Benjamin Christensen - Legacy

Legacy

Häxan is by far Christensen's best-known film; there is no other silent film quite like it. Long circulating as a silent in 16mm market, it was re-edited into a shorter version in 1967 by British film maker Antony Balch with an added jazz score and narration by William S. Burroughs, and as such became a favorite film of the counter-culture. A version restored to its original length and in superior picture quality was released by the Criterion Collection in 2001. The Mysterious X was first revived at MOMA in 1966 and has become his second-best known film; it was combined with Blind Justice and released on a DVD by the Danish Film Institute in 2004.

For the remainder of Christensen's output, losses are heavy and it has long been difficult to see; based on what exists, some critics have concluded that all of Christensen's American films were artistic failures. Of the German films, only the first one – Seine Frau, die Unbekannte (His Wife, The Unknown, 1923) – has survived, and of his Warner Brothers films, only a poor Italian print of Seven Footprints to Satan has surfaced, although sound discs exist of House of Horror. Critical opinions about The Devil's Circus seem divided; Mockery was one of the most sought after of all lost films until it was finally located in the 1970s; however, many who have seen it have stated that it is easily the worst of Lon Chaney's M-G-M features. The Nordisk films remain little seen outside Denmark. In 1999, MOMA, and later the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, held the first retrospective screening of Christensen's work under the rubric Benjamin Christensen: An International Dane. Of Christensen, Carl Theodor Dreyer once described him as "a man who knew exactly what he wanted and who pursued his goal with uncompromising stubbornness." After many decades of relative obscurity, Christensen is now recognized as the second most important Danish silent film director after Dreyer himself.