Celebrate the life and work of the iconoclastic filmmaker, artist, and provocateur Kenneth Anger with two of his most critical films. Q&A to follow.
Kenneth Anger was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works. His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle." He has been called one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, with several films released before homosexuality was legalized in the U.S.
Fireworks [1947, 20 min, experimental]: A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a 'light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before.
Scorpio Rising [1963, 28 min, experimental]: A conjuration of the presiding Princes, Angels, and Spirits 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.
A Q&A with scholar Dr. Whitney Strub and Joan Hawkins (IU Media School) will follow the screening.
"Slinking in after a grandstanding finale, Scorpio slides down the gullet like a dank aperitif, echoing the fetishistic fixation on teenage rebellion and hip-wiggling beats of its predecessor." — Caroline Golum, Screen Slate
"In employing and indeed mastering this form with Fireworks, Anger forever established himself as one of the leading figures in the post-war American avant-garde, and his later works would only serve to buttress that position." — Christopher Meir, senses of cinema
"[Fireworks] explored the pleasures and perils of same-sex desire and interracial identification in a culture in which homosexuals and racial minorities were demonized and persecuted. Seventy years later, the film feels just as prescient." — Ara Osterweil, ARTFORUM
Any film screened at IU Cinema may contain content that viewers find sensitive or upsetting. Visit our Audience Advisories page to learn more.
