The program dedicated to filmmakers who have made avant-garde cinema history is back: the 18th edition of Archivio Aperto pays tribute to the great filmmaker Kenneth Anger, a pioneer of experimental cinema, with a retrospective of 12 films, screened on film and partly in digital format.
New York, March 21, 1966, spring equinox. For the occasion, Kenneth Anger prepares a printed program for a series of screenings of some of his films—such as Kustom Kar Kommandos, Fireworks, Eaux d’Artifice, and Scorpio Rising—entitled Magick Lantern Cycle at Jonas Mekas’ Filmmakers’ Coop cinema. The booklet includes writings, stills from his films, and some notes where Anger also suggests the best time to ingest LSD tabs. The booklet is further embellished by a sort of profile, compiled by the director, which lists his zodiac sign, hobbies, religion, and above all his heroes: Flash Gordon, the poet Lautrémont, the sexologist Alfred Kinsey, the occultist Aleister Crowley, and George Méliès. And it is precisely from the pioneer of cinema that we can (and must) start in order to try to define the extraordinary complexity of a filmmaker like Anger. Méliès was, in fact, both a precursor of avant-garde cinema and of Hollywood cinema; a seemingly impossible meeting point, but one that perfectly encapsulates the pulsating tension of Anger’s cinematic universe.
Classicism and experimentation, ordinary and extraordinary, formal refinement and kitsch. Rabbit’s Moon is Anger’s first film shot in 35mm in 1950 in Paris and is his very personal tribute to Méliès. Filmed in a studio, the short film “in blue” is a dreamlike reinterpretation of the Commedia dell’Arte starring Pierrot and Arlecchino, the same characters as in Méliès’ 1903 short film La lanterne magique. It is therefore a tribute to a cinema that in turn pays homage to the world of pre-cinema, namely its direct cinematic ancestor, the magic lantern. This is precisely what inspired the name Magick Lantern Cycle—which encompasses most of Anger’s films—where the extra “k” indicates another fundamental element of Anger’s poetics. Magick is, in fact, the title of Aleister Crowley’s best-known work (perhaps Anger’s main “hero”), written in 1929. The director’s cinema thus combines European Surrealism, complex narrative symbolism, and mystical-esoteric doctrines. These elements, through their recurrence, become the immovable cornerstones of an unmistakable poetics and contribute to shaping the collective imagination as well as much of 20th-century experimental cinema.
Edited by Cecilia Ermini.
In collaboration with Cinédoc Paris Film Coop.