The Passion of Joan of Arc

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019254/]

The Gist:
This film is the first completely silent film I've seen. No music, no random sound effects, just completely silent where the only thing I had to accompany it are the birds and the cars and so on outside the window. I do think that when there's no music to underscore an emotive response, the film's performance gain a nuance that is otherwise impossible, and in retrospect this is crucial to the film. For almost the entirety of the film we see frames of close ups along with title cards that actually transpose the transcript of the real historical Joan's trial. The effect is sort of memorizing, particularly the woman who portrays Joan who pours so much emotion into the role that somehow an entire movie trained largely on her face becomes riveting.