Essay 2nd trimester: Kenneth Anger and the occult
Kenneth Anger and the occult
Kenneth Anger (born in 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker. Throughout his career he has produced around 40 works. In his films, Anger mixes, surrealism, camp homoeroticism together with the occult. Writings about his work mostly focus on his fascination of the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ (camp), the depiction of gay male sexuality, and can be seen as an early form of music video. With this essay I would like to dive deeper into his world and the content of his films by analyzing it’s occult side. By doing so I hope to get a better understanding of his work in general and kick of my personal research into avant-garde filmmaking and its practices.
Photo by: Sebastian Kim (for Interview Magazine)
Early movies
Both Anger and Maya Deren were seen as the forerunners of a generation of visionary filmmakers like Brakhage, Harrington, Markopoulos, etc. Often an analogy is made between the work of Anger and Deren. In their early works there are indeed parallels that can be drawn. Fireworks (1947), At Land (1944), and Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) can all be seen as psychodrama, which is “a genre of American avant-garde film in which the filmmakers dramatize disturbed states of consciousness” (McDonald, p. 50). As Anger explains in a conversation with Nicolas Winding (source: youtube, see bibliography), the idea of Fireworks came to him after a dream occurred which was based on him witnessing sailors hunting down Mexican kids in downtown L.A. and beating them up. Juggling between an erotic dream and a nightmare, Fireworks displays a tension following one’s gay desire and the risk of violence that went with it at the time, after all homosexuality was illegal in America in 1947. As McDonald mentions: “Fireworks represents the impossibility of denying gay desire, even in a repressive antigay society.” (McDonald p.52).
Like a dream in a dream the 14 minute film shows a young men awakening with what seems like an erect penis under the sheets, which turns out to be an African statue of some kind. While dressing up he picks up photographs of him (Anger) being carried by a sailor in Pieta-like pose, a tableau which he just awoke up from. He tosses the photographs in the not-yet-lit fireplace and precedes towards a door where in proximity a wire sculpture is hanging (reference to Cocteau) that marks a sign with the text ‘gents’ on it. Behind the door he finds a sailor flexing his muscles, a bit taken back Anger watches and decides eventually to offer the muscular man a cigarette. The man first enjoying Anger’s gaze suddenly gets aggressive and starts slapping Anger. The silly slapping stops and Anger now has a cigaret in his mouth on which the sailor offers him fire (a big bush of burning twigs). Anger accepts, but a sudden a group of sailor holding chains are staring at him and start chasing him down. [rest of describtion]
