1927-02-03 ( 98 years old ) in Santa Monica, California, USA
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer; February 3, 1927 - May 11, 2023) was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which in particular have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle," and form the basis of Anger's reputation as one of the most influential independent filmmakers in cinema history. His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle." Anger himself has been described as "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner," and his "role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise, is impossible to overestimate." Some of his particularly homoerotic works, such as Fireworks (1947) and Scorpio Rising (1964), were produced prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley, and is a follower of Crowley's religion, Thelema. This influence is evident from films like Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972).
Anger has described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters.He has also been described as having "a profound impact on the work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative." During the 1960s and 70s he associated and worked with a number of different figures in popular culture and the occult, including Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, artist Jean Cocteau, playwright Tennessee Williams and musicians Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and Marianne Faithfull. He is also the author of the controversial best seller Hollywood Babylon (1959) and its sequel Hollywood Babylon II (1986), in which he claims to expose many of the rumours and secrets of Hollywood celebrities.
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Movies
24 Hour Sunset
2023-09-01
Anton LaVey: Into the Devil's Den
2019-12-06
Magick Lantern Cycle
2019-03-08
Mansfield 66/67
2017-01-29
The 1000 Eyes of Dr Maddin
2015-09-08
42 One Dream Rush
2010-09-15
FLicKeR
2009-07-14
Night of Pan
2009-03-09
365 Day Project
2007-12-31
The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume Two
2007-10-02
Disinfo.Con
2007-02-20
The Films of Kenneth Anger: Volume One
2007-01-23
Anger Me
2006-10-23
Notes on Marie Menken
2006-04-20
Hedy Lamarr: Secrets of a Hollywood Star
2006-01-21
The Spells of Kenneth Anger
2003-10-14
Busby Berkeley: Going Through the Roof
2003-03-28
Rescued from the Closet
2001-05-29
A Spy in the House of Love
1998-01-05
The Beach Boys and The Satan
1997-10-17
Birth of a Nation
1997-08-06
Darryl F. Zanuck: 20th Century Filmmaker
1995-09-03
Jonas in the Desert
1994-01-01
Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon
1991-04-05
The Rolling Stones - The First 20 Years
1982-01-01
Lucifer Rising
1974-04-10
Look Back at Anger
1974-01-01
Langlois
1970-09-19
Kenneth Anger: Film as Magical Ritual
1970-04-29
Invocation of My Demon Brother
1969-10-10
Arabesque for Kenneth Anger
1961-12-29
The Dead
1960-12-31
The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
1954-03-29
Fireworks
1947-12-31
Prisoner of Mars
1942-01-01
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