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Baz Luhrmann and Tom Keneally: creative collaborators? Sounds unlikely but, according to the revered, Booker prize-winning author, the sparkly movie maverick is “absolutely up to the task” of bringing his epic Joan of Arc story, contained within the pages of his 1974 novel, Blood Red, Sister Rose, to the big screen.
“We have more in common than you might think,” Keneally tells me. “We both grew up in Wauchope [the small NSW North Coast township] and survived the same Catholic school, albeit years apart.”
Zendaya famously paid homage to Joan at the 2018 Met Gala: could she star in the film?Credit: Evan Agostini/AP
Like Keneally’s book about France’s patron saint, Lurhmann’s film will enter the mind of Jehanne d’Arc, the gender-defying teenager who, in 1429, liberated the French dauphin (later crowned Charles VII) from English claims to the throne after convincing him she was a divine prophet, only to be captured by the enemy and burnt at the stake for heresy. Luhrmann has written the screenplay with emerging British talent Ava Pickett, who penned 1536, a play depicting the last days of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn.
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“Joan of Arc is a ripping yarn about a strange young girl wearing men’s clothes and claiming divine visions who swept into the centre of power and upended everything,” says Keneally. “Baz’s vision is the same as mine. We see how relevant the story’s themes are today. I see Greta Thunberg as a modern-day Joan. There are certainly people out there who’d like to see her burnt at the stake.”
Keneally, whose Schindler’s Ark became the multiple-Oscar-winning Schindler’s List under the direction of Steven Spielberg 32 years ago, is excited to see what Luhrmann and his collaborator-wife, Catherine Martin, come up with. He’s impressed with Luhrmann’s depth of research so far, which has included personally wearing 15th-century suits of armour to better understand the character. “I’m particularly interested to see their recreation of the French court and of fascinating characters, such as Queen Yolande [a powerful ally of Joan’s]. Baz will also need to find a very special young actor for the lead.”
Online chatter offers up Zendaya, who famously paid homage to Joan in chain mail and bobbed hair at the 2018 Met Gala, and Milly Alcock, the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts alumna who made a name for herself last year in House of the Dragon.
Shooting on Jehanne d’Arc will start on the Gold Coast, where Luhrmann made Elvis in 2020 and has since set up headquarters for his and Martin’s production company, Bazmark.
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