The film was shot on one huge concrete set modeled on medieval architecture in order to realistically portray the Rouen prison.

Dreyer's final version of the film was cut down due to pressure from the Archbishop of Paris and government censors.

In 1981, a print of Dreyer's final cut was discovered in Dikemark Hospital, a mental institution just outside Oslo, Norway, and re-released.

A priest reads a false letter in the prison to the illiterate Joan, supposedly from King Charles VII of France, telling her to trust in the bearer.

When she is threatened with burning at the stake, Joan finally breaks and allows a priest to guide her hand in signing a confession.

[6] Dreyer spent over a year and a half researching her; the script was based on the original transcripts of her trial, condensing 29 interrogations over the course of 18 months into one day.

[7] In an essay for the Danish Film Institute, Dreyer stated what he had sought to achieve: "I wanted to interpret a hymn to the triumph of the soul over life.

[10] Although she always preferred the theater to cinema and said she never understood the positive reaction to her acting, Falconetti's performance achieved iconic status almost immediately.

[11] Dreyer had gone to see Falconetti backstage at a performance of Victor Margueritte's La Garçonne,[11] a comedic play in which she was appearing.

[11] Jean Renoir praised her performance and said "That shaven head was and remains the abstraction of the whole epic of Joan of Arc."

Dreyer would always clear the set whenever Falconetti needed to act in a particularly emotional or important scene, allowing her to focus without any distractions.

Dreyer often had difficulties explaining himself to Falconetti and was known to turn bright red and begin stammering when passionately directing her.

"[16] The camerawork of The Passion of Joan of Arc was highly unconventional in its radical emphasis on the actors' facial features.

"[7] Dreyer also did not allow his actors to wear makeup,[17] the better to tell the story through their expressions—this choice was made possible through use of the recently developed panchromatic film,[15] which recorded skin tones in a naturalistic manner.

[18] Rudolph Maté's high-contrast cinematography also allowed unappealing details in people's faces, such as warts and lumps, to be fully visible.

In addition, Dreyer employed many low-angle shots of Joan's persecutors so that they would appear more monstrous and intimidating; in the effort to do this, several holes were dug on the set for the camera to film from the appropriate angle, causing the crew to nickname him "Carl Gruyére".

[19] Upon being given a budget of seven million francs, Dreyer constructed an enormous octagonal concrete set to depict Rouen Castle.

[7] They also relied on medieval manuscripts with accurate architectural drawings, such as John Mandeville's Livre de Merveilles.

He stated he did not fully approve of any score he had heard,[26] and disliked the soundtrack of Joseph-Marie Lo Duca's version for the film which came out in the 1950s,[27] which featured Bach, Albinoni and Vivaldi.

As early as January 1927, Jean-Jose Frappa said that "whatever the talent of the director (and he has it)...he cannot give us a Joan of Arc in the true French tradition.

In 1952, Joseph-Marie Lo Duca found a copy of the negative of Dreyer's second version[36] in the Gaumont Studios vaults.

However, it was a financial flop and caused the Société Générale to cancel its contract with Dreyer after the failure of this film and of Abel Gance's Napoléon.

Dreyer angrily accused the Société Générale of mutilating the film so as to avoid offending Catholic viewers and sued them for breach of contract.

[38]Of the star, he wrote "it is the gifted performance of Maria Falconetti as the Maid of Orleans that rises above everything in this artistic achievement.

"[38] However Variety gave the film a negative review on its initial release, calling it "a deadly tiresome picture".

"[41] Jean Sémolué called it "a film of confrontation" and Paul Schrader has praised "the architecture of Joan's world, which literally conspires against her; like the faces of her inquisitors, the halls, doorways, furniture are on the offensive, striking, swooping at her with oblique angles, attacking her with hard-edged chunks of black and white".

[7] Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that "Dreyer's radical approach to constructing space and the slow intensity of his mobile style make[s] this "difficult" in the sense that, like all the greatest films, it reinvents the world from the ground up.

"[42] Some critics have found faults in the film, and Paul Rotha called it "one of the most remarkable productions ever realized in the history and development of cinema, but it was not a full exposition of real filmic properties".

Instead of flowing naturally from his chosen materials...it seems imposed upon them...Throughout the film there is a constant stylistic uncertainty, an impurity, which jars heavily today", but added that "Jeanne d'Arc has a majestic power which steamrollers its way through all its faults and excesses.

The website's consensus reads, "The Passion of Joan of Arc is must-see cinema for Renée Maria Falconetti's incredible performance alone -- and an all-time classic for innumerable other reasons.