A Craftsman And His Works

DVDs:


	• The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1 Kenneth Anger Fantoma, 2007 average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Happy about Anger

I was lucky enough to watch some of these films on the big screen earlier this year- with Kenneth Anger in attendance doing a Q&A. The prints are spectacular, the material both inflamatory and (by modern standards) quaint.

I have both volumes.

And at this price? A deal you can't beat.

It's about time!

I first discovered Kenneth Anger films while watching Invocation of my demon brother on the back of a screen while a band was playing at a club. After finding out who directed the film I was able to look up some of Anger's films on YouTube.

Fireworks - Really interesting how the film opens with Kenneth awaking from a dream while holding some kind of Idol statue. It then turns into a really cool scene of him getting torn apart and then awaking from a dream from within a dream. There are a lot of cool things to look for such at the statue of the hand in the begging and how it looks at the end of the film. You can see where this film would help mold upcoming underground art.

Puce Moment- This short film really capture's desire, an in my opinion the comfort in alienation.

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome- This is my favorite film off of the collection. This film really takes you on a journey into a beautiful occult fantasy, it's almost like a bosh painting come to life.

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What was that?

I mean, I just saw it, and I'm still not sure what I saw. I do know that it's not anything like I've seen before.

These few shorts qualify more as performance art than cinema. The poses and posturings, the exaggerated makeup and costumes, they remind me of silent films. Come to think of it, these are silent or nearly so, except for the musical score. I found Janacek's score for the final piece especially haunting. I don't know whether I like it or not, but I want to hear it again.

The classic silen films never used color, though. Well, "Fireworks" isn't color, "Rabbit's Moon" is largely monochrome if not black and white, and "Eaux D'Artifice" has just a trace of color, just for a moment. "Puce Moment" and "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome" certainly have color. They come across in eye-popping shades: Cadmium-orange hair, chrome green faces, and diabolic reds, among others. "Inauguration" set its saturated hues against black backdrops, most often, so the brilliant chromaticity would stand forward even more.

Among these pieces, I found "Eaux" the most baffling: a Marie Antoinette figure walking then trotting through a gushing garden of fountains, a moment with a magical fan, then walking away into darkness. These can't be taken as ordinary movies, with plot and characters (or maybe they can). Instead, they're compositions in color, human form, and time (or maybe they aren't). They are certainly enigmatic.

-- wiredweird

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A Craftsman And His Works

There is very little I can say about these classic short films other than they are the works of a true genius. Just do a quick search on the internet and see all of the amazing directors whom Anger has influenced. As far as avant cinema goes, Anger is the vanguard and should be respected and held as such. Without him, it's certainly suffice to say, that most of the best 60's and 70's cinema would NOT exist without him. He is that important.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Cinematic magician, legendary provocateur, author of the infamous HOLLYWOOD BABYLON books and creator of some of the most striking and beautiful works in the history of film, Kenneth Anger is a singular figure in post-war American culture.
A major influence on everything from the films of Martin Scorsese, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and David Lynch to the pop art of Andy Warhol to MTV, Anger's work serves as a talisman of universal symbols and personal obsessions, combining myth, artifice and ritual to render cinema with the power of spell or incantation.
Covering the first half of Anger's career, from his landmark debut FIREWORKS in 1947 to his epic bacchanalia INAGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME, Fantoma is very proud to present the long-awaited first volume of films by this revolutionary and groundbreaking maverick, painstakingly restored and presented on DVD for the first time.

Contains the films:
Fireworks (1947)
Puce Moment (1949)
Rabbit's Moon (1950, the rarely seen original 16 minute version)
Eaux d'Artifice (1953)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

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recommendations

Weird, Wild, & Wonderful Films for the Freak Inside Us All
National Film Registry: 1993 Inductees
Some of my favorite movies
My Film Awards - 1947
Degenerate Cinema!

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