Realizing the witch : science, cinema, and the mastery of the invisible / Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baxstrom, Richard, author.

Meyers, Todd, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

History--Cinema.

History.

Anthropology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (285 pages) : illustrations; digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

NY Fordham University Press 2016

New York : Fordham University Press, 2016

Language Note:

English.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Benjamin Christensen’s Häxan (The Witch, 1922) stands as a singular film within the history of cinema. Deftly weaving contemporary scientific analysis and powerfully staged historical scenes of satanic initiation, confession under torture, possession, and persecution, Häxan creatively blends spectacle and argument to provoke a humanist re-evaluation of witchcraft in European history as well as the contemporary treatment of female “hysterics” and the mentally ill. In Realizing the Witch, Baxstrom and Meyers show how Häxan opens a window onto wider debates in the 1920s regarding the relationship of film to scientific evidence, the evolving study of religion from historical and anthropological perspectives, and the complex relations between popular culture, artistic expression, and concepts in medicine and psychology. Häxan is a film that travels along the winding path of art and science rather than between the narrow division of “documentary” and “fiction.”

Contents:

Introduction: What Is Häxan?

Part I. The Realization of the Witch The Witch in the Human Sciences and the Mastery of Nonsense

1. Evidence, First Movement: Words and Things

2. Evidence, Second Movement: Tableaux and Faces

3. The Viral Character of the Witch

4. Demonology

Part II. A Mobile Force in the Modern Age 1922

5. Sex, Touch, and Materiality

6. Possession and Ecstasy

7. Hysterias

Postscript: It Is Very Hard to Believe . . .

Acknowledgments

Notes

Benjamin Christensen’s Cited Source Material

Contents

Filmography

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

CC BY

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9780823274871

OCLC:

922451652