Kenneth Anger
Directing
Biography
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer; February 3, 1927 - May 11, 2023) was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which in particular have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle," and form the basis of Anger's reputation as one of the most influential independent filmmakers in cinema history. His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle." Anger himself has been described as "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner," and his "role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise, is impossible to overestimate." Some of his particularly homoerotic works, such as Fireworks (1947) and Scorpio Rising (1964), were produced prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley, and is a follower of Crowley's religion, Thelema. This influence is evident from films like Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972). Anger has described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters.He has also been described as having "a profound impact on the work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative." During the 1960s and 70s he associated and worked with a number of different figures in popular culture and the occult, including Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, artist Jean Cocteau, playwright Tennessee Williams and musicians Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Marianne Faithfull. He is also the author of the controversial best seller Hollywood Babylon (1959) and its sequel Hollywood Babylon II (1986), in which he claims to expose many of the rumours and secrets of Hollywood celebrities. Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenneth Anger, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters in an era of unbridled decadence and depravity during Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s.
Babylon
SexTV is a Canadian documentary television series which explores many issues about human sexuality. The show premiered in 1998 and spun off a television channel called SexTV: The Channel in 2001. The series uses two Leonard Cohen songs, "Everybody Knows" and "Ain't No Cure for Love", as theme music.
SexTV
In 1960, Brion Gysin invented the Dream Machine, a hypnotic light device with the power to induce hallucinations, drugless highs, and revolutionize human consciousness. It looks simple enough; a 100-watt light bulb, a motor, and a rotating cylinder with cutouts. Just sit in front of it, close your eyes, and wait for the visions to come. The Dream Machine enthralled mystics and freethinkers everywhere; Kurt Cobain had a dream machine, and William S. Burroughs thought it could be used to “storm the citadels of enlightenment.” With a custom-made Dream Machine in tow, director Nik Sheehan takes us on a journey into the life of Brion Gysin; his art, his complex ideas, and his friendships with some of the most eccentric counter-cultural icons. Taking the Dream Machine as the basis of its explorations, FLicKeR asks crucial questions about the nature of art and consciousness, and imagines a humanity liberated to explore its creativity in complete freedom.
FLicKeR
An omnibus project bringing together acclaimed directors from around the world, each contributing a 42-second short inspired by a dream. Produced by 42 Below vodka, the collection blends surreal, poetic, and experimental visions into a mosaic of oneiric cinema.
42 One Dream Rush
Rescued from the Closet is a 2001 documentary consisting of interviews originally recorded for the 1995 film The Celluloid Closet. It explores the history and impact of LGBT representation in cinema, providing insights into the portrayal and evolution of LGBT characters and themes within the film industry.
Rescued from the Closet
About the last two years of movie goddess Jayne Mansfield’s life and the speculation swirling around her untimely death being caused by a curse after her alleged romantic dalliance with Anton LaVey, head of the Church of Satan.
Mansfield 66/67
Guy Maddin, who has been nicknamed the Canadian David Lynch, is undoubtedly one of the last remaining Magi of cinema. Despite living in the middle of the digital age, this heretical director hailing from the snowy plains of Canada has spent 25 years transposing the uncommon and the uncanny onto screens over-saturated with naturalistic imagery. A lover of primitive cinema, he has cunningly summoned the light-and-shadow techniques and experimentations of the Golden Age of film to resuscitate a unique cinematographic language which plays with the spectator’s unconscious by means of visual trickery as disturbing as it is absurd. In an attitude as playful at that Maddin’s films this documentary follows the mediumistic experiments of this master of illusion, filmed during the ‘’spirit’’ shootings he presented in Europe.
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
A biography of Darryl F. Zanuck, mogul and the power behind 20th Century Fox throughout the Golden Age.
Darryl F. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker
The story of the short film from the beginning of the movies in the 1890s, when all movies were shorts, through the 1950s when short subjects virtually disappeared from theaters.
Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story
Lord Shiva wakes. A convocation of magicians in the guise of figures from mythology; a masquerade party at which Pan is the prize. The wine of Hecate is poured: Pan's cup is poisoned by Shiva. Kali blesses the assembly as a bacchic rite ensues.
The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
A Japanese fairy tale meets commedia dell'Arte. All in white, the naïf Pierrot lies in a wood. Doo-wop music plays as he rises, stares about, and reaches for the moon. Although music abounds and the children of the wood are there at play, Pierrot is melancholy and alone. Harlequin appears, brimming with confidence and energy. He conjures the lovely Colombina. Pierrot is dazzled. But can the course of true love run smooth?
Rabbit's Moon
This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.
365 Day Project
A gang of bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.
Scorpio Rising
Documentary portrait of Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.
Langlois
Not a documentary in the strictest sense of the word. Rather, it is a journey through the world of the artist Jonas Mekas - one of the exponents of independent U.S. movies; founder and director of the New York Anthology Film Archive.
Jonas in the Desert
Covering the second half of Anger's career, from his legendary SCORPIO RISING to his breathtaking phantasmagoria LUCIFER RISING, Fantoma is very proud to complete the cycle with this long-awaited final volume of films by this revolutionary and groundbreaking maverick, painstakingly restored and presented on DVD for the first time anywhere in the world. Contains the films: Scorpio Rising (1964) Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965) Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) Rabbit's Moon (1979 version) Lucifer Rising (1981)
The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume Two
This faux cautionary documentary features film clips and often humorous softcore reenactments of several notorious celebrity sex scandals from the golden age of Hollywood.
Hollywood Babylon
A German documentary that explores the darker side of the Beach Boys, primarily focusing on Brian Wilson and the Pet Sounds album, with detours to the Manson Family.
The Beach Boys and The Satan
A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger was a unique figure in post-war American culture. His iconic short films are characterised by a mystical-symbolic visual language and phantasmagorical-sensual opulence that underscores the medium’s transgressive potential. Anger’s work fundamentally shaped the aesthetics of 1960s and 1970s subcultures, the visual lexicon of pop and music videos and queer iconography. These nine films form the basis of Anger’s reputation as one of the most influential pioneers of avant-garde film and video art. Fireworks, 1947, 14 min Puce Moment, 1949, 6 min Rabbit's Moon, 1950/1971, 16 min Eaux d'Artifice, 1953, 13 min Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954, 37 min Scorpio Rising, 1964, 28 min Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, 3 min Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, 11 min Lucifer Rising, 1981, 27 min