Kenneth Anger: A Demonic Visionary

Anger’s impact on contemporary culture has been profound, with international repercussions: from mainstream and independent filmmakers, contemporary artists, and the music industry. He has created new genres and techniques in filmmaking: improvisation, pastiche, and through default of lack of funding, the music clip, in films such as Scorpio Rising, 1963, Kustom Kar Kommandos, 1965, and Puce Moment, 1949/70, pioneering the most fertile experimental collaborations with contemporary musicians. Those musicians include Mick Jagger (who created the soundtrack for Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969; Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and the infamous Bobby Beausoleil who contributed to Lucifer Rising, 1970-80, which also featured Marianne Faithfull. Anger has provided an elegantly subversive alternative to mass cultural representation, and his extraordinary images also serve to some degree as social documentary of the era.