Happy Birthday, Benjamin Christensen! Born today in 1879, this Danish actor both in film and on the stage, screenwriter and film director is known for his exploration of the macabre.
Christensen was the youngest of twelve children. Years later, he initially studied medicine, but caught the acting bug and began studies at the Det Kongelige Teater (Royal Danish Theatre) in Copenhagen in 1901.
Christensen's professional acting career began in Aarhus in 1907, but after a short stint as actor he abandoned the stage in order to become a wine salesman.
Although Christensen was formerly a stage actor and opera singer, it was his intense stage fright of which terminated his ability to either act of sing before an audience.
One day, while staying at a hotel in Paris, France, Christensen was in a room next to a suite where famous Italian opera tenor Enrico Caruso was staying. Through the thin walls, Caruso heard Christensen singing pieces of an opera to himself in the bathtub.
Caruso later approached Christensen and told him that he had the best voice he had ever heard. He offered to give Christensen a lead part in his next production.
Embarrassed, he declined the offer. He explained that it was impossible for him to perform before an audience and that his singing voice only returned to him when he was alone and thought that nobody was listening.
In 1911, Christensen made his debut as a film actor, although being a former medical student-turned-filmmaker. Unfortunately, all of his pre-directorial efforts are now lost.
Later, in 1913, Christensen assumed control of the small, Hellborg-based production company for which he worked and reorganized it as Dansk-Biograf Kompagnie.
The first film that Christensen directed was the 1914 Danish silent black and white drama/mystery film 'Det hemmelighedsfulde X' ('The Mysterious X'; or 'Sealed Orders').
At the time, it was one of the most astonishing directorial debuts in film history; although a routine spy melodrama, the camerawork, cutting and art direction were revolutionary for the period.
Two years later, Christensen himself played the main role, as he did in his second film, the 1916 Danish silent black and white crime/thriller drama film 'Hævnens nat' '(Blind Justice').
Once again, Christensen portrayed a man wrongly accused of murder, and the artistic quality of his sophomore effort was equal to his first.
Despite the success of his first two films, Christensen did not find acceptance within the Danish film industry, and after 'Blind Justice' he returned to the stage.
In 1920, Carl Theodor Dreyer said of Christensen: "And then came a man-Benjamin Christensen-who did not fabricate his films but created them out of love and an infinite care for detail. He was thought mad. But time has shown that it was he who made a pact with the future."
He also once described Christensen as "a man who knew exactly what he wanted and who pursued his goal with uncompromising stubbornness."
Between 1918 and 1921, Christensen researched the history of necromancy as background for his next and greatest film. This was also the film of which he is best known for writing, directing and starring.
This was the 1922 Swedish/Danish silent black and white (Sepiatone) drama/fantasy horror/documentary film 'Häxan' ('Heksen'; English title 'The Witches', or 'Witchcraft Through the Ages'), in which Christensen appeared in the role of Djævlen (Satan).
Made under the production company Svensk Filmindustri, the film was a hybrid of documentary and fiction, this silent film explores the history of witchcraft, demonology and satanism.
It shows representations of evil in a variety of ancient and medieval artworks, offers vignettes illustrating a number of superstitious practices and presents a narrative about the persecution of a woman accused of witchcraft.
The film ends by suggesting that the modern science of psychology offers important insight into the beliefs and practices of the past.
The film was based partly on Christensen's study of the 1487 treatise fiction book Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th-century German guide for inquisitors.
'Häxan' is a study of how superstition and the misunderstanding of diseases or mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts.
The book had been co-authored by German churchman and inquisitor Heinrich Kramer and Dominican inquisitor and theologian Jacob Sprenger.
With Christensen's meticulous recreation of medieval scenes and the lengthy production period, the film was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made, costing nearly two million Swedish kronor.
Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered at that time graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion.
A plotless panorama of the history of witchcraft, 'Häxan' is a visual tour de force that utilizes nudity, gore and sheer shock value on a level that remains incredible for a silent film; nevertheless, despite being plundered by censor boards everywhere, 'Häxan' was an international success.
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Christensen’s legendary silent film uses a series of dramatic vignettes.
Each explored the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages and early modern era suffered from the same ills as psychiatric patients diagnosed with hysteria in the film's own time.
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.
Based on the response to the film, Christensen received an invitation from the German film and television production company, Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA). This was for him to be able to direct in that country.
Afterward, Christensen returned once again to stage direction and did not make another film for a decade. Breaking his silence, for the Nordisk Company.
Of his acting credits, Christensen is best for his best known performance. This was in Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1924 German silent black drama/romance film 'Michael'.
This was as renowned painter Claude Zorel,ther jilted lover lover of the film's title character.
Long circulating in the 16mm market, 'Häxan', years later, was re-edited into a shorter version in 1967.
This was by English film director and distributor Antony Balch, and included an added jazz score and narration by William S. Burroughs. The film as such became a counter-culture favorite.
'The Mysterious X' was first revived at MoMA in 1966, and has become Christensen's second-best known film.
A major European director of the silent era, Christensen demonstrated an early grasp of sophisticated cinematic techniques (that may predate those of both D.W. Griffith and Louis Feuillade ['Les Vampires']).
These should have assured Christensen a more prominent place in film history, but prints of many of his films remain lost. Chrsitensen had worked in Hollywood from 1925-1929.
For the remainder of Christensen's output, losses were heavy and it had long been difficult to see; based on what exists, some critics have concluded that all of Christensen's American films were artistic failures.
In the last years of his life, Christensen spent his time operating a movie theater in Copenhagen. He had assumed management in a suburb of Copenhagen and lived out the rest of his seventy-nine years in obscurity.
Christensen passed in Copenhagen, Denmark on April 2, 1959. He was 79.
In 1999, MoMA, and later the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California held the first retrospective screening of Christensen's work under the rubric "Benjamin Christensen: An International Dane".
Three years later, a version of 'Häxan' was restored to its original length and in superior picture quality. It was released by the Criterion Collection on October 2001.
After many decades of relative obscurity, Christensen is now considered one of the best Danish silent film directors in history.
The trademarks in Christensen's films included extreme stage fright as an actor or singer and often featuring complex lighting set-ups.
Christensen had won accolades for his inventive use of light and darkness in an otherwise overly melodramatic story of a navy officer falsely accused of spying. The director astounded audiences by filming the turning on an electric light in a key scene in this film.
Motion pictures were still filmed in natural sunlight and Christensen was forced to use trick photography to reach his objective.
Such inventiveness brought the filmmaker a world-wide reputation and Christensen's days in Danish films were numbered.
Although Christensen for many years lived around the corner from Dreyer, the former colleagues reportedly ignored each other whenever they could.
Christensen had been active from 1911–1942.
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