Date: 29 October 2006 | Season: London Film Festival 2006 | Tags: London Film Festival
KENNETH ANGER 35MM PRESERVATIONS with KENNETH ANGER IN PERSON
Sunday 29 October 2006, at 4pm
London National Film Theatre NFT1
‘Kenneth Anger is a unique film-maker, an artist of exceptional talent.” (Martin Scorsese)
Kenneth Anger’s iconic films are an extraordinary demonstration of the transformative power of cinema. With support from The Film Foundation, the UCLA Film Archive has recently made glorious new 35mm prints of four of Anger’s works. This special screening offers aficionados and the uninitiated an opportunity to see these landmark films as they have never been seen before. We are delighted to welcome Kenneth Anger to the Festival to present this screening.
Kenneth Anger, Fireworks, USA 1947, 15 min
The rarely seen original version, featuring a spoken prologue by the film-maker.
‘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 a bed less empty than before.’
Kenneth Anger, La Lune Des Lapins, USA-France 1950-71, 16 min
The only Anger film shot on 35mm has never been printed on that format until now. This is the longer edit from 1971, synchronized to haunting doo-wop ballads.
‘A fable of the unattainable (the Moon) combining elements of Commedia dell’Arte with Japanese myth. A lunar dream utilizing the classic pantomime figure of Pierrot in an encounter with a prankish, enchanted Magick Lantern.’
Kenneth Anger, Scorpio Rising, USA 1963, 29 min
Immensely influential for its use of pop music, Anger’s ironic critique of motorcycle gangs invokes Scorpio, the sign that rules machines, sex and death.
‘A ‘death mirror held up to American culture’ – Brando, bikes and black leather; Christ, chains and cocaine. A ‘high’ view of the myth of the American motorcyclist. The machine as totem from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans.’
Kenneth Anger, Kustom Kar Kommandos, USA 1965, 4 min
A slow and sensuous study of the hot rod craze.
‘To the soundtrack of ‘Dream Lover’ a young man strokes his customized car with a powder puff.’
PROGRAMME NOTES
KENNETH ANGER 35MM PRESERVATIONS with KENNETH ANGER IN PERSON
Sunday 29 October 2006, at 4pm
London National Film Theatre NFT1
FIREWORKS
Kenneth Anger, USA 1947, 35mm, b/w, sound, 15 min
In Fireworks I released all the explosive pyrotechnics of a dream. Inflammable desires dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness are ignited that night by the libertarian matches of sleep and burst forth in showers of shimmering incandescence. These imaginary displays provide a temporary release. 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 a bed less empty than before. (Kenneth Anger)
Fireworks, Anger’s first extant film, was made when he was 17, shot in three days in his parents’ home while they were attending the funeral of a relative. Unexpectedly powerful and disturbing, the film was described by Jean Cocteau as coming “from that beautiful night from which emerge all the true works. It touches the quick of the soul and this is very rare.” When the film was shown in San Francisco for the first time, Maya Deren made a comparable observation, suggesting that Anger had opened a window on our common dreams. Anger’s own remarks on the work range from “A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking ‘a light’ and is drawn through the needle’s eye,” to this less cryptic comment: “It’s a personal statement about my own feelings about violence and a certain kind of masculinity. Also a treatment of a kind of myth in America which relates to the American sailor. That’s part of history now, but the sailor then was a kind of sex symbol on one another level there was a great deal of ambivalence and hostility, latency, and fear in the image …” (Robert Haller)
RABBIT’S MOON (LA LUNE DES LAPINS)
Kenneth Anger, USA-France 1950-71, 35mm, b/w, sound, 16 min
A fable of the unattainable (the Moon) combining elements of Commedia dell’Arte with Japanese myth. A lunar dream utilizing the classic pantomime figure of Pierrot in an encounter with a prankish, enchanted Magick Lantern. (Kenneth Anger)
Pierrot is the poet reaching for the unattainable. The moon is his mama and woman and illusion ill met by moonlight. Harlequin is the cruel jester, the trickster with his slapstick. Other people’s tragedies make us laugh. The huckster of invisible wares and the magic lantern. My art. Columbine is full of grace and teasing malice, and prettily mocks the poet and his moon. The rabbit is my soul. Thus before the concluding shot of Pierrot’s fall from the sky, the entire film preceding is a flashback – dying memory of the adolescent’s life experience – what I know of life up to this time. And cutting the film is what I have learned since.
(Kenneth Anger, letter to Stan Brakhage)
SCORPIO RISING
Kenneth Anger, USA 1963, 35mm, colour, sound, 29 min
A ‘death mirror held up to American culture’ – Brando, bikes and black leather; Christ, chains and cocaine. A ‘high’ view of the myth of the American motorcyclist. The machine as totem from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans.
Part I – Boys and Bolts (masculine fascination with the Thing that Goes)
Part II – Image Maker (getting high on heroes; Dean’s Rebel and Brando’s Johnny; the true view of J.C.)
Part III – Walpurgis Party (J.C. wallflower at the cyclers’ Sabbath)
Part IV – Rebel Rouser (the gathering of the Dark Legions, with a message from Our Sponsor)
(Kenneth Anger)
Surely the most widely seen film in the history of the American avant-garde. With its self-conscious media quotations, mock-heroic view of urban youth culture, knowing homoeroticism and smashing use of rock ‘n’ roll, Scorpio Rising burst dramatically onto the American scene. If its acceptance was not completely universal – the Los Angeles Police Department confiscated the print during its initial midnight run, and Anger was sued by the American Nazi party for ‘desecrating’ the swastika – no other underground movie has ever had a comparable effect on Hollywood production. The Wild Angels, Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, Mean Streets and American Graffiti can all be seen as part of its ripple effect. Not the least important aspect of the film was Anger’s dense, almost subliminal editing style. It’s a truism that television commercials are heir to the theories of Sergei Eisenstein, but I’d venture that Madison Avenue learned more about the power of associative montage from Scorpio Rising than Battleship Potemkin. (J. Hoberman)
KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS
Kenneth Anger, USA 1965, 35mm, colour, sound, 4 min
Pygmalion and his machine mistress. To the soundtrack of ‘Dream Lover’ a young man strokes his customized car with a powder puff. (Kenneth Anger)
If Scorpio Rising hints at the supernatural power of gleaming metal, Kustom Kar Kommandos dwells on it. If preternatural light is glimpsed against the darkness of deep-shadowed garages, black leather, and night in Scorpio Rising, it boldly and steadily shines forth in Kustom Kar Kommandos. If parts of the motorcycles are sometimes jewel-like, the customized car is itself a single, complete jewel. It is placed on display in a clean, well-lighted room and attended by a blond young man in pristine blue who worshipfully dusts it with a feathery white puff. Then he climbs inside, encasing himself in an interior of polished chrome and red leather seats. While the whispery voices of the Parris Sisters sing about a “dream lover” and their longing to “know the magic of his charms,” Anger’s gliding camera movements and smoothly articulated montage turn the car’s polished surfaces into silvery streams of light, leaving no doubt that the car is a “dream lover” and a magical “charm.” (William C. Wees, Light Moving In Time)
The films of Kenneth Anger have been preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. The preservations were funded by The Film Foundation. Rabbit’s Moon was preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation. With thanks to Ross Lipman for his assistance in making this screening possible.
Back to top
