Tonight's movie was "Haxan" (1922) from Criterion. This silent film is a bit of a cult classic, made in Denmark by an actor/director by the name of Benjamin Chistensen. The title translates as "The Witch", and the movie is presented in a faux documentary style as a history of Witchcraft, from the Middle Ages to the present, meaning 1922. You may have even seen "Haxan" if you are a TCM fan. They show it two or three times a year, most recently a few nights ago on Halloween. The key to this movie is the visuals. Man oh man, are they Gothic. Every single frame looks like a 1920s Tintype photograph, shot in Hell, with Satan as the art director, or maybe the co-director with the Head Monk of the local Inquisitional Team. See, "Haxan" is all about witches, but it's also all about the persecution of witches, and you've gotta have some 15th Century Monks, or Priests, for that. Everything about this movie looks incredible, and so detailed. This is the early days of movies, when they had to rely on theatrical costumes and face makeup. Consequently, there is a "handmade" quality to the look of everything that is probably more spooky than if the movie had been made in this day and age. The movie looks old, everything about it is old and sinister, and much of it takes place in the Middle Ages, so the overall look is extremely effective.
It's not really a horror movie, though, because it is presented as an educational film. In the narration, the director (who also plays the hideously made-up Devil) breaks the so-called Fourth Wall (of the movie or TV screen) to converse with the audience. He explains things to us as if he were a sociologist or religious scholar. "This is why the persecution of so-called witches happened". That is the premise of the movie, and as horrific as that persecution was - 8 million women, and some men and children, were put to death in Europe over the course of about 300 years - the depictions of these scenarios in the film are presented in a Grand Guignol way (over the top) and with a knowing, 20th Century Eye. He is saying - and he actually says - that this genocide was all due to superstition.
It was all due to the underlying male fear of women, too, which he hints at but does not come right out and declare. Remember, this is 1922. For a more overt declaration of this topic, read "Sleeping Beauties", the current bestseller by Stephen and Owen King. The reasons why many men - not all - have a latent or even outright (but never spoken) fear of women is a complex and knotty subject, way too complicated to get into tonight, but it has to do mainly with desire, and the fact that women have the final say on the desire issue, and also - this is huge too - that generally speaking, women are not violent nor prone to aggression by nature.
I know there are exceptions. Please remember I said "generally speaking". Women do not start wars. They do not form Gangs. They have not created the Dominant Power Structures that have delivered us into the modern ways of civilisation we find ourselves in.
Men fear women because women seem to be, on the surface at least (and I suspect way under the surface as well) to be more practical, more level-headed.
More in control of themselves than men are.
Now remember that I am not talking about all men. But you know what kind of men I am taliking about, and there are a lot of those guys in the world. And they are the ones that are always the cause of all the aggravation we humans experience.
Men "lose it". They cannot control their emotions. And all too often, they get violent.
Women can "lose it" too, and often do. But as the Kings point out in their brilliant story, women who wind up in prison are often there because they found themselves in situations in which they were forced to react, in one way or another, to a violent man.
I could go on at length, but the hour prevents. And lest you think that I am merely writing all of this to earn Brownie Points with the female population, I say, as I always do, please do the research for yourself.
We are multifaceted creatures, we humans, we men and women. We've got a little bit of each other in each of us, meaning a male and female side. I am speaking mainly of the overall wide scale of Human Emotions that we all experience.
But a lot of men are Dumbed Down in their emotions. That has been the American Way (and the European Way and the Asian Way and the African Way and the Whole World Way) since Time Immemorial.
Women, on the other hand, seem to understand their emotions intuitively.
Men could too, if they would just listen to themselves and pay attention.
I am probably way off on a tangent, and I won't know until I read this blog back in the morning.
As you know. however, I have long supported giving women a chance to run things. Not just as President, but in the whole way that Things Are Run.
Not as figureheads, with powerful men behind them, "advising them".
But as a Majority, with their own ideas about how the world could work.
Why not, right? Women are half of the Human Race. And as we can see, what we've got going now isn't working, period.
That's all I know for tonight, except to say to Elizabeth that I saw your post this morn, and not only was it a classic Sweet Baby photo, but you are my Sweet Baby as well. :):)
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