More arc

Following the Twain book of reference 1, it was suggested that I ought to see a film made by one Carl Dreyer. A forceful enough suggestion that I made  my first amazon purchase by telephone, something I had not previously done, being a little fearful that my telephone would remember, and then leak, my Amazon password. One never knows these days how many notes a computer is taking about what one is up to - and Amazon does not do that wheeze of asking you to supply three randomly chosen digits from your password, which I imagine makes the password thief's task rather harder than it would otherwise be.

Notwithstanding, a few days later a fat envelope lands on the map containing a small boxed set of what has turned out to be a masterpiece of world cinema, the cinematographic equivalent of one of Unesco's world heritage sites. Take a look at reference 2 to find out that the second best neolithic construction in the world is to be found in Korea.

So we get a little book full of Guardian speak to go with the boxed set and two DVDs. DVD one is a restored version of the original release of the film plus a piano score from Mie Yanashita. DVD two is a second version of the film made from camera two plus a different score from Loren Connors, with neither score being approved by Dreyer, who thought that his painstakingly constructed silent film should indeed be silent, without acoustic distraction. Regarding camera two, it seems that the way that things worked back in the twenties meant that the cheapest way to get a second copy of a film - insurance against loss of the first, which would otherwise mean total loss of the film - was to have two cameras on the go all through the shooting, getting two not quite identical versions of each take.

After due consideration, we settle for DVD one with the sound track turned on, just one of the four permutations available. We manage to fiddle with the aspect ratio on the telly so that we are seeing the real thing - unlike our usual fare which has often been stretched and cropped to get from the original aspect ratio onto our screen, which makes people like Poirot look shorter and fatter than they should, generally doing them no favours. Dreyer would not have approved.

And it was indeed a very good film. About ninety minutes long, a length which suits my pensioner's attention span, covering just the trial and execution, rather than the life and times, and consisting mainly of close up shots of Joan's face and those of her ecclesiastical judges. R. M. Falconetti, a famous actress in the Paris of the time, does very well as Joan. I was convinced by this Joan, this was something that could happen. But I was left puzzled by the humanity of the judges. Why would conscientious and essentially, mostly decent French ecclesiastics have done this thing at the bidding of the Duke of Bedford? Maybe the Twain take threw more light on that aspect of the matter.

Furthermore, Dreyer notwithstanding, I thought the piano score very good. And a snippet of the other score on YouTube this morning suggests that that one is very good too, albeit in a slightly different, less spare way.

All in all, a memorable find. But I wonder how long it will be before I try the second DVD.

Reference 1: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/joan-of-arc.html.

Reference 2: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list.