Iconic American filmmaker Kenneth Anger has inspired generations of creative storytellers since the 1950s. 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 is a person who never tires of exploring his own creativity.
Kenneth Anger’s ghost haunts much of modern pop culture. Incongruous and sex-filled music videos, calendars with sweaty working class guys, a majority of queer cinema: a lover of the occult, of leather, of the codes of masculinity, writer/filmmaker/actor Anger’s work used a dreamscape to deconstruct masculinity outside of its social confines. He rubbed shoulders with Jean Cocteau and occultist Aleister… Read more »
Kenneth Anger is one of the greatest underground filmmakers, and is often categorised within the world of experimental or artists’ film. But his influence is too broad and his films – all of them shorts – too exceptional not to be known and appreciated more widely. He apparently prefers to be referred to as an ‘independent’ filmmaker, saying: “I don’t… Read more »
This from Ethan Foyle White’s personal blog, Albion Calling. Follow the link to a fascinating article… “Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle” has just appeared in the academic journal Present Pasts. The article is based on a paper which I presented at the “Monstrous Antiquities: Archaeology and the Uncanny” conference, held at University… Read more »
The Getty Images site remains a fascinating resource. Recent additions include what I’m given to understand is a previously unpublished photograph of Aleister Crowley (above) and some behind-the-scenes images from the London, 1971, filming of Lucifer Rising.
Once in a while we see a truly exceptional catalogue from specialist bookshops – often from Liber-AL.com, or from Weiser Antiquarian or Caduceus. This catalogue, though, from Midian Books in Derbyshire UK, is simply extraordinary. And it’s presented as a PDF packed full of images and information. Subjects? Everything that has obsessed me for decades and that resulted in the… Read more »
Branding and product placement cast dark shadows over everyone eventually – even occultists such as Kenneth Anger who this weekend debuts a new gallery project, Lucifer Brothers Workshop, at the Art Los Angeles Contemporary fair in Santa Monica, California. Anger, at 88, is best known for his Magick Lantern Cycle series of spooky but highly influential films, including Inauguration of… Read more »
