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kenneth anger by Alex Burns (alex@disinfo.com) - December 16, 2000 |
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| When most contemporary film-critics think of underground cinema, Kenneth Anger's unique vision quickly springs to mind. Anger is mentioned in the same breath as Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, and his canon are perennial film school student case-studies. Anger has had a major impact on avant-garde film artists and major-league film directors like Derek Jarman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francis Ford Coppola ('Apocalypse Now'), David Lynch ('Blue Velvet') and Martin Scorcese ('Mean Streets'). 'Fireworks' (1947) established Anger's reputation as a 'living myth' (Mike O'Pray), when the seventeen year-old film-maker shot moody homo-erotic footage during a weekend whilst his parents were away. The intense poetic images within 'Fireworks' attracted the attention of Maya Deren and Jean Cocteau. 'Rabbit's Moon' (1950) and 'Eaux D'Artifice' (1953) cemented Anger's critical reputation. 'Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome' (1954-56), featuring Anais Nin and Marjorie Cameron (wife of 'Antichrist-Superstar' Jack Parsons) established Anger's trademark hallucinogenic and hypnotic visual style. The film introduced magus Aleister Crowley's 'Thelema' philosophy, and was perhaps influenced by Anger's re-discovery of Crowley's abbey at Cefalu, Sicily. 'Inauguration' subsequently influenced Roger Corman's Edgar Allen Poe series. Similar atavistic visions dramatically underpinned the seminal 'Scorpio Rising' (1963), which captured the hedonistic rituals and Thanatos-worship of rock music and motorcycle youth culture. Fore-shadowing the 'evil glamour' associated with Hells Angels and Harley Davidson motor-cycles, Anger's paeon perfectly nailed the transition from the Piscean to Aquarian Age. Serving as a stylistic counter-point to Andy Warhol's Pop Art, 'Scorpio Rising' contained subtle mythological sub-texts deeply embedded into the imagery. 'Kustom Kar Kommando' (1965) was to explore these themes further, but Anger instead focused upon what was to become his most notorious project: 'Lucifer Rising.' When his collaborator Bobby Beausoleil buried the original footage in Death Valley, Anger cursed him. Beausoleil was later implicated in the Manson murders. With the assistance of Mick Jagger (moog soundtrack) and Church of Satan High Priest Anton Szandor LaVey, Anger transmuted the surviving footage into the multi-layered 'Invocation Of My Demon Brother' (1969), revealing Sergei Eisenstein's influence, and serving as 'Depth Psychologist' to the MTV music film-clip generation. Rarely out of the public eye through his involvement with the March on the Pentagon and association with many celebrities, Anger received wider attention with the 1975 English publication of 'Hollywood Babylon', a detailed expose of the Hollywood star system's lurid underbelly of sex, drugs, psychosis, and death. First published in France in 1959 (dog-eared bootleg copies had circulated for years), the best-selling 'Hollywood Babylon' is an immaculately researched and memorable study of gossip-mongering. A sequel followed, but Anger was forced to later sell the title for an exploitative documentary that he has subsequently distanced himself from. A revised version of 'Lucifer Rising'(1980) continued Anger's Cinema of the Sensual, with sublime invocations of Isis, Astarte, and Lilith ('demonic feminine' archetypes). Despite recent recognition from the 'Institute of Contemporary Arts', Anger's recent projects have been plagued by continuing financial problems. Publisher E.P. Dutton dropped the planned 'Hollywood Babylon 3' project, and Anger was ruthlessly audited by the I.R.S. His current films include a version of Aleister Crowley's 'Gnostic Mass' to be made with the co-operation of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O). Anger's multi-layered aesthetics appeal to wide audiences who are often unfamiliar with his poetic imagery sources. The core 'Magick Lantern' canon has been preserved by 'Mystic Fire Video' distributors. Kenneth Anger truly deserves the title of 'Magus of Cinema' (American Film Institute). |
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Artist Page: Kenneth Anger Kinokaze: Kenneth Anger Whence Came The Stranger Look Back At Anger Voyager: The Beat Experience Kenneth Anger Kustom Film Kommando The Magick Musick Museum The Third Degree: Words With Anger White Wolf Records: Lucifer Rising Soundtrack Details Kenneth Anger: The Magus of Cinema Film's Worst Nightmare? Pixel Perfect Films Catharton Communities: Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger@IMDB Cosmic Baseball Association: Kenneth Anger Mystic Fire Video: Kenneth Anger Bio Magick Lantern Cycle Kenneth Anger Interviews Harvard Independent Film Group: Time Must Have A Stop Disinfo TV: Kenneth Anger Disinfo TV: Kenneth Anger: Aleister Crowley |
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