Joan of Arc
Among the forty adaptations of the Joan of Arc epic, two strands coexist: the tragic and the epic. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Karl Theodor Dreyer, 1928) condenses the interrogations of Joan's trial into a single day. The white set and tight framing highlight the suffering of a woman who is a victim of her contemporaries' incomprehension. Only the end of the Maid's life is treated in the tragic mode. The film by Robert Bresson, The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962), adopts the same sober, minimalist and stripped-down approach in order to restore authenticity to the character.
Conversely, the very patriotic The Marvelous Life of Joan of Arc by Gastyne (1929) emphasises the action scenes. Epic films focus on the most emblematic sequences of the epic: the relief of Orléans and the coronation at Reims (Luc Besson, Jeanne d’Arc, 1999).
Jacques Rivette, for his part, stands out for a narrative portrayal that sticks closely to the medieval chronicles. He approaches the whole epic by presenting Jeanne la Pucelle (1994) as a diptych (The Battles, The Prisons).