I first saw Benjamin Christensens Häxan (Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922) in one of the late Professor Szymon Choynowskis film classes. I thought then, as I do now, that this dramatized documentary about the history of witches and their persecution works, so to speak, at cross purposes: it mixes enthusiastic and imaginative depictions of devils with modernistic explanations of why people believed in them. But the movie is also pioneering in many ways: the film-maker breaks the already rather insubstantial fourth wall at one point and tells the audience that one of his actresses claims to not only believe in the devil, but to have seen him. Christensen seems ready to believe the other kind of nonsense, too, repeating a statistic that about 8 million people died during the ages of persecution. (The real number, bad enough, is around 50,000). Criterion has restored this work to its full 1 hour and 45 minute length. Theres never a dull moment, with one magnificent, unforgettable visual after another. Its accompanied here by a middling score, a kitschy mish-mash of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and other out-of-place greats. A new score, perhaps in the atonal style of Schonberg, Berg and Webern, is a possibility that hasnt yet been explored. A Swedish-Danish co-production, this was by far the most expensive movie financed by both countries up until that time. You cant really get round watching it if youre serious about film history, its effect on movie-making has been that great. https://youtube/watch?v=4cx3YZ-4zCA
Posted on: Sun, 19 Oct 2014 06:53:17 +0000
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