Realizing the Witch Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible [Hardcover]

Benjamin ChristensensH?xan(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,H?xancreatively 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.

InRealizing the Witch, Baxstrom and Meyers show howH?xanopens 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.H?xanis a film that travels along the winding path of art and science rather than between the narrow division of documentary and fiction. Baxstrom and Meyers reveal how Christensens attempt to tame the irrationality of the witch risked validating the very nonsense that such an effort sought to master and dispel.H?xanis a notorious, genre-bending, excessive cinematic account of the witch in early modern Europe.Realizing the Witchnot only illustrates the underrated importance of the film within the canons of classic cinema, it lays bare the relation of the invisible to that which we cannot prove but nevertheless know to be there.

Realizing the Witch is a highly original, exciting, and important book. With this
work, Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers establish themselves as pioneering scholars in the emerging field between media studies and the history of science.