And spring H\u00e4xan<\/em> did when it premiered in Stockholm on September 18, 1922. With its scenes of women lustfully cavorting with grotesque demons and copious, if tasteful, nudity, the film was an immediate sensation, but Christensen was interested in more than mere titillation. Billed as \u201cA cultural and historical presentation in moving pictures in seven parts,\u201d the film opens with a rundown of the beliefs of people in the Middle Ages regarding witches and Satan worshipers, illustrated with vintage woodcuts, many of which Christensen would skillfully recreate with sets and actors. The dry, lecture-style mode doesn\u2019t last long, though, as the second part contains its first dramatic scene, set in the home of a witch in 1488 (significantly, the year after the publication of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum<\/em>, the book that sparked Christensen\u2019s interest in the subject). It also introduces one of H\u00e4xan<\/em>\u2019s signature images: the director himself as the Devil, with long claws, horns, and a perpetually wagging tongue. Christensen\u2019s Devil is an intimidating (if faintly ridiculous) sight, and along with the other infernal beings that pop up throughout the film, boasts impressive makeup that holds up a full century later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The longest sustained stretch of narrative is the 40 minutes in the middle (making up parts three to five) wherein Christensen depicts a typical witchcraft trial from beginning to end, showing how many individuals are ensnared by a single accusation. When a printer\u2019s sudden illness is attributed to a poor old woman, she\u2019s reported to the town\u2019s inquisitors by his hysterical wife and carted away. She steadfastly insists she\u2019s not a witch, but buckles under torture and gives her tormentors the names of at least half a dozen others in the course of confessing to giving birth to demons (one of the film\u2019s most amusing sights) and witnessing the sorts of things witches were believed to do at the time. (If you\u2019ve ever wanted to see a coven of witches queue up to kiss a demon\u2019s backside, H\u00e4xan<\/em> is the film for you.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n These scenes provoked one contemporary Danish newspaper to write, \u201cThe film seems itself a product of the beastliness, torture, bonfires, and insanity that it means to critique.\u201d Another accused Christensen of allowing \u201chis considerable abilities to lead him into this blind alley.\u201d If he did, however, it was to shed light on the brutal methods those in power used to keep the marginalized under their thumbscrews. Also raising their dander was the film\u2019s sixth part, with its convent of nuns gone wild half a century before Ken Russell\u2019s The Devils<\/em><\/a>, and return appearances by Christensen\u2019s Devil and the indomitable inquisitors. It\u2019s only in the finale, and the leap to the present day, that Christensen breaks H\u00e4xan<\/em>\u2019s spell, bringing in then-current psychological theories and using \u201chysteria\u201d as a catch-all to explain why certain women were singled out for such harsh treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following H\u00e4xan<\/em>\u2019s release, Christensen moved to Germany to make films at UFA and was eventually lured to Hollywood, where he followed the lead of Paul Leni\u2019s The Cat and the Canary<\/em> by directing a trilogy of \u201cold dark house\u201d-style films, including the deliriously entertaining Seven Footprints to Satan<\/em>. As for the filmmakers who followed in his<\/em> footprints, some who borrowed from H\u00e4xan<\/em> (consciously or unconsciously) include Jacques Tourneur (Night of the Demon<\/em>), Terence Fisher (The Devil Rides Out<\/em>), Ridley Scott (Legend<\/em>), Stuart Gordon (The Pit and the Pendulum<\/em>), Rob Zombie (The Lords of Salem<\/em>), and Robert Eggers (The Witch<\/em>). Meanwhile, H\u00e4xan<\/em> itself gained a second life a decade after Christensen\u2019s death when it was trimmed down to 76 minutes, overlaid with a jazz score and narration by William S. Burroughs, and released as Witchcraft Through the Ages<\/em> in 1968, the year of Michael Reeves\u2019s Witchfinder General<\/em>. While there\u2019s nothing supernatural about Reeves\u2019s film, it has enough in common with Christensen\u2019s to make plain how far ahead of his time he was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cH\u00e4xan\u201d is streaming on the <\/em>Criterion Channel<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Kanopy<\/em><\/a>, and <\/em>HBO Max<\/em><\/a>, and is also available for rent or purchase.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Released one century ago, Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen\u2019s investigation into witchcraft lore remains a singular satanic sensation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":463,"featured_media":18819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1431,1422],"class_list":["post-18817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-classic-corner","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/463"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21880,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18817\/revisions\/21880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/haxan1.jpg\")
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