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Häxan



Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. Far from a dry dissertation on the topic, the film itself is a witches' brew of the scary, the gross, and the darkly humorous. Christensen's mix-and-match approach to genre anticipates gothic horror, documentary re-creation, and the essay film, making for an experience unlike anything else in the history of cinema.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• On the Blu-ray: New 2K digital restoration
• On the DVD: Digital transfer
• Music from the original Danish premiere, arranged by film-music specialist Gillian Anderson and performed by the Czech Film Orchestra in 2001, presented in 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray and in Dolby Digital 5.0 on the DVD
• Audio commentary from 2001 featuring film scholar Casper Tybjerg
• Witchcraft Through the Ages (1968), the seventy-six-minute version of Häxan, narrated by author William S. Burroughs, with a soundtrack featuring violinist Jean-Luc Ponty
• Director Benjamin Christensen's introduction to the 1941 rerelease
• Short selection of outtakes
• Bibliothèque Diabolique: a photographic exploration of Christensen's historical sources
• New English translation of intertitles
• PLUS: An essay by critic Chris Fujiwara, remarks on the score by Anderson, and (Blu-ray only) an essay by scholar Chloé Germaine Buckley

A local store has this used for $20; and the question is: should I get it? Anyone have any thoughts on this disc? Thanks.

jorencain wrote:A local store has this used for $20; and the question is: should I get it? Anyone have any thoughts on this disc? Thanks.

my first thought is...you suck! I want it for 20 bucks
Although seriously, this disc is a treasure. I watched my friends copy with the burroughs narration and new soundtrack. I really loved it. The movie itself is an experience, one of those silent movies that blows you away the first time. get it.

Rented this tonight as part of my Halloween movies this year. What a bizarre movie. Great portrayals of lusty big devils who turn lovely young maidens to stray from their husbands. And the old woman gave a terrific heartbreaking performance as the crone unjustly accused of being a witch. The scene of the nuns dancing in the church was hysterical.

I can see why it's liked so much. It's like no other movie I've ever seen.

I had one big qualm with it. The soundtrack music was very inappropriate in parts. Scenes of dread and mystery often had a light and happy score, which destroyed a lot of the mood. Perhaps I should have watched the version with the jazz score instead.

Yes, it's a dreadful score.......one musical selection per reel, and they just start playing it from the start if it doesn't last the whole reel....no effort to match any of the construction of the film.... and a horrid misreading by the solo violinist of an exposed note in the Danse Macabre solo!! To think any musician could pass a take with that clinker! sheesh! I hate to think what Criterion paid Anderson for that hack job!

Since I'm a fan of his work, I see even Philip Glass doing a good score for this one. An interesting movie like this needs a definitive score with an art theater rerelease.

By the way, I forgot to mention the scene of the flying witches, which was extremely well done, especially with silhouette figures and buildings in the foreground to add depth. Think the witch flying in the tornado sequence in THE WIZARD OF OZ was influenced by HÄXAN?

I don't know but I really want this. I love ghosts goblins and william burroughs

the scholar doing the voices of those whose quotes he reads on the commentary is pretty amazing.

domino harvey wrote:the scholar doing the voices of those whose quotes he reads on the commentary is pretty amazing.

He does that in all his commentaries - Passion of Joan of Arc, Michael, and Day of Wrath. I love that man.

Yes, that man (whose name I've forgotten) provides what are virtually model commentaries, and there's also something endearing about his voice.

It's definitely worth getting Haxan. I wonder if I'm alone in preferring the jazz fusion score (featuring Jean-Luc Ponty) to the other one.

djali999 wrote:

domino harvey wrote:the scholar doing the voices of those whose quotes he reads on the commentary is pretty amazing.

He does that in all his commentaries - Passion of Joan of Arc, Michael, and Day of Wrath. I love that man.

You mean there's a Danish version of Bogdanovich?!

tryavna wrote:You mean there's a Danish version of Bogdanovich?!

But a genuine scholar rather than a name-dropping anecdotalist.

For those of you in the UK, the film will be touring starting April 22 with a new live score composed by Geoff Smith.

Good to hear that Geoff Smith is still around! He completely disappeared from my radar after the two cds he made in the 90s for Sony Classical, together with his wife Nicola Walker-Smith. I find these two cds excellent (something like a pop version of Steve Reich with some Massive Attack thrown in), so I hope someone will put out his "Häxan"- soundtrack in some form.

new version from Play comes with a spiffy Haxan t-shirt

Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of Haxan, the World's Strangest Film and the Man Who Made It by Jack Stevenson.

orlik wrote:It's definitely worth getting Haxan. I wonder if I'm alone in preferring the jazz fusion score (featuring Jean-Luc Ponty) to the other one.

Nope, actually, I might go so far as saying this score is the best thing I've heard from Ponty...

That shirt they're selling w/the R2 is great.

Any word on the how the R2 compares with the R1?
R2 seems to be a little cheaper at the moment ($20+, rather than the R1's $30+) and a quick glance suggests it's the same specs.

Any major differences? Is the R2 an NTSC>PAL conversion, etc.?

Darth Lavender wrote:Any word on the how the R2 compares with the R1?
R2 seems to be a little cheaper at the moment ($20+, rather than the R1's $30+) and a quick glance suggests it's the same specs.

Any major differences? Is the R2 an NTSC>PAL conversion, etc.?

I've got the region 2, llooked fine on a shitty TV, but not sure what it would look like on a better system.

The disc is listed as PAL, but runs in at 105 minutes - due to it being a "digital speed-corrected transfer of the Swedish Film Institute's tinted restoration"

Review of the R2 here. Picture seems to be excellent, but as the reviewer rightly points out, CC excels in the extras department. That audio commentary is indeed not to be missed in my view.

There is a new Swedish box set of Silent movies coming out 28 november wich will include Häxan.
The other films is:

Sir Arne´s Treasure

Terje Vigen

Erotikon

The Phantom Carriage

The Legend of Gosta Berling

Dont know if this has been posted anywhere else,and there will be German,English,French,Portuguese,Spanish and Italian subs.

Person wrote:Witchcraft Through the Ages: The Story of Haxan, the World's Strangest Film and the Man Who Made It by Jack Stevenson.

I was just looking through the FAB Press website and came across this page which is offering the Haxan book; No Borders, No Limits: Nikkatsu Action Cinema and A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi as a triple pack for £13.97.

Werdegast wrote:There is a new Swedish box set of Silent movies coming out 28 November wich will include Häxan.

Terje Vigen

Dont know if this has been posted anywhere else,and there will be German,English,French,Portuguese,Spanish and Italian subs.

Do you have a link, or do you know if this Terje Vigen is the same with Ketil Bjornstad score as in the Ibsen Box set??

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Do you have a link, or do you know if this Terje Vigen is the same with Ketil Bjornstad score as in the Ibsen Box set??

Don't know for sure, but I doubt it -- all six films in the Swedish box supposedly have music by Matti Bye, and there's been no mention of alternate scores in the (admittedly, and annoyingly, incomplete) advance information.