Visions of the Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and CultureRepresentations of Joan of Arc have been used in the United States for the past two hundred years, appearing in advertising, cartoons, popular song, art, criticism, and propaganda. The presence of the fifteenth-century French heroine in the cinema is particularly intriguing in relation to the role of women during wartime. Robin Blaetz argues that a mythic Joan of Arc was used during the First World War to cast a medieval glow over an unpopular war, but that she only appeared after the Second World War to encourage women to abandon their wartime jobs and return to the home. In Visions of the Maid, Blaetz examines three pivotal films -- Cecil B. DeMille's 1916 Joan the Woman, Victor Fleming's 1948 Joan of Arc, and Otto Preminger's 1957 Saint Joan -- as well as addressing a broad array of popular culture references and every other film about the heroine made or distributed in the United States. Blaetz is particularly concerned with issues of gender and the ways in which Joan of Arc's androgyny, virginity, and sacrificial victimhood were evoked in relation to the evolving roles of women during war throughout the twentieth century. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Joan of Arc in America 19111920 | 13 |
Joan of Arc Saved France Women of America Save Your Country Cecil B DeMilles Joan the Woman 1916 | 47 |
The Demise of Joan of Arc | 65 |
Joan of Arc between the Wars | 81 |
The War Years Between Us Girls Joan of Paris and Joan of Oza | 95 |
The Return of the Maid The Miracle of the Bells and Joan of Arc | 118 |
Looking for Joan of Arc Hedy Lamarr in The Story of Mankind and Jean Seberg in Saint Joan | 140 |
Conclusions The Vietnam War and Afterward | 169 |
Visions of the Maid 14291895 | 183 |
Notes | 207 |
Bibliography | 231 |
Filmography | 249 |
| 263 | |
| 266 | |