new clothing appear, suggesting that she is a witch who must be burned. Although suspecting the English are lying, the Bishop abandons Joan to her fate, and she is burned alive in the marketplace of Rouen, though a postscript adds that she was canonized as a saint in the 20th century. Cast Themes Luc Besson stated that he was not interested in narrating the history of Joan of Arc; rather, he wanted to pull a message out of history that is relevant for today. Besson states that in order to achieve this he stepped away from the factual narrative of the 15th century, instead trying to get behind the "exterior envelope" and into both the emotional effect and affect of Joan. In the book The Films of Luc Besson, Susan Hayward interprets this as meaning Besson sought to follow Joan emotionally, revealing her doubts and demonstrating that one cannot return intact from the experience of war. As the medievalist Gwendolyn Morgan observes, Joan's sanity is a continuing theme throughout the film, beginning with the priest questioning her as a child and ending with her conversations with 'The Conscience' in the film's final scenes. Scholars view The Conscience as providing a postmodern explanation of Joan's visions. At the time that Joan lived, her voices and visions would not have been doubted. John Aberth, writing in the book A Knight at the Movies stated the filmmakers invented The Conscience to satisfy a modern audience that is aware of mental illness. The film was also said to have "feminist undercurrents"; after Joan witnesses the rape of her sister, her crusade is said to become "a fight against male domination and the abuse of women." Writing in Exemplaria, Nickolas Haydock also considered the witnessing of her sister's murder and rape to be an alternate psychological motivation for Joan to want to fight the English, rather than just her visions. Haydock also considered a theme in the film to be the inability of the church to fulfill individual spiritual needs. This is said to be shown through many of Joan's encounters with the church; as a girl she is scolded for going to confession too often, denied communion and forced to sneak into the church to take it herself, and during her trial, where she is denied confession until The Conscience confesses her instead. Writing in Studies in Medievalism XIII, Christa Canitz considered anti-intellectualism to