The Passion of Joan of Arc · reception & legacy

How The Passion of Joan of Arc has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Censored by the Archbishop of Paris, cut by British censors, and then thought lost for decades after fires destroyed the original negatives — until a complete print turned up in 1981 and cemented its climb into the Sight & Sound top tier, where critics now routinely rank it among the greatest films ever made.

What's debated

The eternal Letterboxd debate: do you watch it in pure silence as Dreyer reportedly preferred, or with Richard Einhorn's 'Voices of Light' — and can any score improve on Falconetti's face?

Its footprint

Falconetti's tear-streaked close-ups are one of cinema's most referenced images — most famously in Godard's 'Vivre sa vie', where Anna Karina weeps watching it in a theatre, one film's face mourning another's.

Where it stands

A permanent 'you must see this' — the silent film even people who don't watch silent films are told to watch, and Falconetti's performance is still routinely called the greatest ever put on screen.