1922 |
The Devil is a major figure in the West, and in a sense, exclusivey in the west, if we mean, as I do here, the Devil of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic traditions. None-the-less, the history of the Devil is not well known by most people. Biblical and religious scholars have been interested in the development of this character and the bibliography will give some recent books on the subject. In brief, the idea is that originally Judaism was probably polytheistic (having many gods) which slowly became monotheistic (a single god). The remaining gods seem to have become something a "court".
In all societies there are things which are considered evil and there is always a question about where this evil originates. If there is a polytheistic society in which some of the gods are good and others are evil, there is no problem explaining evil - it comes from the "bad" gods.
In a monotheistic system evil is still explainable, only if the single god is not "all good". This appears to have been something of the case in early Judaism. In parts of the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament as it is known to Christians) God is not always exactly pleasant. As God develops into an all benevolent figure, the problem of the origin of evil raises its head once again. The Pagels book which is assigned traces the development of the Devil as an explation of evil.
Because of this long history of both figures (God and Devil) the Devil has been known by a number of names. Since the best known "name", Satan, is actually a kind of "job title" it occurs in the Bible as someone who moves in a direction counter to the speaker; who may be an "obstruction" on the road or more commonly, the posecutor in a case. It is not anyone's name, and in the cases where it is used, it absolutely does not refer to the character we now think of as "The Devil".
The Devil is also interpreted as being other characters in the Bible - for example, the serpent in the garden of Eden, although the Bible makes no reference to the idea that the serpent is in fact the Devil. It is only in later interpretations that this identification is made.
The Devil as a character in mythology is discussed in Neil Forsyth's The Old Enemy and is a book well worth looking at to see the development of the "Combat myth" which resonates throughout Middle Eastern mythology from the epic of Giglgamesh on.
Häxen
Things to think about while watching the film
The film deals with the relationship between the devil and witchcraft on the one hand, and betwen behavior and interpretation on the other. The film is interested, at least in part, in what has become formalized as "emic-etic" theory.In this theory, it is argued that specific events (etics) will be interpreted by people from different times and cultures in different ways. Each of these is an "emic". How does this aspect of the film make itself manifest right from the start?
The film is tinted virtually throught (although not completely). What use is made of tinting in the film?
Although the film is a "silent" film, there is a sound track of music which is a compilation of pieces hat were played at the premiere of the work, What can youcsay about the music?
The film is of particular interest in its analytic approach to witchcraft. What is it and how is it handled in the film?
Does the film have humor? The Devil often appears in comidies and it has been said that in the Middle Ages the devel appeared on stage only as a comic figure or else he would have been too terrifying to watch. We know that performance can often affect the audience in very dramatic ways. The appearanceof the Furies on stage in ancient Greece caused a panic not unlike the one that occurred when Orson Welles broadcast his radio production of War of the Worlds.
AFTER THE FILM
Opening shots are like lectures - pictures with a pointer indicating where things are relative to the narration.
Various conceptions of the heavens indicates different cultures see the same things differently. This prepaers us for looking at things from different perspectives.
The beginning of the film feels not as much like a documentary as an educational lecture. We are shown different cultures images through paintings of different demons and so on. The film suddenly veers off in the direction of re-enactment and then in the direction of narrative film in looking at the different aspects of witchcraft. Periodically it returns to the educational/documentary approach.
In a sense this variation parallels the variation we have seen in the different world views.
The film itself is divided into two rather unequal parts - a medieval aprt and a modern part. Quiet overtly Chistensen argues that the same behaviors which existed in the middle ages were interpreted as witchcraft, while the same behaviors today (i.e. 1922) would be interpreted as hysteria.
As a result, he parallels shots of events which occurred in the medieval section of the fils with the laters modern section. A nun steals the Christ child from a statue of the Madonna and child - a woman steal a book and jewelry. A woman sees the Devil at her window, a modern woman seems a famous person at her window; the Devil is resoinsible for places on the body where there is no feeling; a modern doctor finds teh same spots but attributes them to hysteria as well.
In each case there are strong similarities between the movements and positions of the person, but they are shot from somewhat different angles givng a different perspective of the event in the same way the interpretation of the event is different in the two time periods.
Some of the music is related to aspects of the film. The religous aspect is reflected in the use of Wagner's "Pilgrim's Chorus" from his opera Tannhäuser. Saint Saens Danse Macabre is played behind some iof the scenes with the Devil. In some cases the music is repeated through the section and becomes a bit monotonous.
The film stresses social issues in the first part (Convent life) as the root of the hysteria, while laying the blame more on osychological (a woman has lost her husband in the war; a woman in whose house there was a fire is obsessive about lighting matches) rather than social issues.
THE NATURE OF EVIL AND THE DEVIL