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Product Description ------------------- One of the most emotional film experiences of any era, Carl Theodor Dreyer s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc [La Passion de Jeanne d Arc / Jeanne d Arc s lidelse og dod.] is a miracle of the cinema, an enigmatic and profoundly moving work that merges the worlds of the viewer and of saintly Joan herself into one shared experience of hushed delirium. Dreyer s film charts the final days of Joan of Arc as she undergoes the debasement that accompanies her trial for charges of heresy through her imprisonment and execution at the stake. The portrayal of Joan by Renée Maria Falconetti is frequently heralded as the all-time finest performance in the history of film, and Dreyer s unusual and virtuosic method, in seeming to render the very soul of his actress, vaulted the director decisively into the ranks of the art form s supreme geniuses. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present The Passion of Joan of Arc in an exclusively restored version, presented in both 20fps and 24fps playback speeds, and featuring Dreyer s own original Danish-language intertitles. BLU RAY FEATURES: * Exclusively restored high-definition master presented in the film s original aspect ratio, in 1080p * Presented in both 20fps and 24fps playback speeds * Optional audio tracks: a piano score performed by Japanese silent film composer Mie Yanashita (for the 20fps option), and a radical new accompaniment by esteemed American avant-garde musician Loren Connors (for the 24fps version) * Newly translated optional English subtitles for Dreyer s original Danish intertitles * The complete Lo Duca version of the film the version (featuring an alternate edit and soundtrack) that circulated in France and around the world for decades before the rediscovery of Dreyer s director s cut | Video demonstration of the restoration * A collector s booklet featuring writing on the film, alongside rare archival production imagery Review ------ "You cannot know the history of silent film unless you know the face of Renée Maria Falconetti. ... The movie seems to exist outside time. ... Our sympathy is engaged so powerfully with Joan that Dreyer's visual methods his angles, his cutting, his closeups don't play like stylistic choices, but like the fragments of Joan's experience." --Roger Ebert "The greatest of all Joan of Arc films. ... Like all the greatest films, [The Passion of Joan of Arc] reinvents the world from the ground up. It's also painful in a way that all Dreyer's tragedies are, but it will continue to live long after most commercial movies have vanished from memory." --Jonathan Rosenbaum One of the most inspired and inspiring films ever made. --Empire Magazine