“What Did It Feel Like to Be a Saint?”: Thornton Wilder’s Joan of Arc Film Treatment

Abstract

In 1934, RKO hired Thornton Wilder to write a treatment for a film about Joan of Arc. He completed this first foray into screenwriting in seven weeks. Within a month the studio chose not to develop the project; Wilder was never given the chance to turn his treatment into a screenplay. Yet his thirty-one-page work makes it clear that he would have written a compelling script. The treatment does not idolize Joan of Arc but presents her as a multifaceted human being with extraordinary resolve and courage. This article places Wilder’s treatment in the context of other films and literary works about Joan of Arc and explores the novice screenwriter’s shrewd understanding of how to tell a cinematic story. Using inventive visual and aural effects, Wilder moves naturally between earthly and supernatural realms. He interweaves plot lines with dramatic ease. With a director’s eye, he employs editing techniques and striking camerawork to advance his story. Although Wilder himself admits to leaving gaps in his presentation, he details significant scenes in Joan’s life that present a vivid picture of the maid who became a saint.