The Passion of Joan of Arc

Dir. Carl Th. Dreyer
1928

Opening Image:

Closing Image:

Starting with the hands that orchestrate her death, by the film's final frame Dreyer has fully implicated the dogmatic Church in the demise of Joan of Arc. The last shot is also a slow tilt up, the flames rising above the cross to empty sky, showing that, whatever her contemporaries thought of her, Dreyer shows she has a different destination than they had planned.