Experimental short, featuring strobe-like homoerotic imagery with several shots of the Rolling Stones in performance and an original synthesizer score by Mick Jagger. –IMDb
Kenneth Anger is an independent filmmaker and author. He claims to have appeared as the child prince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), but Warner Brothers production reports and casting sheets conclusively document that a little girl, child actress Sheila Brown, actually played the role. Anger did, however, begin making films at an early age. Most of his films are short experimental works, ranging from 3.5-30 minutes. His career has been recognized with life achievement awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics, the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Silverlake Film Festival, the Mar del Plata Film Festival, and the Maya Deren Award for Experimental Film/Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Among other notable honors, he received the Poetic Film Prize at Festival du Film Maudit in Biarritz, France in 1949, which was presented by Jean Cocteau. Anger’s work has screened around the world, including at the Institut Francais de Vienne in Austria, the Galerie… read more
I don't study film, I'm just a curious kid. One day I came across Kenneth Anger's works by accident and watched his following films: "Fireworks", "Scorpio Rising", "Lucifer Rising" and this one, which I find BY FAR his worst. I think it looks unjustifiably slovenly (real crappy) and - I wouldn't say pretentious... -moronically audacious, let's put it this way. I'm sorry, can someone please explain the genius in this?
The sort of images he created on film have greatly inspired modern masters like David Lynch and John Waters- people who have borrowed from him selectively and done it better. So, if you go back to Anger's original work and look at it out of context, it feels hokey and strange. I get that. I haven't seen anything by Anger yet that's moved me greatly, but I see why he's been inspiring to others. Certainly he's of interest.
And if I'd only been a little more attentive, I would've noticed the additional audio track on the DVD, a brilliant piece by The Magick Powerhouse of Oz that was never intended to accompany the film, yet suits it infinitely better than Jagger's Moog improvisation.
The exhibition Kenneth Anger: Icons is on view in Los Angeles through February 27.
"Cinema has always been suffused with magic," writes Brecht Andersch, outlining some of the thoughts behind Bay Area Ecstatic, an evening of
