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ary leder’s 2002 film, The Impostor, based on a short story by Philip K. dick, is set on a war-ravished earth in the year 2079. decades of conflict with invading Alpha Centauri have reduced large parts of the planet to rubble as the human race fights for survival. Global leadership is vested in someone simply referred to in the film as “the Chancellor,” whose carefully scripted appearances and pronouncements are designed to convince everyone that she is, in the words of the film’s central female character, Maya olham (played by Madeline Stowe), “Joan of Arc, not some warmonger.” neither dick’s original short story nor leder’s film have any connection to the life or legend of Joan of Arc; indeed, the reference to Joan that occurs in the film’s opening segment is not even in the dick short story.1 but what is clear from this casual reference to Joan is that Joan of Arc has become someone to be invoked in film (and elsewhere) to lend legitimacy to various causes in times of war. The origins of this invocation can be found during World War I, when film Joans were used to advance a decidedly pro-war agenda designed to rally at times reluctant supporters to the cause of saving France and her allies from the German onslaught. by the mid-1910s advances in filmmaking made it possible to produce feature-length screenplays rather than simply cinematic pageants and tableaux, and filmmakers soon turned to the story of the life and legend of Joan of Arc for reasons other than hagiography. Co-opting the image of Joan on film became a convenient way for directors to advance an agenda related to the Great War. In these films, Joan is no longer seen simply as a candidate for canonization;2 she becomes instead the archetype of the warrior maiden.3 In late September 1915, the French launched an attack on the Germans at Artois, with the british doing the same at nearby loos in what was to be “They want us to think she is Joan of Arc, not some warmonger.” —The Impostor (2002) Warrior not Warmonger: Screen Joans during World War I Kevin Harty G 132 the major Allied offensive on the western front that year. The Allies had the initial advantage at loos, yet the French and the british were eventually routed. british casualties alone at loos were a staggering sixty-one thousand, more than three times those of the Germans.4 In the face of this disaster, the popular press in both France and england seized upon the memoirs of a seventeen-year-old hero, Émilienne Moreau, who not only survived the occupation and bombardment of her hometown but valiantly aided the French in their attempts to drive the German occupiers out of loos and the surrounding areas. For her bravery, she would later be awarded the Croix de guerre. Moreau’s account of the siege of loos was serialized in both Le Petit Parisien and Lloyd’s Weekly News in late 1915 and early 1916.5 The advertisement announcing the english translation of Moreau’s memoirs left no doubt in the minds of Lloyd’s weekly Sunday readers that the French teenager had been conscripted into the Allied propaganda campaign: tHe HeRoIne oF looS. ______________________ French Girl of Seventeen Who Killed Five Germans. ______________________ StoRY oF HeR lIFe In “lloYd’S” neXt SundAY. ______________ “SHe IS tHe JoAn oF ARC oF ModeRn tIMeS.”6 Moreau’s story soon found its way to the screen in Australia in George Willoughby’s 1916 The Joan of Arc of Loos with Jane King in the title role.7 to the account found in the memoirs Willoughby’s film adds a love interest for Moreau (a captured british soldier played by Clive Farnham) and the appearance on the battlefield of an armor-clad figure who is identified in the film’s credits simply as “the angel” (Jean Robertson) but whose presence is clearly meant to suggest that the real Joan of Arc has sanctioned Moreau’s exploits as a latter-day re-creation of her own.The angel is a woman in full medieval battle armor brandishing a sword, the image of Joan of Arc used throughout World War I for purposes of stirring up pro-Allied sentiment. Initial critical reaction to the film was mixed. Australian Variety praised the film, especially for its technical qualities, but Sidney’s Theatre Magazine worried that Moreau’s...

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