Religion In The Comics - 038

[onager]

2. Thanks, beautiful art. As for trial coverage...

Check out the movie The Messenger. (Link below) Starring that Milla Yoyo woman, directed by Luc Besson.

Some trial scenes in the movie were taken directly from the original trial transcripts.

Unfortunately that level of realism isn't consistent. The movie opens with Joan's sister being murdered and raped - in that order - which never happened.

There are a couple of good skeptical/rational themes in the flick:

(1) The French rulers know an ancient myth exists among the common people, about a peasant girl liberating France. They callously promote Joan into the part. Their attitude is: "If she accomplishes something, great. If she doesn't, all we've lost is a crazy peasant girl and a few troops." Faye Dunaway and John Malkovich are at their slimiest in these roles, and they are great.

(2) Dustin Hoffman pops up as "the Conscience" to give Joan a lesson in Skepticism 101. She thinks God gave her a sword she found in a field. The Conscience tells her somebody probably dropped it or it fell off a horse.

In just a few lines of dialogue, this scene sums up one of the big problems with religious belief - the insistence on believing in miracles, when a hundred ordinary rational explanations fit the evidence better.

Overall, IIRC, the movie goes along with the "delusional" theory of her actions. I haven't seen it in a long time and will have to fix that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151137/