The films of Kenneth Anger. Volume one /
Covering the 1st half of Anger's career, these works by the gay underground filmmaker - 5 short avant-garde films that have been meticulously restored, under Anger's supervision, and mastered in high definition - merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult along with elements of doc...
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| Other Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Video DVD |
| Language: | English |
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[San Francisco, California] :
Fantoma Films,
[2007]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to IMDb information for Fireworks Connect to IMDb information for Puce Moment Connect to IMDb information for Rabbit's Moon Connect to IMDb information for Eaux d'artifice Connect to IMDb information for Inauguration of the pleasure dome |
| Summary: | Covering the 1st half of Anger's career, these works by the gay underground filmmaker - 5 short avant-garde films that have been meticulously restored, under Anger's supervision, and mastered in high definition - merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult along with elements of documentary, psychodrama, myth, ritual, and spectacle. Fireworks: Filmed in his parents' home in Beverly Hills, California over a long weekend while they were away, this landmark of both experimental and gay/lesbian filmmaking (the controversial nature of the work led to Anger being put on trial on obscenity charges) is a bizarre, disturbing dreamscape of violation, rape, and homoerotic sadomasochism. The wordless quasi autobiographical film opens with Anger, who made this film when he was 17, awaking from a troubled dream and leaving his house to go on a stroll during which he is confronted by a group of sailors on the street who proceed to beat, torture, and molest him. Puce Moment: Described by Anger as an "afternoon of a film star in twenties' Hollywood," this film, a fragment from the never completed project entitled Puce Woman, reflects Anger's concerns with the myths and decline of Hollywood, the focus on a glamorous Hollywood starlet going through the ritual of assuming identity, dressing, primping, perfuming and preparing for the day, finally exiting her Hollywood Hills abode leading a pack of Russian wolfhounds on leash. Rabbit's moon: A fable of the unattainable (the moon), combining elements of Commedia dell'Arte with Japanese folklore and Aztec mythology, this lunar pantomime, which takes place in a dark fairytale forest with an all-mime cast, features Pierrot, who longs to join with the moon in which a rabbit lives, his futile attempts to jump up and catch it compounded by the appearance of the teasing, mincing Harlequin and Columbina, Pierrot's trickster wife and Harlequin's mistress. Eaux d'artifice: Part trance film, part landscape study, part abstraction, Eaux d'Artifice features a mysterious, masked woman, "the Water Witch," who secretively romps through a labyrinthine private garden of cascades, grottoes, and leaping fountains in an elaborate game of Hide and Seek. Inauguration of the pleasure dome: An orgiastic fantasia of Thelemic occult theories, pagan ritual, crazy costumes, hallucinatory superimposition, and sensual and infuriating imagery, this film - which takes its name from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem Kubla Khan - is about desire at its most hedonistic. Historical figures, biblical characters, various deities, gods and goddesses, and mythic personages gather in the pleasure dome to enact a phantasmagoric bacchanal. |
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| Item Description: | Booklet includes: An introduction by Martin Scorsese; Kenneth Anger's hand-drawn sketches for the unrealized "Puce Women" project; excerpts from Anaïs Nin's diaries about the making of "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome" ("Come as your madness"); an essay by Samson DeBrier ("On making 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome'"); notes on each film; rare behind the scenes stills and more. Originally released as short films from 1947-1954. Collective title from disc menu ; cast credits from guide. Fireworks and Rabbit's Moon preserved and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Puce Moment: Filmed on location in Hollywood, CA. Eaux d'Artifice: Filmed on location in the water gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy. The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. |
| Physical Description: | 1 videodisc (88 min.) : sound, black and white and color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (48 pages : color illustrations ; 19 cm). |
| Production Credits: | Fireworks: Director, screenwriter, editor, Kenneth Anger ; cinematographer, Curtis Harrington ; music, Ottorino Respighi. Puce Moment: Director, screenwriter, producer, editor, Kenneth Anger ; music, Jonathan Halper. Rabbit's Moon: Director, screenwriter, editor, Kenneth Anger ; cinematographers, Kenneth Anger, Oleg Tourjansky ; music, Mary Wells, The Capris, The Dells, The El Dorados, the Flamingos. Eaux d'Artifice: Director, producer, cinematographer, editor, Kenneth Anger ; music, Antonio Vivaldi. Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, costume designer, Kenneth Anger ; music, Leoš Janáček. |