Kenneth Anger (born
1930) is an
underground avant-garde film-maker and author. As a child he played the child prince in the 1935 version of
A Midsummer Night's Dream and attended the Maurice Kossloff Dancing School with
Shirley Temple. He gained fame and notoriety from the publication of
Hollywood Babylon in 1958, a tell-all book of the scandals of
Hollywood's rich and famous. He became fascinated with the supernatural and
Aleister Crowley sometime in his late teens and many of his films reflect
occult themes. He began making films around age 11, but his early films were mostly destroyed. His first film to see distribution was
Fireworks in 1947. While most of his films are short subject (ranging from 3.5 minutes to 30 minutes) mood pieces, in 1955 he made a documentary film of the ruins of Crowley's magical abbey in
Cefalu,
Sicily. During the late 60's he associated with
The Rolling Stones, and
Mick Jagger did the music for Anger's 1969 film
Invocation of My Demon Brother. Several of his films are collected in the 4 volume
Magick Lantern Cycle, these are marked * in the filmography.
Filmography
- Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941)
- Tinsel Tree (1941-1942)
- Prisoner of Mars (1942)
- The Nest (1943)
- Escape Episode (1944)
- Drastic Demise (1945)
- Escape Episode (shorter sound version) (1946)
- Fireworks (1947)*
- Puce Moment (1949)*
- The Love That Whirls (1949)
- Maldoror (1951-1952, unfinished)
- Eaux d'Artifice (1953)*
- Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (1953)
- Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954, recut in 1966)*
- Thelema Abbey (1955)
- Historie d'O (1959-1961)
- Scorpio Rising (1963)*
- Kustom Kar Kommandoes (1965)*
- Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)*
- Rabbit's Moon (1972)*
- Lucifer Rising (1980)
