Ben Van Meter

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

Personal diary-style documentary of German Gay rights activist Von Praunheim's sojourn in the US.

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War. Part of the protest festival Week of the Angry Arts, the epic compilation film incorporated minute-long segments which were sent from many corners of the country, spliced together and projected. The original presentation of the works was more of an open forum with no curation or selection, and in 2000 Anthology Film Archives preserved a print featuring around 40 films from over 60 submissions.

Alexandra Jackonetti recounts the building of a children's playground of macrame in Bolinas, Calif., including her conception of the project and the process of obtaining community financial support, knotting of macrame, and erection of the structure.

The shadowing forth of Our Lord Lucifer, as the Power of Darkness gather at a midnight mass. The dance of the Magus widdershins around the Swirling Spiral Force, the solar swastika, until the Bringer of Light—Lucifer—breaks through.

Bay Area filmmakers and Canyon Cinema co-founders Ben Van Meter and Bruce Conner were invited to L.A. to talk about Underground Film on the Art Linkletter Show.

A color sound meditation on the erstwhile Warhol superstar.

This film follows a young man's adventures from his arrival in the big city, till he passes out in an apartment having been kidnapped and abandoned by 5 voluptuous hippie maidens.

Magic is alive and living in Bolinas. A folkfilm, a personal poem about my family and my town. Includes "Bear-Hunt," Bolinas 4th of July," "Rummage," "Oilspill," "Horseplay," "Lila's Birthday," and "Benjamin's Bath." Rated "G" by me. Suitable for home, church, school, and film society. A patriotic, devotional homemovie. Completed August 1971.

Hilariously terrifying satire of an interrogation session by the thought police.

Filmed and sound recorded at the Human Be-In during the summer of love, 1967.

Created in 1968 by Robert Comings and Ben Van Meter in Bolinas, CA. Original sound & music performed on homemade acoustic instruments. Including a very funky clavichord with numerous drone strings, gongs were found pipes. Script is based on: "The Book I Always Reach For But Never Find" by Boc Ging. This film was created before any digital equipment was available to the general public. Some sections of the film were embellished with dyes by hand. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.

The Poon Tang Trilogy (1964, B/W, sound) is a brief film composed of three 3-minute segments: in the first tableau, footage of the Hindenburg disaster is projected on the nude body of a young woman; in the second section, Civil Rights protesters are dragged away into police vans to the accompaniment of the '50s r&b hit "I Just Love Your Sexy Ways"; in the final portion of the film, another young woman attempts to remove a floating black bar which seeks to obliterate from the spectator's gaze various portions of her anatomy.

Rathyahatra Festival San Francisco 1970.

Van Meter had three camera rolls of 7242 Ektachrome EFB, which he fully ran through his camera each day of the 3-day Trips Festival. The end result was three 100 ft. rolls of film that each had been triple exposed in-camera, each layer of exposure representing a day of the festival. Aside from just two or three necessary structural edits, Ben spliced the three rolls together essentially unedited. This was then set to a soundtrack that was achieved in roughly the same manner, via triple layering of sound he recorded throughout the festival; He calls the film “a documentary of the Trips Festival from the point of view of a goldfish in the punch bowl.”

Make Love, Not War, or Brown Rice, uses three projectors, and takes advantage of all the possibilities. Similar images with different superimpositions combined with single images or different images, images which appear simultaneously or recur at different times on alternate screens. The film mixes live location with studio shots, newsreel footage with set-up scenes, like one of a big boat which was built in the studio, filled with pretty girls and then floated on a lake in Golden Gate Park.

One of the most powerful, thought-provoking collage films produced during the New American Cinema Movement. Almost schizophrenic in its kaleidoscopic barrage of images, this film dynamically conveys the bewilderment, frustration, annoyance, and anger of the modern generation in a stream-of-consciousness audio-visual onslaught of superimpositions. Produced by one of the leaders of the San Francisco New American Cinema Movement and a top producer of light shows.

A film exposing the staged commodification and banality of the American "beauty contest" with color overlays of fireworks in reverse-motion. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011.

Colored lights and lovely ladies. Snatches of kinetic beauty.

Experimental documentary about the San Francisco scene.