Benjamin Christensen
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Benjamin Christensen | |
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Born | |
Died | 2 April 1959 Copenhagen, Denmark | (aged 79)
Occupation(s) | Director, actor |
Years active | 1911–1942 |
Benjamin Christensen (28 September 1879 – 2 April 1959) was a
Biography
Benjamin Christensen was born in Viborg, Denmark as the youngest of the twelve children.
In 1911, Christensen made his debut as a film actor. All of his pre-directorial efforts were lost, including Scenens børn (1913), the only motion picture directed by eminent Norwegian playwright and stage director Bjørn Bjørnson.
In 1913, Christensen assumed control of the small,
Between 1918 and 1921, Christensen researched the history of necromancy as background for his next and greatest film, Häxan (The Witches, or Witchcraft Through the Ages, 1922). Christensen appeared in the film in the role of Satan. A plotless panorama of the history of witchcraft, Häxan utilized visual nudity, gore, and shock value on a level that remains unusual for a silent film.
Despite heavy criticism from censor boards, Häxan was an international success. Based on the response to Häxan, Christensen received an invitation from
In 1924,
When work stalled in 1927 on MGM's troubled, three-years-long production of
Afterward, Christensen returned once again to stage direction and did not make another film for a decade. Breaking his silence, for the Nordisk Company, he wrote and directed Skilsmissens børn (Children of Divorce, 1939), a social melodrama about generation gap. It was a surprise hit, and Christensen seemed back on track again. He followed it with Barnet (The Child, 1940) – a film about abortion – and Gå med mig hjem (Come Home with Me, 1941) which reunited him with actress Bodil Ipsen, who had appeared alongside him in the Bjørnson film and was herself a director.
However, Damen med de lyse Handsker (The Lady with the Light Gloves, 1942) was a spy thriller that proved an unmitigated disaster on the level of Mockery, and Christensen found himself out of the film business for good. Afterward, he assumed management of a movie theater in a suburb of Copenhagen and lived out the rest of his 79 years in obscurity.
Legacy
Häxan is Christensen's best-known film. Long circulating in the 16mm market, it was re-edited into a shorter version in 1967 by a British film maker
For the remainder of Christensen's output, the losses were 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 –
In 1999, the
Partial filmography
- The Mysterious X (1914)
- Blind Justice (1916)
- Häxan (1922) aka Witchcraft Through the Ages
- Seine Frau, die Unbekannte(1923)
- The Woman Who Did (1925)
- The Devil's Circus (1926)
- Mockery (1927)
- The Hawk's Nest (1928)
- The Haunted House (1928)
- Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)
- House of Horror(1929)
- The Mysterious Island (1929) partial sound
- Children of Divorce (1939)
- The Child (1940)
- Come Home with Me (1941)
- Lady with the Light Gloves (1942)
References
- ISBN 1903254426.
Sources
- Kendrick, James (13 October 2003). "A witches' brew of fact, fiction and spectacle". Kinoeye 3 (11).
Further reading
- Realizing the Witch: Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible by Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers, 2015, Fordham University Press – about Christensen's 1922 film Haxan (The Witch)
External links
- Benjamin Christensen at IMDb
- Benjamin Christensen at Film Reference
- Benjamin Christensen at Allmovie