Ingrid Bergman, Joan of Arc

as JOAN OF ARC

I was aggressively displeased about having to watch Joan of Arc, for the obvious reason that I've already seen 1928's The Passion of Joan of Arc and knew that the former had no chance of stacking up, no matter the level of softness I have for Ingrid Bergman. And I was right: Joan of Arc is a severely long-winded film, its subject matter superficially Hollywoodified as 1948's half-baked attempt at a Prestige Picture. But the worst part of it all is that this dull dreck is led and anchored by an actress who is wholly miscast.

The studios (and the Oscars for that matter) have been testing my tolerance with Bergman since 1943 now. They tried it with a 28 year old (Norwegian) Bergman as a 19 year old (Spanish) María in For Whom the Bell Tolls, and I was somewhat phased. They tried it again with Bergman as a nun / woman-of-God in The Bells of St. Mary's, to which I had a fairly tepid reaction. But I could not and cannot tolerate the ugly love child of these performances--that of a 33 year old (Norwegian) Bergman playing a 16 to 19 year old (French) Joan of Arc. There's a certain threshold of ridiculousness that's trespassed here, a certain level of self-indulgence that begs the question: was this really necessary? The obvious answer is likely yes, because this is the very performance that won Bergman a Tony Award the year prior. But what's flat out disappointing about this film adaptation is that (perhaps due to the less forgiving camera lens) Bergman just seems as though she's spending a massive 145 minute running time playing dress-up. Bergman literally looks ridiculous in the battle scenes, hopping about in her awkward bob, yelling out her lines in an stifled manner. She does the "timid" aspect of Joan well enough, but that's to be expected given that that is also the general theme of her 1940s nominated work. But she's also awkwardly stiff (and subsequently lackluster to watch), as though she realizes that she's in too deep here. She utters phrases such as "our strength is in our faith…" and "we can only win if we become God’s army" to soldiers and yet she doesn't possess that very leader-like gravitas. While typically I've had no problems with her accent, it is cumbersome here and feels strained by the verbiage of the script. She cries well enough, but what does that matter when I'm not convinced by what she's doing as a whole? Numbed by the film's lifelessness and tickled by the dubiousness of Bergman's casting, I'm afraid that there's little more to Joan of Arc aside from technicolor costumes, exterior and interior shots of castles, and a trumpeting soundtrack. Chances are I'd have been bored by the film had it been a different, more appropriate actress in the role, so it really needed an actress who can truly elevate the primordial, "costumey" elements of the source material. But alas, that was already done...way back in 1928.