landscape shot and everything happening within that one frame.

"The Passion ..." is a series of extreme close-ups: From Joan to her judge and jury. No make-up was applied. Thus, you get the dimples and wrinkles in faces. You see the stubble and slope of noses, cheeks, chins, eyes and jaw lines. You see the fat hanging down the priests' faces.

So close up, the contrast is so beautiful and it makes it feel like a film made 30 years later, not in 1928.

Also, the film has an interesting history. The original was destroyed in a fire. Carl Dreyer worked until his death to piece together a second version with outtakes and cut scenes.

Then, in 1981, a complete version was found inside a janitor's closet in an Oslo mental asylum. Needless to say, it was an odd twist to the film's legacy.