Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922) is rife with so much fantastic imagery that finding material to initialize a textual discourse on the film poses no problem but rather narrowing down the right approach. Christensen spent some two years researching witchcraft history (between 1919 and 1921) after discovering the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (Latin for "The Hammer Against Witches," a guidebook to interrogating witchcraft from 1486) and purportedly set out to produce not simply a literary adaptation but a new kind of film in its own right. The monumental Danish/Swedish co-production certainly rings true to the vision of a new kind of film and, perhaps as we will investigate, gives birth to the mockumentary subgenre. Christensen’s subsequent creation of a new subgenre, although it may be debatable whether the sometimes-comedic treatment was intentional or not, the impact is traceable in contemporary cinema. Häxan’s aesthetics and visuals must also be considered as influential on later cinema with its elaborate sets, make-up, and costumes that construct the film’s Hellish fantasy worlds. As such, a plethora of cinematic techniques such as superimposition, stop-motion animation, and reversed film tricks establish not only a complexly detailed silent film but one of multifaceted sensationalism that stands as one of, if not, the most expensive Scandinavian silent films produced in this era. Accordingly, the film should have a reputation not unlike cult silent films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Weine, 1920), Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922) or Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1926), a standing that does not seemed to be enjoyed by Häxan. My purposes are to analyze Häxan’s curious but relative obscurity as a convergence of its controversy and own pompousness, despite Christensen’s technical, formalist and aesthetic experimentalism giving way to the mockumentary subgenre.

Häxan begins inconspicuously enough with Christensen acting as narrator and lecturer using a pointing stick as if he were in a silent film era classroom science documentary and describes witchcraft mythologies through the ages and cultures. This opening sequence and its parallel last act constitute the films' pedagogical bookends. Structuring the seven-act film around scientific and psychoanalytic pedagogy both dilutes the well-intended serious content and encourages the comic quality of the mockumentary. Christensen's scientific and demystifying aspirations seem rooted in the early 20th Century European craze for Freudian school of thought. Christensen himself cites 19th Century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, of whom Sigmund Freud was a former student, in describing the way “the Hysterical Woman” has been thought to be a witch. Consequently, this contextual basis dates the film and problematizes it as an intended but limited academic discourse. The parallels and explanations that Christensen offers for historical witchcraft are not entirely unfounded. The film observes the misogyny and ageism inherent in discussions of witchcraft inquisition and draws parallels to contemporary times (1920s). Although these issues are important to our discussion of Häxan as a mockumentary, let us first explore what the subgenre is and how this film has been influential.

We can trace the affect on popular and current examples of mockumentary such as This is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984), The Office (Various, 2005 – present) and perhaps aptly, The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) to Häxan's unique blend of scientific pedagogy and humorous yet uncompromised imaginings of satanic mythology. The influence of Häxan on something like The Blair Witch Project is, perhaps, clear but this peculiar subgenre has definitely changed since Christensen allegedly set out to make a new kind of film. Christensen wrote numerous articles that describes his auteurist approach to filmmaking and implies the intentions in fostering this original film form. His film displays irreverence to classifiable genres (as primitive as they may have been at the time), as well as the combination of several different technical elements that reinforce Christensen’s intentionally idiosyncratic methods. Häxan illustrates that this purposely-original film form was then born almost entirely from experimentation with the earliest of genre conventions. Tales of Christensen’s insistence that the film be shot mostly during the night to encourage the film’s eerie atmosphere, despite the fact that his Astra film studio in Hellerup, Denmark had been renovated through Svenk Filmindustri’s funding for its indoor shoot, supports the experimental nature of the production.

If we are then to interrogate the notion of what is a mockumentary, Häxan as its primary originator in the silent film era context brings to mind the differences between PMR (Primitive Mode of Representation) and IMR (Institutional Mode of Representation). Arguably, Häxan was produced at a time when IMR conventions had already developed and in many ways the film adheres to these conventions of presenting a narrative through a coherent causal structure employed by classical Hollywood filmmaking practices. However, the way the film jumps around from pedagogical intent to enacted history to satanic fantasy reveals its link to PMR. If we conceive some of the earliest (purportedly PMR) film experiments, such as those of Thomas Edison or Georges Méliès, in the way that some semblance of a constructed narrative and documentary “realism” blend, then Häxan must be considered akin. Films associated with the “cinema of attractions” often fall into this middle ground by presenting both some narrative contrivance as well as acknowledging the presence of a camera. It is perhaps useful to designate films into these categories in some ways but often these early films blur the binary constraints of PMR vs. IMR.

Häxan as pioneer of the mockumentary navigates between these representational conventions that typify how we understand the subgenre today. The mockumentary form is revealed to be a relatively fluid concept and hindered on the experimentation illustrated by Christensen’s playfulness. The subgenre, as we know understand it, pivots greatly around a semblance of realism or the simulacra of false Cinéma vérité, presented with a straight face or as apocryphal fact. Typically, a comedic mockumentary will observe absurd characters or situations under the thin guise that it is being objectively represented. While the comedic mockumentary usually does not insist on its authenticity, the dramatic mode sometimes does, as was the infamous case of The Blair Witch Project. As we can see, the mockumentary subgenre has developed into different types, degrees of professed authenticity, and usually many kinds of styles.

Häxan in initiating the concept differs quite a bit from what is fairly common amongst the subgenres’ contemporary films, which is the genuineness and earnestness of Christensen’s pedagogical approach. Satirical news programs such as The Daily Show (1996 – present) are, perhaps, more akin to the way Christensen presents his information. The Daily Show reports the news but recognizes the bias in media representation and subsequently makes no claims that it is not biased through exaggeration, satire and parody. Thus, a show like this does present some degree of factual information yet filters it through comedy, diluting it with opinion. Häxan is similar with Christensen’s presentation of history, science, psychoanalysis, myth, and opinion through his multilayered structure. It is very likely that some objective facts are represented here, perhaps in the history lessons of superstitious beliefs in ancient cultures, but Christensen mixes these facts with very subjective methods. It is clear that Christensen desires to make a totalizing and definitive treatise on the subject of witchcraft, the inquisition’s witch persecutions, and supernatural rituals. This desire is coupled to allegedly correct explanations for why hysterical or old women, believed to be witches, were tortured and executed. There is likely much truth in Christensen’s arguments but the film is unusual, and irresponsible, by essentially presenting the information and speculation as fact. Casper Tybjerg reads from an article by Christensen on his film:

“Isn’t film the best way for mankind to broaden knowledge among the masses? Shouldn’t it be possible for us to find from films characteristically popular, clear and reliable form other subjects than purely entertaining ones? Shouldn’t it be possible for film to approach a problem in another way other than the social drama?”

Here, we find it exceedingly clear that Christensen is bent, not unlike D.W. Griffith’s delusional understanding of his own Birth of a Nation (1915), on the persuasive power of the film medium as an accurate means to illustrate history and articulate subjective opinion as fact. Christiensen’s intentions are certainly more honorable than Griffith’s, as his sympathies lie with the alleged 40,000 – 50,000 victims of witchcraft persecutions, but this does not guarantee that his contentions are as precise as Häxan would have us believe. I’m not about to debunk Christensen’s arguments nor mean to discredit the extensive research obviously undertaken but I am questioning the authority that the director assumes of his work. As Tybjerg discusses, even an invented character’s dream of satanic temptation and worship are invoked with historical fact. The lines blur between what Christensen intends as enacted examples of his arguments, dramatized accounts, and historical depictions. Spectators tend to rely on the accuracy of facts in film particularly when the documentary mode is construed. Since Häxan is produced in 1922, the same year that sees Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, which is often considered the earliest “documentary,” the genre conventions of documentary, as well as general critical thinking about cinema’s supposed veracities of truth, are underdeveloped. As such, Häxan essentially has no other major works aligned with objective representation to compare itself to and Christensen finds himself in awe of a still youthful medium that “is like writing history with lightning.”

The nobility of Häxan’s cause as well as the sensitivity of its argument comes into question during the last section of the film as it contrasts Middle-Age superstitions and modernist 1920s progressive thought. During this act Christensen makes a strong case that it is a misogyny and ageism against physically deformed/mentally ill women, older women, and/or both, pervasive in witch-hunting guidelines that explains the persecution’s victim typology. However, it is Charcot’s theories on hysteria that dominates Christensen’s explanations and consequently parts of the modern day scenes are problematized by their own misogyny and ageism. In a way, Christensen’s fascination with medical films colors how he presents the examples of modern women, old and hysterical, through acts of sensational othering. Additionally, the film’s insistence upon the day’s popular theory of hysteria depicted in the film’s most underwhelming scenario about kleptomania was questioned even during the film’s release, “Hysteria does not explain everything, and in particular does not explain itself.” These are, however, types of minor issues inherent to the experimentation of an otherwise masterful film whose willfully murkiness can be attributed to early mockumentary development.

Considering Häxan’s historical 1920s context it’s difficult to imagine audiences receiving it on a strictly comedic level with such bold and at times harrowing imagery. Outlandishly stark scenarios that seem to have inspired the explicitly non-comedic images of Danish countryman Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). The provocative images depict torture, grave robbing, demonic orgies, possessed nuns, and other acts associated with Satan (including kissing the Devil’s buttocks) and the occult that were inspired by “medieval manuscripts, paintings by Hieronymous Bosch, wood engravings from the notorious Witch’s Hammer (Malleus Maleficarum) or by Albrecht Dürer, early modern age leaflets, prayer books, and an engraving by Francisco de Goya.”  Based on these descriptions and allusions, it should be emphasized that the film’s “enacted history” sequences illustrate medieval torture and Satanic temptation with a frankness of nudity, mischief and violence that could almost be held up to today’s standards.

Thus, it is not unrealistic for one to hypothesize that film would have encountered censorship issues during its initial release. Still, it would be irresponsible to suggest that reactions to the film were polarized and that audiences were overwhelmingly appalled simply due to what we might think of as a more conservative period in time. But as far as reception goes, one can surmise that cultural differences are integral in this regard. For instance, the film premiered in Stockholm on September 18th, 1922 to fair reviews but not without considerable censorship due to its facial close-ups, grotesque effects, and elements of torture deemed inappropriate by the Swedish film censors.  The provocative use of often-contorted facial close-ups was particularly offensive to the Swedish as the faces appeared in sizeable proportion on the big screen. However, Häxan was well received by intellectuals in Christensen’s native country Denmark and encountered no censorship issues whatsoever, although it was felt to have been somewhat misconstrued by the general public.

In Germany where Christiensen worked for some time, there were considerable problems with censors and only after severe editing could Berlin premiere the film on June 30th, 1924 to an audience that prohibited children less than 18 years of age. The German cut was curious in a few ways, first in that it replaced elided scenes with pedantic intertitles that one reviewer noted as “the embarrassing feeling of having been returned to the schoolroom,”  and second that an added final intertitle suggested World War I as articulated by the same hysteria of the witchcraft persecutions, greatly affecting the film’s reception by the dishonored Germans. The Prussian Ministry of the Interior, in consent with the Ministry of Science, Art and General Education also applied to censor the last two acts being that it was felt “the film was calculated to offend religious feeling, threaten public order, and demoralise and brutalise.”  France demonstrated particular outrage against the film’s anticlerical methods and this confrontational aspect of the film has overwhelmingly been cause to its banning and censorship in many countries.

The American reception of Häxan is of primary interest as it is at this point where we can trace the suppression of the film as originator of the mockumentary. Tybjerg quotes extensively from the Hollywood Daily Citizen’s rather negative review written sometime during the film’s belated Los Angeles screenings in March 1930 that frames contextual awareness of a cultural gap. Tybjerg postulates that this mindset associating Scandinavian films with medieval witch culture has persisted to a certain degree, as per the unintended encouragement of famous Scandinavian films such as Day of Wrath (Carl Dreyer, 1943) and The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957). The Hollywood Daily Citizen article’s unknown author demonstrates not only an obvious American superiority complex but represents this indifferent attitude consistent towards the film regarding its American reception. It is peculiar that the criticism available would be so casual when, considering the historical timeframe and national context, it would seem the reactions would be of outrage and disgust.

A blurb in the New York Times that describes a New York screening in 1929 of Häxan as “fantastically conceived and directed, holding the onlooker in a sort of medieval spell. Most of the characters seem to have stepped from primitive paintings”  is a curious if minor endorsement. Even if this blurb represents the degree of praise to which American reviewers met the film it suggests a particular lack of impact despite stirring such European controversy. Another commentator, from a March 31st, 1922 Variety review, cements a certain American indifference with a piece that does acknowledge “many touches of a horrible and revolting nature shown, and nudity is thought nothing of from time to time in the picture but withal there is something really gripping even as it now stands,”  yet makes no great effort to persuade either way. It is unclear what sort of version this writer must have seen since the film was not known to have been publicly screened until 1929 or 1930 in the United States, however, it is possible for such a screening to have taken place.  However, I am led to believe that the film’s cut was perhaps an unfinished work print or of some such nature since the reviewer does not know anything about who made it and mentions that “it may be made valuable with the proper cutting and titling.”

These responses to Häxan, as well as the European ones, reinforce the notion of why the film hasn’t garnered as much attention as similarly grandiose silent works like Metropolis. I would argue that the overtly controversial nature of the production and its playful experimentation caused more of a stir in Europe in its initial release and as such led to its consequent suppression on a global level. Numerous altered versions that were constructed in order for it to pass censor boards added to the predicament, by circulating versions with often-different or perplexing implications. The blurriness of the original intent and original text then impedes the reliable reception. As such, by the time it is made publicly available in the United States, the bile and rage has already been spent in Europe, leading to quirky, disengaged responses to the film that seem interested but overly middling. However, I would be remiss to suggest that all responses were as such, since obviously the film does have something of a cult following. The evidence that I have found suggests this uninterested reception.

The way in which Häxan is rarely regarded as the grandfather of the mockumentary subgenre leads me to this conclusion as well. The genre-defying quality of the work, its unusual morbidity, and uncompromised antireligious stance ensured its place in cinematic history but also relative obscurity in these contextual circumstances. As we have seen, the fluid styles and methods laid down by the film have gone on to persist in contemporary examples of the mockumentary. Granted that the film is problematic in its self-righteous impulse as authenticity and fact, it is rather Christensen’s willingness and eagerness to experiment with the film conventions of his time that implies the fulfillment of his vision of an original new work.


Works Cited:

1. Wicasta Lovelace, http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/

2. Heresy suggests “the term ‘mockumentary’ is thought to have first appeared in the mid-1980s when This Is Spinal Tap director Rob Reiner used it in interviews to describe that film.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mockumentary

3. Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, DVD Commentary by Caspar Tybjerg, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Directed by Benjamin Christensen, 1922. USA: the Criterion Collection, 2001.

4. President Woodrow Wilson’s enthusiastic response to Birth of a Nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_a_nation

5. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013257/trivia

6. “The picture may be informative but it is not entertaining nor was it meant to be. It is another example of the difference in the psychology of the American and European peoples. In the United States, where we have conquered nature by science and invention, we are optimistic and like our entertainments to be a portrayal of our dream life, a beautiful picture of our fondest imaginings. But in Russia, Denmark and Scandinavia where life is still stark literature and art take the form of morbid reflection. We who have never known great hardship find it difficult to understand the unsavory themes for artistic outlook in some of these foreign countries.”
Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages, DVD Commentary track by Caspar Tybjerg in citing the Hollywood Daily Citizen article.

7. Monty, Ib. “Benjamin Christensen in Germany: The Critical Reception to his films in the 1910s and 1920s.” In Nordic Explorations: Film Before 1930, edited by John Fullerton and Jan Olsson, 41–52. Indiana University Press, 1999.

8. Author Unknown. “A Film on Witchcraft.” New York Times. May 28, 1929.

9. Author Unknown. “The Witches.” Variety Film Reviews, Vol. 2: 1921 – 1925. New York, New York: R.R. Bowker, 1983.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older