Kenneth Anger

Known for DirectingBorn 1927-02-03Died 2023-05-11Santa Monica, California, USA

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.Read more

Movies & web series

The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume Two

The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume One

365 Day Project

Busby Berkeley: Going Through the Roof

Senators in Bondage

Tinsel Tree

Anger Me

Escape Episode

Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat

He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life

24 Hour Sunset

Magick Lantern Cycle

Ich will!

Babylon

The Nest

Prisoner of Mars

Hedy Lamarr: Secrets of a Hollywood Star

Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story

Don't Smoke That Cigarette

Birth of a Nation

Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon

FLicKeR

Rabbit's Moon

Missoni

Mouse Heaven

Lucifer Rising

Rescued from the Closet

Jonas in the Desert

Scorpio Rising

Anton LaVey: Into the Devil's Den

The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin

Disinfo.Con

Eaux d'Artifice

Rabbit's Moon

Brush of Baphomet

The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome

Kustom Kar Kommandos

Invocation of My Demon Brother

The Man We Want to Hang

Notes on Marie Menken

Kenneth Anger: Film as Magical Ritual

My Surfing Lucifer

Fireworks

Arabesque for Kenneth Anger

Puce Moment

42 One Dream Rush

Langlois

The Beach Boys and The Satan