Saint Joan

Even hardcore Preminger fans number this stage adaptation among his lesser works. As usual ambiguity is the theme within the theme - no big surprise when a play by an agnostic (GB Shaw) is adapted by a Catholic (Graham Greene). The film inverts the Joan enigma, with a number of ironical insights. The very production seems equivocal: deliberately bare and skimped to enable us to concentrate on the text, and/or because Preminger was not about to splash out on such a dubious box office prospect. The subsequent troubled progress and self-murder of Jean Seberg adds a further layer of ambiguity, both as eerie distraction and poignant complement.