Na granicy mroku. Język świętości w filmowych portretach Joanny d’Arc

Abstract

On the border of darkness. The language of sainthood in film portraits of Joan of Arc
 
The unusual history of the patroness of France — Saint Joan of Arc — became the inspiration for many creators of culture, including film directors, who most willingly chose this figure from among all the Christian saints. The article firstly presents the history of life of the French saint and in the next part consists of the analysis of the film language of the devoted to her three emblematic movies in which the well known film creators tried to “show” the sainthood of Joan or/and to assume an attitude towards the phenomenon of sainthood. The first movie analyzed by the author of the article is The Passion of Joan of Arc 1928 by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the second one is The Trial of Joan of Arc 1961 by Robert Bresson, who used an ascetic idiom to present the sainthood of Joan. And at the end of the text the film by Luc Besson — Joan of Arc 1999 — is discussed as a postmodern deconstruction of the figure of the saint.