Kenneth Anger: Selected Films

Afterall Magazine presents an evening of films by Kenneth Anger including:

Fireworks (1947)

'Since Fireworks (which Tennessee Williams hailed as the most exciting use of cinema he had seen) Anger has provided an elegantly subversive alternative to mass cultural representation, mainstream film and contemporary art…’

Scorpio Rising (1963)

‘In [a] climate of paranoia and repression, Scorpio Rising was confiscated by the Vice Squad. (A member of the American Nazi party, disturbed by Anger’s use of Nazi insignia as erotic turn-ons and party games, complained that it was full of obscene images; the print was seized and the theatre manager arrested and thrown into jail for screening it.) At that time a First Amendment that tolerated the Ku Klux Klan had little tolerance for art.’

The Man They Want to Hang (2002)

‘Anger became a cult figure, taken up by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg and Jimmie Page of Led Zeppelin (an avid collector of Crowley’s own paintings, which became subject matter for Anger’s recent film, The Man They Want to Hang, 2002). As such he galvanised an attitude of disrespect and blasphemy fuelled by the exorbitant intake of mind-altering substances.’

Alice L Hutchison Courting Anger, Afterall Issue 7.

Full screening details:

Fireworks (1947) 16mm, 13 mins

Puce Moment (1949) 16mm, 6 mins

Eaux d’Artifice (1953) 16mm, 13mins

Scorpio Rising (1963) 16mm, 30 mins

The Man They Want to Hang (2002) 16mm, 11 mins

Don’t Smoke That Cigarette (2002) VHS, 35 mins