Original subtitles

Kenneth Anger - Film as Magical Ritual

In one of his earlier films, Shiva, Kali and Pan appeared

As well as the Great Beast from the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon

Isis and Osiris, and Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

His last film was called Invocation of My Demon Brother

while the film he is shooting now is dedicated to Lucifer

the banned Angel of Light.

Essentially, Kenneth Anger is a spiritual, a religious artist.

But he is not a Christian

He considers himself to be a member of the Gnostic Church

which still has a few followers, despite millennia-old suppression by Christianity

The Gnostics had a dualistic concept of the cosmos

ruled by an eternal battle of Good vs. Evil, Light vs. Darkness

As in Christianity, there is a hope for Light's final victory.

Kenneth Anger's religion is a religion of Light.

And he worships it with his films as an icon painter his saints.

Lucifer means Bearer of Light

That is how the Romans called Venus, the morning star

that announced sunrise.

My concept goes back to Gnosticism

suppressed by Christianity

Christianity perfidiously turned the God of Light into the Devil

kept the horns, but added malevolence

I am casting types, not actors

and I select them by astrological signs

I have found somebody who is Aries and a fire sign

Now I am on my third choice, and I hope three will turn out a lucky number

I choose them for their elementary power, representing demons or angels

Anger's films are images of spiritual worlds made visible

His visuals are entirely produced by imagination

He can only accept real life footage by assimilating it

His films are even more fictious than usual feature films

While these imitate the reality of this society

Anger is creating a different reality

Anger never had any affinity with documentary film-making

When we asked him to make a documentary portrait of his

to film him during shootings

and to talk about himself and his work

he showed only little understanding.

It was difficult to convince him to do this portrait at all.

When he finally agreed to collaborate

it meant for him working on a portrait and interview

he envisioned to be mostly fictious and staged.

He thought it impossible to answer questions while working

He rather wanted to carefully prepare his answers.

And so he built a sort of altar, behind which he made his statements

robed as magician and artist.

To me magic is the background of all life.

There is no difference for me between magic in daily life

or within special circumstances

By means of technique I summon spirits to do my bidding

I invoke elementary powers such as electricity, light and color

When being watched Anger took care to direct himself, too

Here he is filming figures representing "Lucifer" and "Lilith"

but he does not, as one would assume, position himself behind the camera

but rather behind the table, so we are getting a better sight of him.

He even steps into his own frame

making the material unusable

He does it in order to help us.

help us create a portrait as he imagines it:

a staged portrait.

Later, when he finally agrees to leave his altar

he is still not speaking out of an actual working situation

but again out of carefully arranged stagings.

The wolf is war's sacred animal

And this is the head of a sacred man

For me this is the sacrifised Maharishi

In other words: the triumph of Magic over Mysticism

Magic is action, whilst mysticism is withdrawal from action.

To repeat: magic is no conjuring trick

Magic means to make the forces of the universe

work for and not against us.

I began this film in the sign of Aquarius, and I do hope the forces are on my side.

If I can actually finish this film

it will be as much as anything a demonstration that these things can work

Because I am violating a lot of frontiers in this films.

The mage by walking around the magic circle

charges it with secret powers

He creates a sort of electrical field, as Anger puts it.

The concept of the magic circle

can already be found in Anger's earlier work.

In his latest film, "Invocation of my Demon Brother"

he also plays the part of the magician himself.

This short film was the result of Anger's first attempt

to shoot "Lucifer Rising".

I found a new actor, replacing the one who jumped from a roof

He believed himself to be a bird.

My second Lucifer was a young guitar player

He stole part of my film, so I had to begin again.

And this film I had left I made into an eleven minute film

called "Invocation of my Demon Brother"

In "Inauguration" and "Invocation" intoxicating substances play an important role

The Dionysian includes intoxication as a sacred element

Intoxication by dancing, alcohol, drugs or crapulency

In "Inauguration" I have the participants in this ritual take a substance

according to tradition.

At Witches' Sabbath there was a witches' brew

There were always different substances to be eaten or drunk

In "Inauguration" the substance implied is a sacred mushroom

Known by the American Indians as well as by the Tibetans

It is a traditional means to reach another level of consciousness

The characters reach the astral level

They get "high", so to speak

They actually become the Gods and Godesses

they were just playing when they began

Drugs play an important part in other films of Anger as well

Hashish in "Invocation of my Demon Brother"

Nicotine and cocaine in "Scorpio Rising"

"Inauguration" was influenced by certain ideas of Aleister Crowley

especially the "dramatic ritual"

The participants of the ritual play the parts of Gods or Godesses

and they accept the mythological consequences

My brotherhood celebrates this ritual on the occasion of certain festivities

The Great Beast and The Whore assume the role of High Priests of magic

At a certain moment in the film there appears, very briefly,

the head of an elderly man.

This is Aleister Crowley, the man on whom Anger bases his philosophy

and whose disciple he considers himself to be.

Occultist, globetrotter, magician and painter

an exceptional figure in modern occultism

Next to a series of writings for the initiated

he wrote the benchmark book "Magick in Theory and Practice"

He founded the Order of the Silver Star and Thelema Abbey

I understand that it was Crowley who influenced your magical thinking

When did this begin?

When did you first come across Crowley's ideas?

I first met his ideas in 1950, through some of his followers in California

Later I went to Sicily, where he had founded an abbey

It was actually an old, ruined farmhouse

I removed the white paint applied by Mussolini's policemen

Crowley had a penchant for erotic and maybe obscene motives

As in this painting, where he depicts himself as a phallus

In 1953, the American sex researcher Kinsey

found Anger's discoveries interesting enough

to come to Sicily himself to see Crowley's erotic frescos

Anger shot a film about the frescos

aired on British TV in 1953

unfortunately though the print is lost

It would not do justice to Crowley to merely view him as eroticist and adventurer

or, as during his lifetime, as dangerous psychopath and wicked seducer

The strong erotic or rather pan-sexual components of his teachings

induced abhorrence and disgust among his contemporaries

Today he might be better understood.

Today a Crowley renaissance is on it's way

1969 a biography and his autobiography were published in the UK

Crowley was influenced by Eastern mysticism, ancient oriental ideas

Egyptian esoteric doctrines as well as the Kabbala and Gnosticism

Fundamental for his teachings was the gnostic, dualistic notion

of the eternal battle between light and darkness

with Lucifer, ejected by revengeful Jehovah, rehabilitated

as the embodiment of Light.

Anger took this idea from Crowley.

In his writings I found the essence of everything I have ever believed in.

His philosophical thoughts are in these small, sacred books

I don't need real gold if I can create the illusion of gold by artifical means

I never had much money for my films, which is why I play with them like a child

I take a few elements and make my little universe

This is Crowleyan magick!

And ever since this time you have been a member of Crowley's brotherhood.

Your films are basically religious films

I want to show the ritual technique of magic

and how this spirit is elevated into a second state

where he can communicate with the other world or dimension

In "Scorpio Rising" you showed more of the reality of this society than in other films

You seemed to be fascinated by physical strength

maybe even violence

What is your relation to violence, and to these motorbike fans?

I see in a phenomenon like these motorcycle gangs a tribal impulse

subconscious and primitive

They literally don't know what they are doing

They would have been outraged, if I had told them

A Witches' Sabbath at Halloween in Brooklyn

A sort of travesty, no?

Well, it is, but Aleister Crowley teaches us to appreciate

what he calls the "cosmic joke"

Meaning that everything in life can be seen under a profane or a sacred aspect

What seems serious from one viewpoint can be comical from another

Human life is either a big tragedy or a big comedy

I as a magician take both viewpoints.

In "Scorpio" you combined these gangs with the symbol of the Swastika

with pictures of SA-Men and Hitler

That seems to be another sort of travesty of magical ideas

It's an abuse of magical ideas

because the Swastika is an ancient symbol of the sun and of happiness

The Indians had it, the Hindus, the Chinese...

Hitler got hold of a powerful symbol, and then used this to blind people

I am not a Christian, but I think the cross has been abused in a similar way

All the massacres in America happened under the sign of the cross

That society's violence might have a hidden mythical meaning

was a thesis that Kenneth Anger, merely 17 yo, tried to demonstrate in "Fireworks"

A young man is brutally beaten by a group of sailors

a violent travesty of a rite of passage

In "Fireworks" I play myself as a seeker of light

Translated as the story of somebody lacking matches who goes looking for fire

And it ends with him getting initiated

Lucifer is actually in my film as somebody whose head bursts into flames

I painted this directly on the film. I always have do it as simple as possible.

From this film, made in 1947, leads a direct path to "Lucifer Rising" in 1970.

Even if he didn't use the name of "Lucifer"

Anger tried to find the God of Light already 20 years ago.

The forms have changed

but the overall idea stayed the same

even if Anger had to take a few detours in between

Also still the same is his fascination with the artifical, the world of illusion

He grew up in Hollywood, close to the big studios

And this influenced him until today.

You have met the world of Hollywood at an early age

and Hollywood always held a certain spell for you

For better or worse, I made my first contact with Hollywood when I was 4 years old

I appeared in Max Reinhardt's "Midsummer Night's Dream"

This world of illusion was very exciting for a child in my age

I never quite got rid of the wish to play around in a big studio

But that is impossible, of course.

But you have made a film about Hollywood, or at least were planning to.

Was this connected to your nostalgic memories?

In the late 40s, a section of Hollywood was threatened with destruction

Right were the very first stars had build their palaces

Rudy Valentino, Barbara LaMarr, Clara Bow and others...

I wanted to pay hommage to the fantasy architecture of the Twenties

the Golden Age of Hollywood

a lost civilisation, dead like Babylon

vanished like a ghost or a dream

The film was to be called "Puce Women"

But I only managed to do eight minutes of it

even though the whole film was already planned

It is a day in the life of a star from morning till noon

It is a satire on this period, but a gentle one

It is one of my lost dreams

This world of pretty deceptions, of "make believe"

stayed dear to Anger's heart, when he left Hollywood for Paris

following an invitation of Cocteau

In Paris you saw the films of M�li�s, which inspired you

I started to create a fantasy world of my own, with painted backdrops and sets

In 1950 I shot a film in Paris in the style of M�li�s

I built a dream forest in a little studio

The film was called "La lune de lapin" - "Rabbit's Moon"

It was an attempt to combine the characters of Commedia dell'Arte

with dreamy elements such as the Japanese legend of the Rabbit in the Moon

The Japanese have a rabbit, not a man in the moon? - Yes.

It is a little fragment, but it pointed into the direction where I wanted to work.

The film, starring the young pantomime Andr� Soubeyran, was never finished

Anger had to stop shooting after a week,

because the empty studio was needed by somebody else

The scenes shown here are uncut and just roughly applied

Anger has never used a studio ever since

But I am free. I can adapt everything from this world by filming it my way.

I couldn't build Fafnir the dragon, I don't have the budget

But I need alchemical dragons for "Lucifer Rising"

Just as these dragons from Crystal Palace Park in London

Anger will use these shots of Stonehenge only for brief superimpositions

He finds objects and integrates them in his films

without caring about their actual function

A novelty in respect to his earlier work is the use of outdoor location shots

But prehistoric monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury

are important to him, because they are very likely remains of an ancient sun cult

I am using these stones to introduce the earliest known form of religion:

the sun cult

The theme of the film is the worship of the Sun and the Light

In your most important magical film so far,

"Inauguration", there were no exterior shots

only interior shots

In this film you are going outdoors again, like in earlier films

Yes, this time I am using a lot of nature.

It's more difficult to control, but it's a challenge

There will be nature not only in the prologue?

No, all through the film.

The way of working on this film was much different from your usual ways.

Usually it is just you and a few actors

this time you have quite some equipment and people around

Does that sort of disturb you?

This film has more complicated technical problems,

and this is why I need these collaborators.

But from now on you will continue to work alone?

Some things I can only do when I am all by myself

That is your normal way of working?

This interview in Avebury, the last one we conducted in front of the camera

again shows Anger's unwillingness to answer questions

He could hardly be convinced to do it

and staged it carefully

An earlier attempt to elicit more spontaneous comments failed

Kenneth, what do these stones mean to you?

But a few minutes later he tried to reconcile us with a joke

Instead of pointing his camera to the stones, he panned into our direction

filming the team that was filming him

In fact he was conscious about the difficult situation this shoot imposed on him

as can be seen in this episode.

As a sheep which is supposed to play a part, gets scared and runs away

the very camera-shy Kenneth Anger said:

There it goes - camera-shy!