82 minutes, b&w At first the idea of silent movies on DVD seems a little silly - sort of like trying to play Great Grandma's 78s on your car stereo, or making those ancient piano rolls in the attic compatible with an MP3 player. But the seeming incongruity actually points up what a terrific tool DVD can be, for revitalizing older, less prominent films, introducing less well-known masterpieces to today's audiences, and providing archival and scholarly supplements to give us a keener sense of film history. And if all that sounds a little highfalutin', it pretty much means that there are a whole lot of terrific movies out there from an earlier era that only the most rabid cinephile has seen. So if any one disc makes the persuasive case for silent film on DVD, it's Criterion's "The Passion of Joan of Arc." Based on the actual transcripts of the 15th-century trial and telescoped into an efficient 82 minutes, Carl Dreyer's 1928 film is exceptionally powerful and moving - apart from being remarkably instructive about the early days of filmmaking, it's a DVD of a fascinating and entertaining movie. It's a highly efficient telling of a familiar tale - we don't see Joan the warrior, or Joan the sorceress; this is very much about Joan the martyr. The film starts with her trial and proceeds of course to her harrowing execution, burned at the stake, and the subsequent pandemonium in the crowd. It's a movie that's devout without being preachy, and retains much of the power it had on its initial audiences. That's in large measure due to the fact that it lacks the hammy, melodramatic, you-must-pay-the-rent acting style that makes so many silent movies hard to watch today - despite the fact that Dreyer's actors came from the Parisian theater, they display remarkable restraint, and all seem to have a keen sense of the understated acting style that works best on film. (Fun fact: among the cast is French artist, philosopher and noted wild man Antonin Artaud.)