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Saint Joan (film)

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A dead saint is always better for the Church than a live one.

Saint Joan is a 1957 British-American film adapted from the George Bernard Shaw play of the same title about the life of Joan of Arc.  This was the film debut of actress Jean Seberg, who won a talent search conducted by Preminger that reportedly tested more than 18,000 young women for the role.

Written by George Bernard Shaw (play), screenplay by Graham Greene, directed by Otto Preminger.

Joan of Arc

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  • I was burned all the same.  Can they unburn me?
  • I wear it like this because I am a soldier.  Could you fight with your hair rolled up in those big horns?
  • There is always danger—except in Heaven.
  • I can turn you into a king, and that is a miracle that'll take some doing, it seems.
  • Show me the way to the bridge; I shall be the first to cross it.  I dare you to follow me.
  • There's no help, no council in any of you.  I thought I would have friends in the court of France, and I find only wolves fighting for pieces of her poor, torn body.  I believed that you, who now cast me out, would be like strong towers to keep harm from me.  But I am wiser now, and nobody is any the worse for being the wiser.
  • You will all be glad to see me burned.  But if I go through the fire, I shall go through it to their hearts, forever and ever, and so God be with me.
  • I cannot bear to be hurt, and if you hurt me, I will say anything you like to stop the pain, but I will take it all back afterwards.
  • What other judgement can I judge by but my own?
  • "Perpetual imprisonment"!  Am I not then to be set free?  …  [tears up her signed confession]  Light your fire.  Do you think I would dread it as much as life as a rat in a hole?  My voices were right.  Yes, they told me you were fools, and that I was not to listen to your fine words, nor trust to your charity.  You promised me my life, but you lied!  You think life is nothing but not being stone dead.  It is not the bread and water I fear; I can live on bread, but if I ask for more, bread has no sorrow for me, water no affliction.  But, to shut me from the light of the sky, and the sight of the fields and flowers, to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers, nor climb the hills, to make me breathe foul, damp darkness and keep me from everything that brings me back to the love of God, when your wickedness and foolishness tempted me to hate him!  [cries]  I could do without my warhorse, I could drag about in a skirt, I could let the trumpets and the banners and the knights and the soldiers pass me and leave me behind as they leave the other women, if only I could still hear the wind in the trees, the locks in the sunshine, the young lambs crying through the frost, and the blessed church bells that send my voices to me on the wind.  But without these things, I cannot live!  And by your wanting to take them from me, or from any human creature, I know that your council is of the devil, and that mine is of God!  [audience jeers]
  • Oh God, who made this beautiful Earth, when will it be ready to receive your saints?  How long, oh Lord?  How long?

The Dauphin, Charles VII of France

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  • I wanna hear no more of my grandfather.  As he was so wise, he used up the whole family stock of wisdom for five generations and left me the poor fool I am.
  • I'll read it for you if you like.  I can read, you know.

Jean de Dunois, Bastard of Orléans

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  • Do you expect people to love you for showing them up?  Do archbishops enjoy being played off their own alters, even by saints?

Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais

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English soldier

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  • Fair is fair.  Burn her is ya want to, but there's no call to being unkind.
  • The dawn, lady.  Excuse me, I've got a pressing appointment—down below.

Cast

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