Connaissez-vous quelque chose de plus outrageusement fécal que l'histoire de dieu et de son être: Satan [...]? Do you know anything more insultingly fecal than the history of god and of his being: Satan? - Antonin Artaud, Théâtre de la cruauté

Whether he is ha-Sataan (הַשָׂטָן) the accuser, or el-Shaytan (الشيطان) the adversary, Satan is a figure or construct that embodies an infamous opposition: the grand antagonism not between man and God, but between man and himself, man and his own mettle, man and his own passion, wants, dreams and temptations. And as man's passions change, along with his wants, dreams and temptations, so does Satan artistically, for just as God created man in his image, so do we, us humans, us actors in a constant historical drama, create Satan. Thus, the history of Satan in film is a history in flux, a history of man—and partaking in an archeology of Satan's depictions in film entails excavating man and his fears, wants, passions, dreams and temptations. The freeze-frames and digital clips complied here, capturing Satan the powerful, Satan the sexy, Satan the crafty, intend to serve as excavations of just that. Be he depicted as the black-clad, bat-like man of Murnau's Faust and Bergman's The Seventh Seal, the sexy femme fatale of Buñuel's Simón del desierto and the kitschy Bedazzled, the powerful politico of The Devil's Advocate and The Omen series, or the androgynous temptress of The Passion of the Christ, Satan, in all his film forms, serves as an ironic rhetorical figure—a bringer of a certain light, a certain capitalist gospel now almost too cliché and paradoxical for strategic moral utility. As he advertises Hurley's bedazzling bouncing parts, essentially that which his supposed lesson intended to shun, he constitutes biblical Jobs sans lack, modern subjects full of fetishized want: want of flesh, wealth, fame and power. After all, is it not the want that is wanted now? Is it not the will to be able to be famous, to have the chance to win — a will fueled by the democratization of fame, the explosion of instant notoriety — that drives those to shame and scandal? Indeed, the consumer dreams of being Faust and lusts for the fleeting luxury that foreshadows the fall. We want Satan for Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Faust (1926)

.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

.

Simón del desierto (1965)

.

The Omen (1976)

.

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

.

Bedazzled (2000)

.

Passion of the Christ (2004)