Kenneth Anger | |
|---|---|
 Anger in 2019 | |
| Born | Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer (1927-02-03)February 3, 1927 Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Died | May 11, 2023(2023-05-11) (aged 96) Yucca Valley, California, U.S. |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1937–2010s |
| Movement | Avant-garde cinema |
| Awards | Maya Deren Award (1996) |
Kenneth Anger (bornKenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an Americanundergroundexperimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning in 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle".[1] Anger's films variously mergesurrealism withhomoeroticism and theoccult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle".[2] He has been called "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers",[3] with several films released beforehomosexuality was legalized in the U.S. Anger also exploredoccult themes in many of his films; he was fascinated by the English occultistAleister Crowley and an adherent ofThelema, the religion Crowley founded.
Anger was born into a middle-classPresbyterian family inSanta Monica, California. He began making short films when he was 14 years old, although his first film to gain any recognition was the homoeroticFireworks (1947). The work's controversial nature led to his trial on obscenity charges, but he was acquitted. A friendship and working relationship subsequently began with pioneeringsexologistAlfred Kinsey. Moving to Europe, Anger produced a number of shorts inspired by theavant-garde scene there, such asEaux d'Artifice (1953) andRabbit's Moon (1971).
Returning to the U.S. in the early 1950s, Anger began work on several new projects, including the filmsInauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954),Scorpio Rising (1964),Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), and the gossip bookHollywood Babylon (1965). The latter became infamous for various dubious and sensationalist claims, many of which were disproved, though some remainurban legends.[4] Getting to know several notablecountercultural figures of the time, Anger involved them in his subsequent Thelema-themed works,Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) andLucifer Rising (1972). After failing to produce a sequel toLucifer Rising, which he attempted through the mid-1980s, Anger retired from filmmaking, instead focusing onHollywood Babylon II (1984). In the 2000s he returned to filmmaking, producing shorts for various film festivals and events.
Anger described filmmakers such asAuguste and Louis Lumière,Georges Méliès, andMaya Deren as influences,[5] and has been cited as an important influence on directors likeMartin Scorsese,[6]David Lynch,[7] andJohn Waters.[8]Kinsey Today argued that Anger had "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."[2] The distinctive aesthetics of music videos, defined by a new visual vocabulary, reflect Kenneth Anger’s use of surreal and occult imagery, as well as his focus on mood, primary colors, symbolism, and unconventional narrative forms.[9][10]
Kenneth Anger was born as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer on February 3, 1927, inSanta Monica, California. His family wasPresbyterian, but he became more interested in theoccult.[11] His father, Wilbur Anglemyer, was ofGerman ancestry and was born inTroy, Ohio, while his disabled mother, Lillian Coler (the older of the pair), hadEnglish ancestry. Anger's parents met atOhio State University and after marrying had their first child, Jean Anglemyer, in 1918, followed by a second, Robert "Bob" Anglemyer, in 1921. That year they moved to Santa Monica to be near Lillian's mother, Bertha Coler, who had recently moved there. There Wilbur got a job as an electrical engineer atDouglas Aircraft, earning enough money that they could live comfortably as a middle-class family.[12]
Kenneth Anger, their third and final child, was born in 1927. Growing up, he did not get along with his parents or siblings. His brother Bob later claimed that as the youngest child, Kenneth had been spoiled by his mother and grandmother and became somewhat "bratty". His grandmother Bertha was a strong influence on the young Kenneth and supported the family financially during theGreat Depression. It was she who first took Kenneth to the cinema, to see adouble bill ofThe Singing Fool andThunder Over Mexico. Bertha encouraged his artistic interests and later moved into a house inHollywood with another woman, Miss Diggy, who also encouraged Kenneth.[13] He developed an early interest in film and enjoyed reading the movie tie-inBig Little books. Kenneth later said, "I was a child prodigy who never got smarter."[14] He remembered attending the Santa Monica Cotillion, where he metShirley Temple, with whom he once danced.[15]
Anger claimed inHollywood Babylon II that he played the Changeling Prince in the 1935Warner Brothers filmA Midsummer Night's Dream, but the character was played by a girl named Sheila Brown.[16] Anger's unofficial biographer, Bill Landis, remarked in 1995 that the Changeling Prince was definitely "Anger as a child; visually, he's immediately recognizable".[17]
Anger's first film was created in 1937, when he was ten years old. The short,Ferdinand the Bull, was shot on the remains of16 mm film that had been left unused after the Anglemyers had madehome movies with it on a family vacation toYosemite National Park. InFerdinand the Bull, which has never been made publicly available, Kenneth dressed as amatador, wearing a cape, while two of his friends from theBoy Scouts played the bull.[18] His second work, created when he was 14, wasWho Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941),[19] which Anger has often called his first proper film. It was made from footage of children playing during the summer, accompanied with popular songs by bands including theInk Spots. The next year, he produced another amateur film,Prisoner of Mars, which was heavily influenced byFlash Gordon. In this science fiction-inspired feature, in which he played the protagonist, Anger added elements taken from theGreek mythological myth of theMinotaur and constructed a smallvolcano in his back yard as a homemadespecial effect.[19] Many of these early films are consideredlost, with Anger burning much of his previous work in 1967.[20]
I've always considered movies evil; the day that cinema was invented was a black day for mankind.
In 1944, the Anglemyers moved to Hollywood to move in with family, and Kenneth began attendingBeverly Hills High School. It was here that he met Marilyn Granas, who had once been the stand-in forShirley Temple, and he asked her – alongside another classmate and an older woman – to appear in his next film project, which was ultimately titledEscape Episode. Revolving partially around the occult, the picture was filmed in a "spooky old castle" in Hollywood and was subsequently screened at theCoronet Theatre in Los Angeles.[citation needed] Around this time, Anger also began attending screenings ofsilent films at Clara Grossman's art gallery, through which he met a fellow filmmaker,Curtis Harrington, with whom he formed Creative Film Associates (CFA).[22] Harrington is said to have introduced Anger to the work of English occultistAleister Crowley.[23] Crowley's philosophy ofThelema exerted a profound influence on Anger's career. CFA was founded to distributeexperimental or "underground" films, such as those ofMaya Deren andJohn andJames Whitney, as well as Anger's and Harrington's.[24]
Anger's interest in the occult deepened in high school. He first indirectly encountered the subject through readingL. Frank Baum'sOz books as a child, with their accompanyingRosicrucian philosophies. He was also interested in the works of the Frenchceremonial magicianEliphas Levi, as well asSir James Frazer'sThe Golden Bough,[25] although his favorite writings were Crowley's; he eventually converted to Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.[26]
Anger discovered his homosexuality at a time whenhomosexual acts were illegal in the United States, and he began associating with the underground gay scene. At some point in the mid-1940s, he was arrested by police in a "homosexualentrapment", after which he decided to move out of his parents' home, gaining his own apartment largely financed by his grandmother,[27] and abandoning the name Anglemyer in favor of Anger.[28] He started attending theUniversity of Southern California (USC), where he studied cinema, and also began experimenting with the use of mind-altering drugs likecannabis andpeyote.[29] It was then that he decided to produce a film that would deal with his sexuality, just as other gay avant-garde filmmakers likeWillard Maas were doing in that decade. The result was the short filmFireworks, which was created in 1947 and exhibited publicly in 1948.[30]
UponFireworks's release, Anger was arrested onobscenity charges.[31] He was acquitted after the case went to theSupreme Court of California, which deemed the film art, not pornography.[32] Twenty years old when he madeFireworks, Anger claimed to have been 17, presumably to present himself as more of anenfant terrible.[33][34] Ahomoerotic work lasting only 14 minutes, the film revolves around a young man (played by Anger) associating with various navy sailors, who eventually turn on him, stripping him naked, beating him to death, and ripping open his chest to find a compass inside. Several fireworks then explode, accompanied by a burningChristmas tree. The final shot shows the young man lying in bed next to another shirtless man. Of this film, Anger said in 1966: "This flick is all I have to say about being 17, theUnited States Navy, American Christmas and thefourth of July."[35] He continuously altered and adapted the film until 1980. It was distributed onVHS in 1986.[36]
One of the first people to buy a copy ofFireworks was thesexologistAlfred Kinsey of theInstitute for Sex Research. He and Anger struck up a friendship that lasted until Kinsey's death, during which time Anger aided Kinsey in his research. According to Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis, Kinsey became a "father figure" whom Anger "could both interact with and emulate."[37] In 1949, Anger began work on the filmPuce Women, which unlikeFireworks was filmed in color. It starred Yvonne Marquis as a glamorous woman going about her daily life; Anger later said: "Puce Women was my love affair with Hollywood ... with all the great goddesses of the silent screen. They were to be filmed in their homes; I was, in effect, filming ghosts."[38] Due to lack of funding, only one scene was ever produced, eventually released under the titlePuce Moment. That same year, Anger directedThe Love That Whirls, a film based onAztec human sacrifice; because of the nudity it contained, it was destroyed by technicians at the film lab who deemed it obscene.[39]
In 1950, Anger moved to Paris,France, where he initially stayed with friends of his who had been forced to leave Hollywood after beingblacklisted for having formerly belonged to trade union organizations.[40] He later said he traveled to Paris after receiving a letter from the French directorJean Cocteau in which he told Anger of his admiration forFireworks (shown in 1949 at Festival du Film Maudit inBiarritz). Upon Anger's arrival, the two became friends, with Cocteau giving him his permission to make a movie of his balletThe Young Man and Death, although at the time the project had no financial backers.[41] In Paris, Anger continued producing short films; in 1950 he started filmingRabbit's Moon (also known asLa lune des lapins), about a clown who stares up at the Moon, where a rabbit lives, as inJapanese mythology. Anger produced 20 minutes of footage at the Films du Pantheon Studio before he was rushed out of the building, leaving the film uncompleted. He stored the footage in the disorganized archives of theCinémathèque française and retrieved it in 1970, when he finally finished and released the film.[42][43] Cinémathèque française headHenri Langlois gave Anger prints ofSergei Eisenstein'sQue Viva Mexico!, which he attempted to put into Eisenstein's original order.[44]
[D'Este was] a sexualpervert. There are very few things I call sexual perversion, but he liked to fuck goats, and that is technically a perversion.
In 1953, Anger traveled toRome, Italy, where he planned to make a film about the 16th-century occultistCardinal d'Este. To do so, he began filming at the garden of theVilla d'Este inTivoli, in which a lady in 18th-century dress walked through the gardens, which featured many waterfalls (an allusion to the fact that d'Este allegedly sexually enjoyedurination),[45] accompanied by the music ofVivaldi.[46] This was supposed to be only the first of four scenes, but the others were not made; the resulting one-scene film was titledEaux d'artifice. Landis remarked, "It's one of Anger's most tranquil works; his editing makes it soft, lush, and inviting.Eaux d'Artifice remains a secretive romp through a private garden, all for the masked figure's and the viewer-voyeur's pleasure."[47]
In 1953, soon after the production ofEaux d'Artifice, Anger's mother died, and he temporarily returned to the U.S. to assist with the distribution of her estate. During this return, he began to once more immerse himself in California's artistic scene, befriending the filmmakerStan Brakhage, who had been inspired byFireworks. The two collaborated on a film, but it was confiscated at the film lab for obscenity and presumably destroyed.[48] Around this time, two of Anger's friends, the coupleRenate Druks andPaul Mathison, held a party with the theme "Come As Your Madness"; Anger attended dressed indrag as the ancient Greek goddessHekate. The party and its many costumes inspired Anger, who produced a painting of it, and asked several of those who attended to appear in a new film he was creating,Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.[49]Inauguration, which was created in 1954, is a 38-minutesurrealist work featuring many Crowleyan and Thelemite themes, with many of the various characters personifying variouspagan gods such asIsis,Osiris, andPan. One of the actresses in the film wasMarjorie Cameron, the widow ofJack Parsons, the influential American Thelemite who had died a few years earlier. Anger played Hekate.[50] He subsequently exhibited the film at various European film festivals, winning the Prix du Ciné-Club Belge and the Prix de l'Age d'Or, as well as screening it in the form of a projectedtriptych atExpo 58, theWorld Fair held inBrussels in 1958.[51]
In 1955, Anger and Kinsey traveled to the derelictAbbey of Thelema atCefalù in Sicily to film a short documentary,Thelema Abbey. Crowley had used the abbey for hiscommune during the 1920s, and Anger restored many of the erotic wall paintings that were found there, as well as performing certain Crowleyan rituals at the site. The documentary was made for the British television seriesOmnibus, but was later lost.[26][52] The next year, after Kinsey's death, Anger decided to return to Paris; he was described at the time as being "extremely remote and lonely".[53]
In desperate need of money, Anger andghostwriterElliott Stein wrote a book,Hollywood Babylon, in which he compiled gossip about celebrities, some of which he claimed (with no corroboration or citing of sources) he had been told, including thatRudolph Valentino liked to play a sexually submissive role to dominant women; thatWalt Disney was addicted toopiates (reflected in the character ofGoofy, who's perpetually stoned on cannabis); and the nature of the deaths ofPeg Entwistle andLupe Vélez. The work was not published in the U.S. initially, and was first released by the French publisherJean-Jacques Pauvert.[54] A pirated (and incomplete) version was printed in the U.S. in 1965, with the official American version not published until 1974. In response to a lawsuitGloria Swanson filed against Anger and his publishers, he sent her a foot-long, sugar-filled coffin with "Here lies Gloria" painted on the lid and lined with a paper printed withHebrew letters spelling "shalom". The coffin is preserved at theUniversity of Texas Harry Ransom Center collection.[55] After obtaining some financial backing from the publication ofHollywood Babylon, his next film project wasThe Story of O; it was essentially a piece of erotica loosely based on thenovel of the same name featuring a heterosexual couple engaged insadomasochistic sexual activities, although it refrained from showing any explicit sexual images.[56]
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In 1961, Anger once more returned to the U.S., where he lived for a time with Marjorie Cameron.[57] He began work on a new feature,Scorpio Rising, about thebiker subculture. For this, he employed a biker named Richard McAuley, and filmed him and some of his friends messing around, adding to it scenes of McAuley, or "Scorpio" as he became known, desecrating a derelict church. Anger incorporated more controversial visuals into the piece, includingNazi iconography, nudity, and clips of the life ofJesus Christ taken from the Family Films'The Living Bible: Last Journey to Jerusalem, images of Jesus which are intercut with those of Scorpio. The film has a soundtrack of popular 1960s songs, including "Blue Velvet" byBobby Vinton, "Torture" byKris Jensen, and "I Will Follow Him" byLittle Peggy March.[58] Anger called the film "a death mirror held up to American culture ...Thanatos in chrome, black leather, and bursting jeans."[59] It immediately became popular on the underground cinema scene but was soon brought to court on obscenity charges. The jury ruled in favor of the prosecutors andScorpio Rising was banned; the ban was overturned on appeal to theCalifornia Supreme Court.[60]
Now living in San Francisco, Anger approached theFord Foundation, which had just started a program of grants to filmmakers. He showed the foundation his ideas for a new artistic short,Kustom Kar Kommandos, which they approved of, giving him a grant of $10,000.[61] Anger spent much of the money on living expenses and alterations to some of his films, so that by the time he actually createdKustom Kar Kommandos, it was only one scene long. The homoerotic film involved various shots of a young man polishing a drag strip racing car, accompanied by a pink background andThe Paris Sisters' song "Dream Lover". Soon after, Anger struck a deal that allowedHollywood Babylon to be officially published for the first time in the U.S., where it proved a success, selling two million copies during the 1960s. Around the same time Anger also translatedLo Duca'sHistory of Eroticism into English for American publication.[62]
The mid-1960s saw the emergence of thehippie scene and increasing use of the mind-altering drugs Anger had been using for many years. In particular, thehallucinogenLSD, at the time still legal in the U.S., was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version ofInauguration of the Pleasure Dome he called the "Sacred Mushroom Edition", which was screened to people while taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience.[63] By this time, Anger had become well known in the American underground scene, and several cinemas screened his better-known films all in one event.[64] With his growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity much as his idol Crowley had done, for instance calling himself "the most monstrous moviemaker in the underground", a pun on the fact that British tabloids had labeled Crowley "the wickedest man in the world" in the 1920s.[65]
Anger's underground fame allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, includingAnton LaVey, the founder of theChurch of Satan, who named Anger godfather to his daughterZeena Schreck.[66] Despite their differing philosophies, Anger and LaVey became good friends and remained so for many years. But Anger also resented some celebrities, such asAndy Warhol, who at the time was achieving success not only in the art world but also in the underground film scene.[67] In 1980, Anger threw paint on the front door of a house Warhol had recently moved out of.[68]
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In 1966, Anger moved into the ground floor of theWilliam Westerfeld House, a large 19th-centuryVictorian house in San Francisco also known as the "Russian Embassy".[69] Around this time he began planning a new film,Lucifer Rising, echoing his Thelemite beliefs about the emergingAeon of Horus. He tattooed Lucifer's name on his chest and began searching for a young man who could symbolically become Lucifer, "the Crowned and Conquering Child" of the new Aeon, for the film. While living at the Russian Embassy, he met and lived with various young men who could fill the role, eventually settling onBobby Beausoleil.[70] Beausoleil founded a band, the Magic Powerhouse of Oz, to record the film's soundtrack.[71] In 1967, Anger said the footage he had been filming forLucifer Rising had been stolen, accusing Beausoleil, who denied it. Landis quotes Beausoleil as saying, "[W]hat had happened was that Kenneth had spent all the money that was invested inLucifer Rising" and that he therefore invented the story to satisfy the film's creditors.[72] Beausoleil and Anger fell out, with the former getting involved withCharles Manson and theManson Family. Beausoleil later tortured and murderedGary Hinman in a drug robbery gone wrong, for which he is serving a life sentence as of 2023.[73]
In the October 26, 1967, issue ofThe Village Voice, Anger publicly reinvented himself by placing a full-page ad declaring, "In Memoriam. Kenneth Anger. Filmmaker 1947–1967". He soon publicly reappeared, this time to claim he had burned all of his early work.[74] The next year he traveled to London, where he first metJohn Paul Getty Jr., who became Anger's patron, and also met and befriendedMick Jagger andKeith Richards, members ofThe Rolling Stones,[75] as well as actress/modelAnita Pallenberg.[76] Anger decided to use much of the footage created forLucifer Rising in a new film,Invocation of My Demon Brother, which starred Beausoleil, LaVey, Jagger, Richards, and Anger, the music for which was composed by Jagger. It was released in 1969 and explored many of the Thelemic themes Anger had originally intended forLucifer Rising.[77] AuthorGary Lachman believes the film "inaugurat[ed] themidnight movie cult at theElgin Theatre."[78] The story of the film, its making, and the people involved inspiredZachary Lazar's novelSway.[79][80]
Having used up much of the footage originally intended forLucifer Rising inInvocation of My Demon Brother, Anger made a second attempt to completeLucifer Rising. He persuaded the singer and actressMarianne Faithfull to appear in the film, and unsuccessfully tried to convince Jagger to playLucifer; instead he offered his brother Chris the part.[81] Anger subsequently filmed eight minutes of film and showed it to the BritishNational Film Finance Corporation, which agreed to provide £15,000 for Anger to complete it – something that caused a level of outrage in the British press. With this money he could afford to fly the cast and crew to bothWest Germany and Egypt for filming.[82]
Anger befriendedLed Zeppelin guitaristJimmy Page around this time, the two sharing a great interest in Crowley. At Page's invitation, he traveled to Page's new home inScotland, Crowley's former residenceBoleskine House, to help Page exorcise the building of what Page believed to be a headless man's ghost.[83] Page agreed to produce the soundtrack forLucifer Rising,[84] and used the editing suite in his London home to shape the music.[85] Anger later fell out with Page's partner, Charlotte, who kicked him out of the house. In retaliation he called a press conference in which he ridiculed Page and threatened to "throw a Kenneth Anger curse" on him.[86] Page's music was dumped from the film and replaced in 1979 by music written and recorded by the imprisoned Beausoleil, with whom Anger had reconciled.[87]
[Lucifer is] a teenage rebel. Lucifer must be played by a teenage boy. It's type-casting. I'm a pagan and the film is a real invocation of Lucifer. I'm much realer thanvon Stroheim. The film contained real black magicians, a real ceremony, real altars, real human blood, and a real magic circle consecrated with blood and cum.
Meanwhile, Anger, who had moved to a small apartment onManhattan'sUpper East Side, took the footage he had filmed forRabbit's Moon in the 1950s, finally released the film in 1972, and again in a shorter version in 1979. Around the same time he also added a new soundtrack toPuce Moment and rereleased it.[89] Also around this time, the publisher Marvin Miller produced a low-budget documentary film based onHollywood Babylon without Anger's permission, which upset Anger and led to a lawsuit.[90] Anger also created a short film,Senators in Bondage, available only to private collectors and never made publicly available. He had plans to make a film about Aleister Crowley titledThe Wickedest Man in the World, but this project never got off the ground.[91]
In 1981, a decade after starting the project, Anger finally finished and released the 30-minuteLucifer Rising. Based upon the Thelemite concept that mankind had entered a new period known as the Aeon of Horus,Lucifer Rising was full of occult symbolism, starring Miriam Gibril as theancient Egyptian goddessIsis,Donald Cammell as her consortOsiris, Faithfull as Jewish mythological figureLilith, and Leslie Huggins as Lucifer. Anger once again appeared in the film, as the Magus, the same role he played inInvocation of My Demon Brother.[92]
Soon after the release ofLucifer Rising, aPBS documentary about Anger and his films,Kenneth Anger's Magick, was made. It was directed by Kit Fitzgerald, who later recalled interviewing Anger in hisManhattan apartment on a very hot July evening, during which he revealed that he was so broke that he had been forced to sell his air conditioner.[93] Anger himself considered producing other films that would continue on fromLucifer Rising in a series, and he began calling his finished filmPart I: Sign Language, to be followed by two further parts.[88] But those projects were never finished, and Anger did not produce any further films for nearly two decades. In need of money, he releasedHollywood Babylon II in 1984, as well as continuing to screen his films at various festivals and universities and continuing to attempt to produceLucifer Rising II; around this time he began wearing an eyepatch to these public events, likely due to having been beaten up and getting a bruised eye, a story he told in various interviews, although partly changing the assailant in various versions.[94]
A notorious incident occurred when Anger was invited to appear onCoca Crystal's television show in 1984. Upon arriving at the studio he demanded that somebody pay for his taxi ride there, and when they refused, he attacked talent coordinator Maureen Ivice and tried to drag her into his taxi before she was rescued by other members of staff. Anger reportedly escaped the scene by flinging a $100 bill at the cab driver and screaming, "Get me out of here!"[95]
In 1986, Anger sold the video rights to his films, which finally appeared onVHS, allowing them to have greater publicity. The next year, he attended theAvignon Film Festival in France, where his work was being celebrated in commemoration of the 40th anniversary ofFireworks. Soon thereafter, he appeared inKenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, aBBC documentary directed byNigel Finch for theArena series. In 1991, he moved to West Arenas Boulevard inPalm Springs, California, living in what was formerly the estate of his friendRuby Keeler, where theBritish Film Institute sent Rebecca Wood to assist him in writing a never-produced autobiography.[96] Instead, in 1995, Bill Landis, who had been an associate of Anger's in the early 1980s, wrote an unofficial biography of him. Anger condemned Landis's book, calling Landis "an avowed enemy".[97]
In 1993, Anger visitedSydney and lectured at a season of his films at theAustralian Film Institute Cinema. In an interview given at the time toBlack and White magazine,[98] he said he was staying inKing's Cross and putting the finishing touches on the final treatment of a feature film about Australian artist and occultistRosaleen Norton. This project was unrealized.[99]
In 2000, Anger began screening a new short film, the anti-smokingDon't Smoke That Cigarette, followed a year later byThe Man We Want to Hang, which comprised images of Crowley's paintings that had been shown at a temporary exhibition inBloomsbury, London. In 2004, he began showingAnger Sees Red, a short surrealistic film starring himself, and the same year also began showing another work,Patriotic Penis.[100] Anger soon followed this with a flurry of other shorts, includingMouse Heaven, which consisted of images ofMickey Mouse memorabilia;Ich Will!; andUniform Attraction, all of which he showed at various public appearances.[101] Anger's final project wasTechnicolor Skull, with musicianBrian Butler, described as a "magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance", in which Anger plays the theremin and Butler plays the guitar and other electronic instruments amid a psychedelic backdrop of colors and skulls.[102]
Anger made an appearance inNik Sheehan's 2008 feature documentary aboutBrion Gysin and theDreamachine,FLicKeR.[103] He also appeared alongsideVincent Gallo in the 2009 short filmNight of Pan, written and directed by Brian Butler.[104] In 2009 his work was featured in a retrospective exhibition at theMoMA PS1 in New York City,[105] and the next year a similar exhibition took place in London.[31]
Anger finished writingHollywood Babylon III but did not publish it, fearing severe legal repercussions if he did. Of this, he said: "The main reason I didn't bring it out was that I had a whole section onTom Cruise and theScientologists. I'm not a friend of the Scientologists."[31] Despite withholding legal action against the highly critical 2015 filmGoing Clear, theChurch of Scientology is known to sue those making accusations against it.
In 2019, he became the subject of the documentary shortCinemagician - Conversations with Kenneth Anger, by Swedish author and filmmaker Carl Abrahamsson, which features some of his last recorded interviews.[106]
Anger died at a care facility inYucca Valley, California, on May 11, 2023, at the age of 96. The announcement of his death was delayed until May 24 while his estate was being settled.[107][108]
Several recurring themes can be seen in Anger's cinematic work. One of the most notable ishomoeroticism, first seen inFireworks (1947), which was based on Anger's own homosexual awakening and featured various navy officers flexing their muscles and a white fluid (often thought to symbolizesemen) pouring over the protagonist's body. There is similar homoerotic imagery inScorpio Rising (1963), which stars a muscled, topless, leather-clad biker, andKustom Kar Kommandos (1965), where a young man sensually polishes a car, with close-up shots of his tight-fitting jeans and crotch. Images of naked men also appear inInvocation of My Demon Brother (1969), where they are eventually filmed wrestling, andAnger Sees Red (2004), in which a muscled, topless man performs press-ups.
Another recurring theme in Anger's films is the occult, particularly the symbolism of his own esoteric religion, Thelema. This is visible inInauguration of the Pleasure Dome,Invocation of My Demon Brother, andLucifer Rising, all of which are based on the Thelemite concept of the Aeon of Horus and feature actors portraying pagan gods. Anger linked the creation of film to the occult, particularly the practice ofceremonial magic, something of which Crowley had been a noted practitioner. Anger once said, "making a movie is casting a spell."[109]
One of the central recurring images in Anger's work is flames and light;Fireworks has various examples, including a burningChristmas tree. This relates to Lucifer, a deity to whom Anger devoted one of his films, whose name isLatin for "light bearer".[110]
In many of his films, heavy use is made of music, both classical and pop, to accompany the visual imagery. InScorpio Rising he makes use of the 1950s/1960s pop songs "Torture" by Kris Jensen, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March, and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton. He first used music to accompany visuals in the 1941 workWho Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat?, which uses tracks by theMills Brothers.[40] His use of popular music to accompany his films has been cited as a key influence on the development of music videos andMTV, although he stated his dislike for the music video industry. On one occasion the bandCombustible Edison asked Anger to direct a video to accompany its song "Bluebeard"; he declined, believing that while music could be used to accompany film, it was pointless to do it the other way around.[40]
If you are a member of the media, you belong to the public. You've made thatFaustian bargain with your public. Take me – all of me – I'm yours.
Anger was known for his reclusive nature and had been called an "extremely private individual",[97] although he gave various interviews over the years, including one with Rocco Castoro ofVice.[117][118][note 1] In such interviews, he refused to discuss his name change from Anglemyer to Anger, telling one interviewer: "You're being impertinent. It says 'Anger' on my passport. That's all you need to know. I would stay away from that subject if I were you."[33] But in a 2010 interview, he said: "I just condensed my name. I knew it would be like a label, a logo. It's easy to remember."[31]
Anger once joked that he was "somewhat to the right of theKKK" in his views about black people,[119] opening him up to criticism for racism, though some theorize it was a "Crowley-esque joke".[119] He supported theTibetan independence movement.[120]
Anger was a Thelemite and belonged to the main Thelemic organization,Ordo Templi Orientis.[121][122] He viewed many of the men he associated with as living embodiments of Lucifer, a symbol of the Aeon of Horus in Thelemic philosophy, and had his own name inked onto his chest with the Lucifer tattoo.[120] Anger showed an interest in various other religious movements, particularly those that related in some way to occultism. For instance, he was a lifelong friend of Anton LaVey from before the founding of the Church of Satan in the 1960s, even living with him and his family during the 1990s.[123] LaVey also appeared in Anger'sInvocation of My Demon Brother as a devilish priest. Anger called himself apagan and did not consider himself aSatanist.[31] He has calledWicca a "lunar", feminine religion in contrast to Thelema's "solar" masculinity.[120]
| Date | Title | Length | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Ferdinand the Bull | Lost film | |
| 1941–42 | Tinsel Tree | 3 mins. | A silent black-and-white film that Anger personally hand tinted with gold-scarlet over the flames. It featured aChristmas tree being dressed in decorations, before being shown stripped and bare and set on fire.[124] |
| 1942 | Prisoner of Mars | 11 mins. | A silent black-and-white film that mixes futuristic science fiction with the ancient Greek myth of theMinotaur. The plot revolves around a character, The Boy Elect from Earth, played by Anger himself, who is sent in a rocket toMars where he finds himself in alabyrinth filled with the bones of other adolescents sent there in the past.[125] |
| 1943 | The Nest | 20 mins. | A silent black-and-white film in which a brother (played by Bob Jones) and sister (Jo Whittaker) are examining mirrors when a third figure (Dare Harris), causes them to act violently against one another, before a magical rite takes place in which the sister's binding spell is destroyed by the brother.[126] |
| 1944 | Demigods (Escape Episode) | 35 mins. | A silent black-and-white film based upon the ancient Greek myth ofAndromeda, in which a girl (Marilyn Granas) is imprisoned within a seaside crumblingNeo-Gothic church guarded by a religious fanatic (Nora Watson), till she is saved by a boy representingPerseus (Bob Jones).[127] |
| 1945 | Drastic Demise | 5 mins. | A silent black-and-white work filmed by Anger in Hollywood onV-J Day. Consisting of footage of a celebratory crowd, it ends with an image of a nuclearmushroom cloud.[127] |
| 1946 | Escape Episode | 27 mins. | A shortened version ofDemigods (Escape Episode), it featuresScriabin'sThe Poem of Ecstasy alongside the sounds of birds, wind and surf.[127] |
| 1947 | Fireworks | 15 mins. | Filmed in black and white, it is ahomoerotic work seen through the eyes of the protagonist, played by Anger himself. |
| 1949 | Puce Moment | 6 mins. | Filmed in color, starring Yvonne Marquis as a celebrity in her home, and featuring music by Jonathan Halper,Puce Moment lasted only one scene and portrays her examining her dresses and perfume.[128] |
| 1949 | The Love That Whirls | unknown | Influenced byJames Frazer's anthropological textThe Golden Bough, it was set in theAztec civilisation, and featured a youth who was chosen to be king for a year before being ritually sacrificed. The film was subsequently destroyed at the Eastman-Kodak developing plant, who objected to its theme and nudity.[128] |
| 1950 | Rabbit's Moon | 16 mins (1971) 7 mins (1979) | Filmed in 35 mm, it is set in a small wooded glade where a clown stares up at the moon, in which a rabbit lives. |
| 1951–52 | Les Chants de Maldoror | unknown | Based upon the 1868 novel byIsidore Ducasse,Les Chants de Maldoror, only test shots were produced, in which he employed members of the Marquis de Cuevas ballet.[129] |
| 1953 | Eaux d'Artifice | 12 mins. | A short, monochromatic film appearing in dark blue, with only one moment of color – a woman opens a fan that glows in bright green. The woman appears in a gown stretching from neck to toe, wearing dark glasses and a feathered headdress. Water flows throughout, from fountains, and suggestively through the mouths and over the faces of statuary. Fluids sensually pulse and flow, reminiscent of sexual climax. In the end the woman steps from a door seemingly from the side of a fountain, and is herself transformed into water. The film is set to the music ofVivaldi's Winter Movement fromthe Four Seasons. |
| 1953 | Le Jeune Homme et la Mort | unknown | Based upon the ballet byJean Cocteau, this silent black-and-white film starred Jean Babilee as a young man and Nathalie Philipart as Death. It was a 16 mm pilot designed to be used to raise funds to produce a 35 mm Technicolor version, but the funding for this never materialized.[130] |
| 1954 | Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome | 38 mins. | |
| 1955 | Thelema Abbey | 10 mins. | A short, black-and-white documentary onAleister Crowley'sAbbey of Thelema in Sicily, which examined many of the exotic frescoes, a study in which Anger was assisted by sexologistAlfred Kinsey.[129] |
| 1961 | L'Histoire d'O | 20 mins. | Based uponPauline Réage's 1954 novel,L'Histoire d'O, it revolved around thesado-masochistic sexual activities of a heterosexual couple. Anger would later relate that the money provided for the film had been a part of the ransom paid to the kidnappers of Eric Peugeot, heir to thePeugeot car company fortune.[131] |
| 1963 | Scorpio Rising | 29 mins. | |
| 1965 | Kustom Kar Kommandos | 3 mins. | In color, set to the tones of "Dream Lover" byThe Paris Sisters, several handsome young men stand admiringly over the chassis of a souped-uphot rod. A young man slowly works the chamois over the chrome and paint of the machine. The young man now smartly dressed in matching pastel blue gets behind the wheel and begins to work the controls. Finally the engine revs and the car rolls away.[citation needed] |
| 1969 | Invocation of My Demon Brother | 12 mins. | In color, with anelectronic score byRolling Stones lead singerMick Jagger. The film features an array ofoccult symbols and activities, including aSatanic funeral for a cat.Demon Brother also includesAnton LaVey as a priest,newsreel footage of theVietnam War, and clips ofThe Rolling Stones' July 1969 free concert in London'sHyde Park, their first public appearance after the death ofBrian Jones and their first performance withMick Taylor. Also shown in the concert footage are Jagger's then-girlfriend and pop singerMarianne Faithfull andKeith Richards' wife, actressAnita Pallenberg.Demon Brother is mostly assembled from footage for Anger's original version ofLucifer Rising, including scenes of futureManson Family associateBobby Beausoleil in the titular role. |
| 1970–1980 | Lucifer Rising | 29 mins. | |
| 1976 | Senators in Bondage | Announced, but never produced[132] | |
| 1977 | Matelots en Menottes | Announced, but never produced[132] | |
| 1979 | Denunciation of Stan Brakhage | 7 mins. | Announced, but never produced[132] |
| 2000 | Don't Smoke That Cigarette! | 45 mins. | |
| 2000 | Hollywood Babylon | 4 mins. | Co-directed withNico B. |
| 2002 | The Man We Want to Hang | 12 mins. | Images of artworks by or related to Aleister Crowley with music byAnatol Liadov |
| 2004 | Anger Sees Red | 4 mins. | Comprises footage of a muscled man, who identifies himself only as "Red", walking through a park and sunbathing, at which he is seen by Anger himself, who is also in the park, before subsequently returning home.[citation needed] |
| 2004 | Patriotic Penis | ||
| 2005 | Mouse Heaven | 11 mins. | Amontage of rareMickey Mouse memorabilia, accompanied by a soundtrack of pop songs.[133] |
| 2007 | Elliott's Suicide | 15 mins. | |
| 2007 | I'll Be Watching You | 5 mins. | |
| 2007 | Green Hell | 4 mins. | |
| 2007 | My Surfing Lucifer | 4 mins. | Usingfound footage, we are introduced to the short life ofBunker Spreckels,Clark Gable's stepson and surfing legend.[134] |
| 2008 | Foreplay | 7 mins. | |
| 2008 | Ich Will! | 35 mins. | |
| 2008 | Uniform Attraction | 21 mins. | |
| 2009 | Brush of Baphomet | 1 min. | |
| 2009 | Death | 42 secs. | Part of the42 One Dream Rush project, commissioned by42 Below Vodka.[135] |
| 2010 | Missoni | 2 mins. 32 secs. | |
| 2013 | Airships | 9 mins. |
| Year | Title | Other |
|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Hollywood Babylon | Anger's most famous work. This book is about the sordid rumors he heard about Hollywood celebrities while living in Los Angeles. |
| 1961 | A History of Eroticism | An introduction toLo Duca's book. |
| 1970 | Atlantis: The Lost Continent | An introduction to Aleister Crowley's book. |
| 1984 | Hollywood Babylon II | The sequel ofHollywood Babylon. Featuring scandals from after the first book was published. |
| 2001 | Suicide in the Entertainment Industry | With David K. Frasier. |
| 20?? | Hollywood Babylon III | Written and completed but never published.[31] According to Anger, the book was finished by 2010 but its release was cancelled owing to accusations against actorTom Cruise and other practitioners ofScientology[31] and that because he criticized Scientology in that chapter, he faced a certain lengthy and costly lawsuit from its official organization, theChurch of Scientology, which arenotoriously litigious, if it was ever published. Another book,Hollywood Babylon: It's Back! written by Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince was published in 2008 and purported to be part III of theHollywood Babylon series. However, Anger had no involvement with it whatsoever. Indeed, Anger was so upset with this unauthorized work that he used his Thelema magick to curse Porter and Prince.[136] |
The night before his dinner at the Foundlings, Anger received the Maya Deren award for independent film and video artists from the American Film Institute in New York "a Tiffany crystal star and $5000. ...
Kenneth Anger -- who receives the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award on Sunday [April 22, 2001] ...
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| International | |
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