[[Influences]]
[[Context]]
[[Legacy]]
[[Quotes->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]
[[Sources]]
''HOME''
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The film //Scorpio Rising// was made in 1963, by the avant-garde filmmaker and author, Kenneth Anger. When you google this film, the description that comes up is “An army of gay Nazi bikers experience pain and pleasure as sexual and sadistic symbols are intercut.” ([[Google->Sources]]) While this is vaguely true on the surface, it is far from the experience of the film and leaves out the purpose of its creation. The film is really about American heroes, icons and charismatic powers, from minor to major, and our relationship to their power, playing with contraries, ultimately “presenting an erotic version of the contraries of the self.” ([[Sitney 107->Sources]]) Carl Abrahamsson articulately summarizes it as a film that “deals with a generation growing up with bubblegum pop music and machine worship, in this case fetishized via motorcycles with plenty of violence and aggression underneath the surface.” ([[Abrahamsson 3:00->Sources]])
The film is broken up into 13 ‘episodes’ with the pop music soundtrack, which play off of each other nicely and add depth and a layer of irony to the piece. Anger himself breaks the film up into four parts, in a note meant to accompony the film that was released in 1966 ([[Sitney 103->Sources]]). Here is the first half of that notation.
"A conjuration of the Presiding Princes, Angels, and Spirits of the Sphere of mars , formed as a “high” view of the Myth of the American Motorcyclist. The Power Machine seen as tribal totem, from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans. Part I: Boys & 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 cycler’s Sabbath). Part IV: Rebel Rouser (The Gathering of the Dark Legions, with a message from Our Sponsor)." ([[Sitney 103->Sources]])
When Kenneth Anger was asked about //Scorpio Rising// later on, he would go on to summarize it as “a death mirror held up to American culture." ([[Halter->Sources]]) It is definitely that, a summary of the [[culture->Context]] that Anger himself was experiencing at that time.
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The film is mythographic, and it creates its own version of the myth of the motorcyclist through “the comparison of other myths; the dead movie star, Dean; the live one, Brando; the savior of men, Christ; the villain of men, Hitler.”([[Sitney 106->Sources]]) These other myths that are used for comparison are shown ambiguously and detached of morality. This mythographic and dreamlike quality to the film comes from Anger's passion and infatuation with the teachings of the 19th century English occultist [[Aleister Crowley->Influences]].
For Anger, editing is the most important part of the filmmaking process, and that is very apparent in //Scorpio Rising// ([[Abrahamsson 12:00->Sources]]). The [[Eisenstein->Influences]] montage of footage makes the film feel whole, while still leaving the perfect sized gaps for viewer contemplation. //Scorpio Rising// is one of a kind for its time, sort of like Anger, and it left a sizeable [[impact->Legacy]] on its generation, paving the way for music videos, E! news, and the collaged, DIY style of xeroxed posters. [[Home->Scorpio Rising]]
[[Influences]]
[[Legacy]]
[[Quotes->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]
[[Sources]]
''CONTEXT''
The film was finished in 1963, a few weeks before the Kennedy assassination ([[Halter->Sources]]). The acceptance of the LGBTQ community in New York was changing, with New York becoming the first union state to make sodomy a misdemeanor in 1950, but the work was far from done and prosecution of the LGBTQ community continued ([[Shockley->Sources]]). The film received a lot of attention in 1964, after a theatre manager in Los Angeles was found guilty of obscenity for screening Anger’s film ([[Halter->Sources]]). People reacted in different ways, depending on their connection to the film. In a 2014 interview in Los Angeles, Anger recalls how “pretend Nazis, or toy nazis, whatever you want to call them, condemned the film.” ([[Abrahamsson 17:00->Sources]]). Groups that were gaining something from the status quo didn’t like that Anger’s film was changing it, so they tried to get it shut down. However, that didn’t work for long. The case was sent to court and cleared, and afterwards was screened for three months at a commercial cinema in Los Angeles, “that was a breakthrough for me too,” Anger recalls ([[Abrahamsson 18:00->Sources]]). His film was part of the change, the shift away from censorship towards freedom of expression.
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//Scorpio Rising// can be categorized as a mythopoeic, which wasn’t an uncommon categorization of Anger’s contemporaries’ films. It was created when the shift from trance film to mythopoeic film was occurring, both forms hold the principle of the imagination, but trance is articulated through dreams and mythopoeic through myth and ritual ([[Sitney 109->Sources]]). The rise of mythopoeic films in the sixties came from the filmmakers’ breaking away from the inherent repetition of traditional mythology with an unabated enthusiasm for creating a new form of cinema that can create and revel in these new myths ([[Sitney 109->Sources]]). The mythopoeic qualities of Anger’s film came from the influence of his contemporaries and from the constant inspiration Anger derives from the works of Aleister Crowley.
The songs used for the soundtrack of the film were very familiar to the average American audience, all high on the billboard charts, with 10 of the 13 ranking as top five singles ([[Halter->Sources]]). Anger was quoted saying “It was pop music that was playing the summer of 1963, when I was filming.” ([[Halter->Sources]])
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Kenneth Anger moved to Paris, [[France->Influences]] in 1950, and was there for about 10 years before coming back to the states ([[Pallardy->Sources]]). //Scorpio Rising// was the first film that he made in the U.S. after his time in France, besides Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, which was made on his trip back ([[Abrahamsson 4:00->Sources]]). If you feel some sort of culture shock after watching Scorpio Rising, it could be that Anger was feeling some of the same things coming back to the States.[[Home->Scorpio Rising]]
[[Context]]
[[Legacy]]
[[Quotes->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]
[[Sources]]
''INFLUENCES''
//Meshes of the Afternoon// by Maya Daren can be seen as an influence to Kenneth Angers works. They were friends and cohorts in the avant-garde film community, and were both heavily involved in the occult. For more information, click <a href= https://homi.neocities.org/2019/t/Meshes_of_the_Afternoon.html target=“_blank”>here</a>.
From a young age, Anger had always wanted to make his own films. He had a nonspeaking part in //A Midsummer Night’s Dream// at Warner Bros (which has been highly debated if it’s actually accurate or not) and seeing the process or filmmaking over a few weeks made him want to create his own films ([[Abrahamsson 6:00->Sources]]). He could see 20th Century Fox Studios film their movies from his chemistry class window at Beverly Hills High School, and he wanted more than anything to go do this himself ([[Abrahamsson 5:00->Sources]]), so he did.
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His first successful film, //Fireworks//, was made in 1947 while he was still a teenager, shot at his parents’ house while they were away ([[Pallardy->Sources]]). His parents tried to ignore his creativity, but they didn’t discourage him, and his grandma actively supported him, so at least he had someone rooting for him ([[Abrahamsson 5:00->Sources]]).
A strong formal influence of the films editing is Sergei Eisenstein’s methods of montage. Kenneth Anger deploys tonal and ideological montage throughout the film, creating much of the story for the viewer through montage. His pairing of music and image traces back to Eisenstein’s chromophonic editing theory, as well as to Aleister Crowley’s “theory of occult ‘correspondences’ between disparate elements” ([[Halter->Sources]]). Chromophonic editing theory is the basics of Eisenstein montage theory, with the added importance of the synchronicity of color with the edits and sound ([[Betancourt->Sources]]). Anger employs chromophonic editing throughout the film, making important cuts that account for the imagery, sound and color of each shot.
Kenneth Anger was a huge fan of Aleister Crowley and his occult practices and theories. He was introduced to his works by Majorie Cameron, an occultist who loaned Anger some of Crowley’s original books while they were filming Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome ([[Abrahamsson 36:00->Sources]]). Anger felt very much at home in his Aleister’s mode of thinking. He prefaced his notes on the film Scorpio Rising with a quote from Aleister Crowley’s book //Magick in Theory and Practice// (1929), which aides in explaining the soundtrack.
“It may be conceded in any case that the long strings of formidable words which roar and moan through so many conjurations have a real effect in exalting the consciousness of the magician to the proper pitch —that they should do so is no more extraordinary than music of any kind should do so.” ([[Sitney 102->Sources]])
When asked about Crowley in an interview in 2014, Anger stated “I always considered him an inspiration, he was an over the top character, and I admire that kind of person,” and he also later stated in 2018 that “The influence [of Crowley] is always there.” ([[Abrahamsson 22:00, 37:00->Sources]])
Anger believes that magick and cinema are similar arts, he told the NY times in 1967 that “Making a movie is like casting a spell.” ([[Halter->Sources]]) All of Anger’s films were “created with a charge,” like talismans, but it depends upon the audience’s reception as to if they will receive the magick in the film or not ([[Abrahamsson 1:00->Sources]]).
That is part of the reason why Anger drew inspiration from Georges Milies. Anger believes that cinema can be a magical art, because it can induce visions and create magical worlds ([[Abrahamsson 33:00->Sources]]). In an interview with Anger, he explains how we learned this very early on from people like Georges Melies, “he could create amazing worlds with the simplest of means, and that’s kind of my approach too.” ([[Abrahamsson 34:00->Sources]]) Anger was always limited in resources when creating, but never lacking in creativity.
Kenneth Anger moved to Paris, France in 1950, where he networked with the writers Jean Cocteau and Anaïs Nin, who he drew a lot of inspiration from, and worked at the Cinémathèque Française ([[Pallardy->Sources]]). While he was in France, he published the novel //Hollywood Babylon//, which was soon translated into English and sold in the U.S. where it became a bestseller (//Hollywood Babylon II// was published later). The book details the true, if not exaggerated, scandals of old Hollywood. Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard suggested that Anger write the book, after he would tell them outrageous stories about old Hollywood, a few of which were actually published in their magazine //Calle Cinema// ([[Abrahamsson 11:00->Sources]]). This book is yet another manifestation of Anger’s intrigue with fame and power.
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Another inspiration for Anger was his [[dreams->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]. He kept a dream book that he would go through to get ideas for his up and coming films ([[Abrahamsson 10:00->Sources]]). [[Lucifer->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]] was an inspiration too, or more of a mascot. Anger uses Lucifer is the tangible symbol for connection to creativity, because Lucifer does not mean Satan, it actually translates to “I bring the light” or “light bearer.” ([[Abrahamsson 27:00->Sources]]) He found the metaphor especially appealing because he’s working in light, that’s his medium too.
Astrology was an influence in the name and scorpion iconography. Scorpio star sign is often associated with violence, sexual virility and excess and anger himself holds the sign Aquarius with Scorpio rising ([[Halter->Sources]]).
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Anger sees all of his creations as one body of work ([[Abrahamsson 4:00->Sources]]). The entire series of his films are held together by his personal beliefs, that there is a magikal current under everything.[[Home->Scorpio Rising]]
[[Influences]]
[[Context]]
[[Quotes->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]
[[Sources]]
''LEGACY''
//Scorpio Risisng// holds a few firsts in its history. It was the first homoerotic film to be screeened, the first use of all pop music as an accompanying soundtrack, and it was the first film of Anger's to employ his //Puck Productions// logo ([[Sitney 103->Sources]]).
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Many artists, art critics, psychoanalysts and members of the LGBTQ community showed for first screenings of the film, and black and white bootlegged copies could be found circulating West coast gay bars well on into the century ([[Halter->Sources]]). The style and aesthetic of the movie influenced styles throughout the city as well, a New York times article from 1967 states,
“Almost overnight, display windows of elegant uptown boutiques had wicked motorcycle chains thrown over plush velvet couches, and models in couture dresses, poised between the handlebars of motorcycles… Leather and goggles became standard gear for both sexes for doing the galleries on the upper East Side, as well as the bars on the lower West.” ([[Halter->Sources]]) The film went on to gain a decently sized cult following and is now looked back upon as a groundbreaking film in the history of cinema. The New York Times art critic Gregory Battcock calls Scorpio rising “perhaps the most famous” experimental film of its day, as well as “an apt contribution toward the understanding of film and the pop image,” ([[Halter->Sources]]) and in Anger’s following films, he continues to focus on “researching” the pop image and relationships to power.
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//Scorpio Rising// has gone on to influence films like //Easy Rider//(1969) and it also informed the use of pop music in Martin Scorsese’s films, who recalls viewing this film in college as a formative event ([[Halter->Sources]]).
I argue that the film //Scorpio Rising// secondhandedly influenced the DIY collage style of xeroxed posters from the 1980’s and 90’s. You can see the influence that the film had on some of the subcultures making these xeroxed posters in the aesthetic, in the way that they cultivate communities, and in the way that they blur the lines between the “public” and the “private,” fostering counterpublics ([[Eichorn 86,89,108->Sources]]). Drawing from the works of Michael Warner about publics and counterpublics, he states that “a counter public, against the background of the public sphere, enables a horizon of opinion and exchange; it’s exchanges remain distinct from authority and can have a critical relation to power; it’s extent is in principle indefinite, because it is not based on a precise demography but mediated by prince, theater, diffuse networks of talk, commerce, and the like.” ([[Eichorn 87->Sources]]) Anger’s film //Scorpio Rising// follows counterpublics (the Halloween party, the occult, etc.) and also creates its own counterpublic in the dissemination and sharing of his work.
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In the later film //I Was a Teenage Serial Killer//, you can see the collage and subculture influence from //Scorpio Rising//, most likely passed on secondhandedly through the xeroxed posters of the 80's and 90's. For more information on this, click <a href= https://homi.neocities.org/2019/t/I_Was%20A_Teenage_Serial_Killer.html target=“_blank”>here</a>.
I also argue that the film went on to influence music videos, which rely on the same chromophonic montage editing to achieve a successful piece. The first music video was realeased on MTV in 1981, ironically it was the song //Video Killed the Radio Star// by the Buggles ([[Guerrasio->Sources]]). With a collaged style, filters, and chromophonic editing, the video holds a similar aesthetic to //Scorpio Rising//.
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In 2014, at the age of 87, Anger was still having his work screened and doing various lectures around his area ([[Abrahamsson 25:00->Sources]]). Stills and clips of his works have extensively toured as installations, and even some of his Hollywood memorabilia was put on display in an exhibit ([[Pallardy->Sources]]).
//Scorpio Rising// is important because of the waves of influence it put out into the world. It was a reflection of the culture and subcultures of the time, but that reflection seen through Anger’s vision, went on to influence the culture and subcultures that followed the release of the film.
[[Home->Scorpio Rising]]
[[Influences]]
[[Context]]
[[Legacy]]
[[Quotes->Some Kenneth Anger Quotes]]
''SOURCES''
Abrahamsson, Carl. Vimeo, 14 Apr. 2019, https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cinemagician.
Betancourt, Michael. “On Sergei Eisenstein's Audio-Visual Montage.” Cinegraphic, https://cinegraphic.net/article.php/20110409100140227.
Eichhorn, Kate. Adjusted Margin: Xerography, Art, and Activism in the Late Twentieth Century. The MIT Press, 2016.
Guerrasio, Jason. “A Very Ironic Video Was the First One Ever Played on MTV 34 Years Ago.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 1 Aug. 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/video-killed-the-radio-star-34th-anniversary-of-music-video-on-mtv-2015-7.
Halter, Ed. “A Listener's Guide to Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising.” A Listener's Guide to Kenneth
Anger's Scorpio Rising, 18 Aug. 2015, https://walkerart.org/magazine/a-listeners-guide-to-kenneth-angers-scorpio-rising.
“Kenneth Anger Scorpio Rising.” Google Search, Google,
https://www.google.com/search?q=kenneth+anger+scorpio+rising&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS785US785&oq=kenneth+anger+sc&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j0l3j69i60.7655j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8.
Pallardy, Richard. “Kenneth Anger.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 30
Jan. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kenneth-Anger.
Sitney, P. Adams. Visionary Film : The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000. 3rd ed., Oxford
University Press, Incorporated, 2002. Proquest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/multco/detail.action?docID=241285.
Shockley, Jay, et al. Historic Context Statement for LGBT History in New York City. Edited by
Kathleen Howe and Kathleen LeFrank, The National Park Service and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, https://parks.ny.gov/shpo/documents/FinalNYCLGBTContextStatement.pdf.
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[[Influences]]
[[Legacy]]
[[Context]]
[[Sources]]
''QUOTES''
“I wanted to make my own films." ([[Abrahamsson 6:00->Sources]])
“The irony is, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve been cursed with insomnia and I don’t really dream anymore… the [[dreams->Influences]] have disappeared from my unconscious, I hope they come back.” *chuckle ([[Abrahamsson 11:00->Sources]])
“I never think about the audience… it’s very personal and as far as the public goes, they can take it or leave it.” ([[Abrahamsson 13:00->Sources]])
“I don’t release things that I’m not satisfied with.” ([[Abrahamsson 13:00->Sources]])
“So I’ve always had [[Lucifer->Influences]] as a companion, in the metaphorical sense.” ([[Abrahamsson 27:00->Sources]])
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When asked if he would go back in time and change anything: “I have my own destiny, I’m playing with the cards that I was dealt, and I think to say oh well why don’t I pull out that card or another card it’s already dealt with it cast and I can’t change those things.” ([[Abrahamsson 32:00->Sources]])
“I’m one of a kind, either you find my work interesting or not, but it’s mine.” ([[Abrahamsson 34:00->Sources]])
“Film captures a moment in time, but if it’s a powerful moment it doesn’t dissipate, it remains strong.” ([[Abrahamsson 37:00->Sources]])
“Find your essence as an artist and stick to it.” ([[Abrahamsson 38:00->Sources]])
Interviewer: "A long time ago you wrote 'movies are evil and the day cinema was born was a black day.' I wonder if you still stick to this?"
Anger: "Well yes but I’m teasing, because it's something like, well let’s say, is a rattlesnake evil? Or dangerous? And that’s what I think about movies, that they have that ability to seduce, in perhaps sometimes not a good way, in a way that is not good for some people. But that’s just one of my playful teasing things, trying to upset people a little bit." ([[Abrahamsson 24:00->Sources]])