The Wall Street Journal - 31.10.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Thursday, October 31, 2019 |A

Certain ones spring to mind im-

mediately, “The Phantom of the Op-

era” (1925) starring Lon Chaney chief

among them. But there’s also

Chaney’s version of “The Hunchback

of Notre Dame” (1923) and a version

of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1920)

starring the stage legend John Barry-

more. The list goes on. Strictly speak-

ing, many of these pictures—based

on bestselling, now classic, novels—

are as much melodrama as horror,

but to viewers in our time they strike

a distinctly unnerving chord.

Yet at least one terrifying silent

emerges from a very different place:

the Philip Roth Personal Library,

said CFNJ President Hans Dekker.

Mr. Dekker said the organization

hasn’t yet received those funds,

some of which are expected to

come from the sale of Mr. Roth’s

homes. He isn’t certain of the ex-

act amount, but said he expects it

to be “significant.”

Mr. Roth didn’t leave all of his

estate to Newark entities; it

couldn’t be learned exactly how he

allocated the rest of his money.

His will left all of his assets in a

trust, which isn’t publicly avail-

able. The executor of his estate,

Perley H. Grimes, didn’t respond to

requests for comment.

Mr. Roth did leave “a substan-

tial amount” to the John Simon

Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,

said Joel Conarroe, a longtime

friend of Mr. Roth and former

president of the foundation, which

had awarded Mr.

Roth a Guggen-

heim Fellowship

in 1959. The roy-

alties from Mr.

Roth’s book sales

will go to the

Guggenheim

Foundation, said

people with

knowledge of Mr.

Roth’s bequests.

Edward

Hirsch, the cur-

rent president of

the foundation,

declined to say

specifically how

much money Mr.

Roth left to the

organization, but

said it will be used for fellowships

like the one Mr. Roth received.

The twice-divorced Mr. Roth,

who had no children and was pre-

deceased by his parents and older

brother Sandy, also left bequests

to friends and other people in his

life, friends said.

Mr. Roth’s total estate is esti-

mated at about $10 million, ac-

cording to people with knowledge

of his holdings. The novelist’s

condo on Manhattan’s Upper West

Side, plus other units he owned in

the building, were sold by the es-

tate earlier this year for a total of

roughly $5.2 million. His Connecti-

cut estate, which spans about 150

acres in rural Warren, is on the

market for $2.925 million with

Klemm Real Estate. Some 130

pieces of his furniture and other

possessions from the Connecticut

house sold at auction in July for a

total of roughly $100,000, includ-

ing one of Mr. Roth’s typewriters

for $17,500, said Tom Curran, vice

president Litchfield Auctions.

The grandchild of immigrants

who fled the pogroms of Eastern

Europe, Mr. Roth in his books

painted an idyllic—and sometimes

comic—picture of Newark’s We-

equahic neighborhood, where he

grew up, as a bustling, tightknit en-

clave of lower-middle-class but up-

wardly mobile Jews. After one year

of college at Rutgers–Newark, he

transferred to Bucknell University

in Pennsylvania. He never lived in

Newark again. Yet the city of his

childhood loomed large in his writ-

ing. Parts of his first and last books,

“Goodbye, Columbus” in 1959 and

2010’s “Nemesis”—and many in be-

tween—were set in Newark.

“He had left Newark, but in

some ways he never left Newark,”

said the writer

Judith Thurman,

a member of Mr.

Roth’s literary

circle of friends.

“It was home to

his imagination.”

Raised in a

household where

books were a lux-

ury, Mr. Roth as

a child frequently

rode his bike to

the library and

filled the basket

with novels, says

Claudia Roth

Pierpont, a friend

and author of the

book “Roth Un-

Bookshelves in Mr. Roth’s home in rural Warren, Conn. bound: A Writer

PHILIP ROTH, the Pulitzer Prize-

winning novelist, quietly arranged

to give at least $2 million of his

estimated $10 million estate to the

Newark, N.J., public library before

his death last year.

Friends say he intended his be-

quest to aid not just the library

but the struggling city, where he

grew up and which featured prom-

inently in his writing. Before he

died, the Newark Public Library

announced that Mr. Roth had de-

cided to give it his personal book

collection. But his accompanying

financial donation—and the plans

for its use—haven’t previously

been reported.

The author of novels including

“Portnoy’s Complaint” and “Ameri-

can Pastoral” set up a $2 million

endowment to benefit the library’s

general collections, according to

the library’s director. Mr. Roth left

another pot of funds—described as

“significant”—that the library can

use for purposes including sup-

porting the new Philip Roth Per-

sonal Library, a room in the main

library building that is being reno-

vated to house his roughly 7,000-

volume collection. Friends say Mr.

Roth hoped the gifts would draw

tourists and scholars to Newark.

“He definitely wanted to contrib-

ute to keeping Newark revitalized

and relevant,” said Julia Golier, a

longtime friend of Mr. Roth and the

co-literary trustee of his estate.

“There’s a view that in addition to

contributing to people who live in

Newark, that this would attract lit-

erary tourists and festivals.”

The author had great affection

for his hometown but was aware of

its challenges: He chronicled the

city’s 1967 riots in the Pulitzer

Prize-winning “American Pastoral,”

and “felt that Newark was a place

that had suffered a great, historical

fall,” said Blake Bailey, who is writ-

ing an authorized biography of Mr.

Roth. With his bequests, “Philip

wanted to do his part to bring New-

ark back. This was the single most

significant gesture he could make.”

According to Newark Public Li-

brary Director Jeffrey Trzeciak,

Mr. Roth left a $2 million endow-

ment to benefit the library with

the Community Foundation of New

Jersey, which manages charitable

trusts. Each year the library will

receive interest from the endow-

ment, which the author instructed

should be used to purchase books

and other materials for the li-

brary’s general collections, but not

capital projects, Mr. Trzeciak said.

In February the library will receive

the first installment, which is ex-

pected to be about $80,000.

“Our library sometimes strug-

gles to buy all the books people

want,” said Mr. Trzeciak, adding

that Mr. Roth “did his homework”

and “he knew that our budget was

quite low for books.” Mr. Roth’s

gift amounts to 12% to 14% of what

the library usually spends per

year. “It was very generous,” said

Mr. Trzeciak. “You can buy a lot of

books for $80,000 per year.”

Mr. Roth also left funds with

CFNJ that can be used at the dis-

cretion of the library for any pur-

pose other than capital projects,

said Mr. Trzeciak. One potential

use could be hiring curators for

BYCANDACETAYLOR and His Books.” Later, as a college

student at nearby Rutgers, Mr.

Roth went to the main library on

Washington Street in between

classes to read and study.

For Mr. Roth, it was devastating

to observe Newark’s decline in the

1960s and 1970s, Dr. Golier said. Af-

ter the riots, “he felt that what he’d

known was destroyed. It upset him

so much,” said Ms. Pierpont.

Though Newark is still strug-

gling with a host of problems,

downtown Newark is seeing new

investment from real estate devel-

opers. In 2017 a Whole Foods

opened in the long-vacant Hahne &

Company building on Broad Street.

A few months ago Audible, the au-

diobook company owned by Ama-

zon, opened new offices in a re-

stored historic cathedral only a

few blocks from the main branch

of the Newark Public Library.

When Mr. Roth first proposed

donating his books to the library a

few years ago, library trustee

Rosemary Steinbaum said she

knew right away “it would be a

fabulous opportunity for both the

library and the city.” Already there

is a Philip Roth Lecture Series,

held at the library every year since

2016, which has drawn hundreds

of people to Newark, she said.

Mr. Roth had specific instruc-

tions for how he wanted the library

to handle his personal book collec-

tion. He gave the library three years

from the time of his death to ready

the space where they will be

housed, and even selected the room

himself—a roughly 1,000-square-

foot, high-ceiling space.

He specified that none of the

funds he left for the library’s bene-

fit were to be used for the renova-

tion of the space, which was previ-

ously a storage room. The process

of renovating it has already

started and is expected to cost be-

tween $1.5 million and $2 million,

funded largely through individual

gifts, Mr. Trzeciak said.

The Philip Roth Personal Li-

brary will be divided into two sec-

tions. One side will be used for ro-

tating exhibits pertaining to Mr.

Roth, and the other, where the

books from his collection will be

displayed, will be for study and re-

search. (Another Roth specifica-

tion: No photographs may be taken

of the materials—notes must be

taken by hand and smartphones

checked at the door.) Plans call for

Mr. Roth’s favored Eames chair to

be displayed in this space along

with the long wooden table he

used for meals with friends at his

house in Connecticut.

The books in Mr. Roth’s collection

vary widely, from first-edition cop-

ies of his own works to camping

books he used for research while

writing “Nemesis.” Many have Mr.

Roth’s underlining, notes in the mar-

gins, or sticky notes or other pieces

of paper jammed into the pages.

“It’s an important collection for

the second half of the 20th cen-

tury,” said Ms. Steinbaum, noting

that thanks to all the notes and

marginalia, “we can see the work-

ing of his mind.”

Mr. Conarroe, Mr. Roth’s long-

time friend, said he wasn’t sur-

prised to learn that Mr. Roth was

donating his books to the Newark

library. “He was sending them

home,” he said. “That was home.” FROM TOP: BOB PETERSON/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; PETER ROSS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WHEN IT COMES to Halloween

frights on screen, some people like

them bloody, while others prefer

their terrors strictly psychological.

Some insist on black-and-white

(“The Bride of Frankenstein,” any-

one?), and others must have vivid

color (“The Shining,” say). Then

there are those—count this writer

among them—who find nothing

more cinematically chilling than a

horror film sans sound, the all-im-

portant background music notwith-

standing.

Benjamin Christensen’s “Häxan”

(1922), which is virtually unclassifi-

able and wholly unforgettable. The

movie, whose title translates to “The

Witch” in Swedish, has been available

on DVD for years. But it was recently

restored in 2K and is now available

on a stunning Blu-ray from Criterion.

Whereas the previous, perfectly ade-

quate, transfer was in black-and-

white, the new one, undertaken by

the Swedish Film Institute in 2018, is

tinted per Christensen’s notes—

mainly sepia but also blue

for the outdoor night

scenes. The print’s sharp-

ness and lack of blemishes

allow for distraction-free

viewing, something all too

rare in films of this vintage.

If you’ve never heard of

Christensen, it’s largely be-

cause the passage of time

has dimmed his once-bright

star. A Dane born in 1879,

he achieved success in his

native land as well as in

Sweden and the U.S., where

he directed Chaney in

MGM’s “Mockery” (1927).

His background can only be termed

motley—he was variously a medical

student, an opera singer, a stage ac-

tor, a Champagne importer, a film ac-

tor and, finally, a motion-picture di-

rector.

He was also inordinately inter-

ested in witchcraft. Not in the sense

of practicing the dark arts, but

rather in seeking to understand

what prompted members of Western

societies in the early modern era to

turn against their neighbors, accuse

them of the most outlandish acts,

and, in many cases, seek to bestow

on these unfortunates the penalties

of torture and a ghastly death.

Christensen had hoped to interest

scholars in his work, but he could

find none who would agree to write

a film script. (It would be years be-

fore academia embraced the cine-

matic arts.) So with no one else to

turn to, he himself wrote “Häxan”

(pronounced HEX-in), following

years of research.

The picture, Christensen’s third

feature, earns its notoriety mainly

for its intricate amalgam of fantasy

(witches, demons, and the like) and

realism (depictions of squalor, in-

struments of physical torture, etc.).

And though “Häxan” is no documen-

tary as we understand the term to-

day, its technical rigor gives the ma-

cabre subject matter a patina of

authenticity, strongly suggesting that

we are watching “actual footage” of

both witchery and the religious prac-

tices used to thwart it. (The director

himself, in heavy makeup, plays the

devil with disturbing effectiveness

and uncanny glee.)

Such meticulous imagery remains

the movie’s great glory, and for that

Christensen must share kudos with

Johan Ankerstjerne and Richard

Louw, the cinematographer and set

decorator, respectively. The film’s

structure, though, may confound

present-day viewers. Divided into

seven chapters, “Häxan” starts as an

illustrated lecture (don’t blink or

you’ll miss a necessary title card),

evolves into an erratic historical nar-

rative, and then jumps to the present

(that is, 1920s Europe), where the be-

havior of so-called witches is linked

to the “modern” malady of hysteria.

Though Christensen’s film is sui

generis, it has exerted considerable

influence. It was popular enough to

enjoy rerelease in 1941, for

which Christensen, who died

in 1959, supplied a newly

filmed introduction. And in

1968, its 105 minutes were

trimmed to 76 and retitled

“Witchcraft Through the

Ages,” with an appended

narration delivered by no

less than William S. Bur-

roughs, whose Midwestern

monotone provides a curi-

ous counterweight to Chris-

tensen’s frightening tab-

leaux. An incongruous jazz

score by the drummer Dan-

iel Humair only adds to the

weirdness. Both Christensen’s intro-

duction and the recut version of the

film (still in black-and-white and not

restored in 2K) are included in this

edition.

Fans of Robert Eggers’s taut and

unsettling “The Witch” (2015)—an-

other movie worth watching on Hal-

loween—may wonder what beyond

title and subject matter it shares

with Christensen’s picture. It’s

tempting to suggest that the newer

work’s exquisitely composed shots

and commitment to detail link it to

“Häxan.” Whatever the case, one

thing is clear: That old black magic

still has us in its spell.

Mr. Mermelstein writes for the

Journal on film and classical music.

BYDAVIDMERMELSTEIN

THE CRITERION COLLECTION (2)

FILM REVIEW

Season of the Witch

Scenes from Benjamin Christensen’s

‘Häxan’ (1922), above and left, which

recently was restored in 2K and is now

available on Blu-ray from Criterion.

Philip Roth’s

$2 Million Library Gift

The writer, who grew up in Newark, N.J., quietly arranged to bequeath a

large portion of his estate to the Newark Public Library before he died

Novelist Philip Roth

in his hometown of

Newark, N.J., in 1968.

LIFE & ARTS