Häxan (1922)

Banned in the United States and censored throughout Europe for its depictions of demonic orgies and possessed nuns, this was the most expensive Scandinavian silent film ever made - a documentary about witchcraft in which the director played the Devil.

HÄXAN (1922) took Benjamin Christensen four years to complete. He spent three years researching it - working from the Malleus Maleficarum, the 15th-century inquisitors' handbook he had found in a Berlin bookshop, as well as woodcuts, paintings, and ecclesiastical records .

He obtained funding from Svensk Filmindustri by promising them complete artistic freedom would produce something worthy of the Swedish cinema's golden age.

Christensen bought and refurbished a studio in Hellerup, Denmark, filmed only at night or behind closed doors. Rumors circulated about what was happening inside, and he did nothing to discourage them.

The flying witch sequence required 75 witches filmed separately against airplane engines while Christensen's cinematographer constructed a rotating carousel holding over 250 miniature houses, each roughly six feet tall, turned by 20 men. The shots were combined using an experimental optical printer Christensen designed himself.

Christensen, who seemed to enjoy playing Satan, later lamented: "I never managed to escape the stamp that Häxan put on me."

In 1968 it was re-released in the US as Witchcraft Through the Ages with narration by William S. Burroughs and a jazz score featuring Jean-Luc Ponty on violin.