Later films including Scorpio Rising (1963), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972–80) develop this exuberant visual language further and also involve an expansion of their film-technique repertoire. The result is a sexually charged, orgiastic mixture of myth and ecstasy somewhere between period film set, opera stage, Kabuki theater and nightclub. His 38-minute Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) sees this dream logic tip completely into a surreal Technicolor color frenzy. Its black-and-white images appear governed by an archetypal dream logic: phallic fireworks explode, the protagonist’s guts are crudely cut open to reveal a compass in his viscera and a sailor walks through a shot with Christmas tree on his head. Subject matter in the short film includes homosexual cruising, sailor fetish, sexual violence and gore. Anger’s first work, the 14-minute Fireworks (1947), was so provocative that the young artist was hauled to court on obscenity charges. Though possessed of certain narrative traits, its real power lies in a specific kind of suggestion. His experimental montage technique eschews spoken dialogue. Even his earliest productions show the themes and artistic strategies that define his oeuvre. Anger’s keen perfectionism led him to assume all the usual filmmaking roles himself from the very beginning: In an unusual synthesis he handles all of the camera work, set design, costume design, film development and editing and acts as director, producer and actor in one.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |