Kenneth Anger
Also Known As: ケネス・アンガー, 케네스 앵거, Kenneth Anglemyer
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.
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: Santa Monica, California, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: February 03, 1927
Age: 98 years old
Gender: Male
Deathday: May 11, 2023
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Known For:
24 Hour Sunset
Overview: This film portrait of a new kind is a deep dive into the heart of the art scene of Los Angeles. From a ride on Sunset Boulevard in a convertible car at the sunrise, going through a lunch with the art dealer Patrick Painter and a visit to Peter Shire's studio... Having a beer and a deep talk with Paul McCarthy, calling Raymond Pettibon stuck in New-York or searching for Ed Ruscha in bars.... From Ariana Papademetropoulos opening exhibition to the visit of a car wreck with Umar Raschid... From the old house of Cary Grant to the dodgy underground of Downtown passing through Eugenio Lopez's private art collection on the Hollywood hills... Through intimate conversation, 24 Hour Sunset gives us access to the thoughts, inspirations and practice of legendary artists, world famous art dealers, appraised curators and collectors, as well as the young up coming scene of artists living in Los Angeles.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2023-09-01
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Lucifer Rising
Overview: Egyptian gods summon the angel Lucifer, in order to usher in a new occult age.
Genres: Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-04-10
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Fireworks
Overview: A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a 'light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-12-31
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Disinfo.Con
Overview: Disinfo.Con contains an amazing 4 hours of footage from The Disinformation Company's massive counterculture event in New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom. New York hadn't seen anything like this since the Nova Convention in 1978 which saw Frank Zappa, Patti Smith and others anoint William Burroughs as king of the counterculture. A quarter century later Disinformation's keynote speakers Richard Metzger and Douglas Rushkoff ushered in a dizzying, day-long array of performances ranging from sword-swallowing to sanskrit chanting, interspersed with lectures and conversations with counterculture luminaries like Mondo 2000 founder R.U. Sirius, industrial music progenitor Genesis P-Orridge, Grant Morrison, Robert Anton Wilson, theorists, performance artists and others from the extremes of popular culture. Nothing beats actually experiencing an event like this in the flesh, but this DVD comes pretty close to capturing the spirit of the counterculture as we lurch into the 21st century.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-02-20
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FLicKeR
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-07-14
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The Rolling Stones - The First 20 Years
Overview: Documentary about the first 20 years of the Rolling Stones with interviews and a lot of rare archive footages all over the world, pictures, TV and live songs 1962-1982 ("Satisfaction", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Time Is On My Side" and many more). Hosted by punk star Nina Hagen. Interviews of Mick Jagger, his brother Chris, his father Joe, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Ron Wood, Ian Stewart, Bianca Jagger, Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithfull, Rod Stewart, Wendy O'Williams (from the Plasmatics), Diana Ross and Bill Graham (manager).
Genres: Music Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1982-01-01
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Anger Me
Overview: Elio Gelmini interviews Avantgarde filmmaker Kenneth Anger. With archive footage of Angers films, he portrays the filmmaker from his childhood until present day.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-10-23
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Darryl F. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker
Overview: A biography of Darryl F. Zanuck, mogul and the power behind 20th Century Fox throughout the Golden Age.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: nl
Release Date: 1995-09-03
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The Dead
Overview: "The Dead became my first work in which things that might very easily be taken as symbols were so photographed as to destroy all their symbolic potential. The action of making The Dead kept me alive." Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with The Film Foundation in 2013.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1960-12-31
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He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Overview: A film collage tracing the story of the lives, loves, and deaths within the artistic community surrounding Jonas Mekas.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-02-22
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Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
Overview: Filmed at the Alhambra in Spain in just one day, according to Marie Menken. Arabesque for Kenneth Anger concentrates on visual details found in Moorish architecture and in ancient Spanish tile. The date 1961 refers to the addition of Teiji Ito's soundtrack and its subsequent completion, but the film was likely shot in 1960 or earlier. - David Lewis
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-12-29
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Hedy Lamarr: Secrets of a Hollywood Star
Overview: "Secrets of a Hollywood Star" is another documentary made after "Calling Hedy Lamarr" in 2006. It features interviews with Hedy's friends in both Europe and Hollywood and her film/studio partners.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-01-21
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The Spells of Kenneth Anger
Overview: - "The Spells of Kenneth Anger" was shot in Hollywood in July, 2003. Anger gives an overview of his life and we see clips of his many films. He touches on his run-in with Charles Manson, being influenced by Alistair Crowley, working with Marianne Faithful, and he shows us his favorite place in LA: the Hollywood cemetary.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2003-10-14
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72 Hours In André Balazs’ Chateau Marmont With Kenneth Anger
Overview: On LA’s iconic Sunset Boulevard and inside the glamorous rooms of Chateau Marmont, Floria Sigismondi shot Kenneth Anger for an additional special edition for System Magazine.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2018-12-25
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The Beach Boys and The Satan
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-10-17
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The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2015-09-08
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Added Attractions: The Hollywood Shorts Story
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-02-05
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Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon
Overview: Reenactments of passages from the controversial Kenneth Anger collection of tawdry gossip about the golden age of Hollywood.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-04-05
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Night of Pan
Overview: A magician encounters the void that separates the human mind from divine consciousness and in turn faces the mad god.
Genres: Mystery Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-03-09
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42 One Dream Rush
Overview: Collection of short films by various directors based on dreams, 42 seconds each. It was produced by the world's most awarded vodka "42 Below", known for doing things differently , with other Chinese User Generated Films.
Genres: Drama Action Documentary Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-09-15
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Kenneth Anger: Film as Magical Ritual
Overview: Anger discusses his Aleister Crowley-inspired theories of art: How he views his camera like a wand and how he casts his films, preferring to consider his actors, not human beings but as elemental spirits. In fact, he reveals that he goes so far as to use astrology when making these choices. This is as direct an explanation of Anger’s cinemagical modus operandi as I have ever heard him articulate anywhere. It’s a must see for anyone interested in his work and showcases the Magus of cinema at the very height of his artistic powers. Fascinating. (Dangerous Minds)
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1970-04-29
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The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume One
Overview: Covering the first half of Anger's career, from his landmark debut FIREWORKS in 1947 to his epic bacchanalia INAGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME, Fantoma is very proud to present the long-awaited first volume of films by this revolutionary and groundbreaking maverick, painstakingly restored and presented on DVD for the first time. Contains the films: Fireworks (1947) Puce Moment (1949) Rabbit's Moon (1950, the rarely seen original 16 minute version) Eaux d'Artifice (1953) Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)
Genres: Action Drama Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-01-23
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The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume Two
Overview: 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)
Genres: Action Drama Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-10-02
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Langlois
Overview: Documentary portrait of Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1970-09-19
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365 Day Project
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-12-31
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Jonas in the Desert
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: de
Release Date: 1994-01-01
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Mansfield 66/67
Overview: 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.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2017-01-29
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Notes on Marie Menken
Overview: A look at avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-04-20
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Birth of a Nation
Overview: Filmmaker Jonas Mekas films 160 underground film people over four decades.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-08-06
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Cinemagician: Conversations with Kenneth Anger
Overview: Iconic American filmmaker Kenneth Anger has inspired generations of creative storytellers since the late 1940s. He is a unique visionary who drifts from pure poetry within his magical filmmaking to sardonic gossip in his bestselling "Hollywood Babylon" books. In-between these extremes we find a person who never tires of exploring his own creativity. In this intimate documentary, Anger lets us in on his fascinating life story, his approaches to filmmaking, and his relationship to British occultist Aleister Crowley.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-04-12
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The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
Overview: 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.
Genres: Fantasy Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-03-29
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Invocation of My Demon Brother
Overview: 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.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1969-10-10
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Anton LaVey: Into the Devil's Den
Overview: In 1989, I met Anton LaVey for the first time. At this time in his life, LaVey was seeing only a select few people. For this film, I've met and interviewed some of them, to try and create a composite image of what he was really like, and what he meant to these people. It's a memory lane trip, filled with personal stories, dark humor, great music and never before seen material with the Black Pope himself.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-12-06
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Busby Berkeley: Going Through the Roof
Overview: Documentary profile of legendary dance choreographer Busby Berkeley.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2003-03-28
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Prisoner of Mars
Overview: Kenneth Anger plays a "chosen adolescent" who is elected to be sent on a trip to Mars in a rocket. He awakes in a Martian maze only to find that he not the first to arrive from Earth, as evidenced by the human bones littered about. Although circulated on 16 mm through 1967, Anger then withdrew Prisoner of Mars. It is possible that the film no longer exists, but it may be among a few extant titles that Anger has stated he prefers not to show. This science-fiction drama was particularly interesting, as it was a structured as a serial chapter, and made use of miniatures and models.
Genres: Fantasy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1942-01-01
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Rescued from the Closet
Overview: A collection of interviews recorded for the making of the 1995 documentary "The Celluloid Closet," on the subject of LGBT representation in film history.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2001-05-29
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Look Back at Anger
Overview: A collage-style documentary of one of Kenneth Anger's visits to Pittsburgh in the early 1970s
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-01-01
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Magick Lantern Cycle
Overview: 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
Genres: Fantasy Horror Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2019-03-08
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A Spy in the House of Love
Overview: Anais Nin is discussed by her friends, her biographer, her literary colleagues and her second husband and literary executor, Rupert Pole.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1998-01-05
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