The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)

 
The Passion of Joan of Arc
1928|Carl Theodor Dreyer

Renée Falconetti’s tear-streaked face held in intimate close-up. This image has become a cinematic icon worthy of the sainted Jeanne d’Arc herself. It is not, however, Jeanne’s sainthood that director Carl Theodor Dreyer is probing. Here she is separated from legend, neither God’s messenger nor a warrior, but a complicated woman of flesh and blood. All of her devotion, devastation, her stubbornness before her crafty judges, and her acceptance of her imminent death emanate from Falconetti’s expressive face, which is laid bare in a seemingly endless series of close-ups through which Dreyer brings us agonizingly close to Jeanne’s physical and emotional being.

West of Zanzibar (1928, Tod Browning)

 
West of Zanzibar
1928|Tod Browning

Lon Chaney slithers across the floor, his legs paralyzed from a fall, his heart blackened by betrayal. Eighteen years earlier, he was Phroso the Magician, a successful performer with a beautiful wife. But she left him for another man, only to die the following year after giving birth to a daughter. He has spent every day since then setting into motion a vicious revenge on the man and child who ruined his life, and now, gazing at the hence-grown girl, his hatred boils over.