The Mysteries of the Magick Lantern Cycle

The Mysteries of the Magick Lantern Cycle: A Summary and Analysis of Kenneth Anger's Films

Essay Description:

Kenneth Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle is a series of nine short films that explore dream logic, surrealism, sexuality, and spectacle. Anger's work is often unsettling and dreamlike, pushing the boundaries of traditional filmmaking and challenging societal norms. His films are silent, relying heavily on music and visuals to create atmosphere and convey meaning. This analysis delves into each film in the cycle, highlighting their key themes, stylistic elements, and influence on subsequent filmmakers like David Lynch and Martin Scorsese. It also touches upon Anger's controversial persona and his fascination with the occult, particularly the teachings of Aleister Crowley, and how these elements contributed to his unique artistic vision.

Detailed Bullet Points:

• Fireworks (1947)

  • First openly gay narrative American film and arguably the first gay horror film.
  • Explores themes of body horror and homophobia.
  • Landmark case in protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ artists.
  • Pioneered the use of lightweight handheld cameras, contributing to the development of independent cinema.
  • Dreamlike and surreal imagery, setting the stage for Anger's signature style.

• Puce Moment (1949)

  • Considered the first modern music video, predating the term by a decade.
  • Focuses on themes of glamour and wealth, potentially critiquing elite decadence.
  • Showcases Anger's fascination with aesthetics and visual style.

• Rabbits Moon (1950)

  • Anger's most accessible film and closest to a traditional narrative.
  • Clear influence on David Lynch's work, particularly in its use of dreamlike imagery and uncanny atmosphere.
  • Innovative use of popular music in film, influencing directors like Martin Scorsese.

• Eaux d'Artifice (1953)

  • Features a woman running through fountains in a formal dress, set to Vivaldi's Four Seasons.
  • More experimental and less thematically rich compared to other films in the cycle.

• Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

  • Explores the absurdity of life and social constructs.
  • Features a party of gods and humans, with grotesque and exaggerated emotions.
  • Pioneered the use of psychedelic colors, influencing the 1960s art movement.
  • Marks Anger's growing interest in occultism and madness.

• Scorpio Rising (1963)

  • A love letter to the 1950s, but also a critique of its dark underbelly.
  • Explores themes of male bonding, shared identity, and the worship of idols.
  • Controversial imagery, including juxtapositions of Jesus and biker gang culture.
  • Led to protests by the American Nazi Party.

• Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965)

  • A music video set to the Paris Sisters' "Dream Lover."
  • Features a man caressing a car against a pink and blue background.
  • Title potentially chosen for its controversial implications, despite the innocent content.

• Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)

  • Anger's most raw and underground film.
  • Features disturbing imagery, including a controversial scene with a cat.
  • Mick Jagger provides the score, and Anton LaVey makes a cameo appearance.
  • Reflects Anger's deepening involvement with the occult.

• Lucifer Rising (1972)

  • Anger's magnum opus, taking over 10 years to complete.
  • Explores a Thelemite interpretation of Lucifer as a bringer of light and a symbol of liberation.
  • Celebrates earthly pleasures and the pursuit of artistic expression.
  • Production plagued by complications, including theft of footage and a falling out with Jimmy Page.

Obscure, Abstract, and Out-of-the-Box Thoughts:

• Anger's films can be seen as rituals themselves, invoking dreamlike states and challenging the viewer's perception of reality.
• The silence in his films amplifies the power of the visuals and music, creating a hypnotic and immersive experience.
• Anger's fascination with glamour and celebrity culture can be interpreted as a critique of superficiality and the emptiness of material pursuits.
• His use of occultism and Satanic imagery can be seen as a way to confront societal taboos and challenge conventional morality.
• The Magick Lantern Cycle can be viewed as a journey of self-discovery, with each film representing a different stage in Anger's personal and artistic evolution.
• Anger's legacy is complex and multifaceted. He was a pioneer in independent filmmaking and music video aesthetics, but also a controversial figure who embraced shock value and pushed the boundaries of taste.
• Ultimately, Anger's films invite viewers to question their own beliefs and perceptions, and to embrace the power of dreams, imagination, and the subconscious mind.

"The Mysteries of the Magick Lantern Cycle"

Kenneth Anger is probably the most famous person that was never actually really famous himself most people have never heard of him and he seems to enjoy his place at the periphery but his work has affected our culture in a multitude of ways and throughout his life he rubbed elbows with just about every well-known person of the 1960s and 70s and if you do know him or you think you may have heard of his name but you're not sure then it's probably from this book Hollywood babble-on which is a collection of short stories that he (00:30) claimed to be true detailing the scandalous lives of the Hollywood elite the book was later proven to be almost entirely false and what was true was greatly exaggerated but that didn't stop it from selling incredibly well and having a sequel published about 20 years later but I think he should be more known for this series of nine short films that he created from 1947 to 1970 the Magic Lantern cycle in which he developed and experimented with the ideas of dream logic surrealism sexuality erotica and spectacle for the (01:05) first time in such an upfront overt and graphic way for the American cinema as well as helped to invent what would become the modern music video is his work horror maybe not all of it explicitly but it is for the most part at least her adjacent and his impact as an artist has certainly affected the path that dreamlike horror has taken since then and has directly influenced filmmakers from all genres including David Lynch Martin Scorsese Nicolas Winding Ruffin John Waters Stan wreckage and jean-luc Godard to name a few as a (01:36) boy anger was sent to a private school where he found his classmates to be the children of some of the most famous and well-known people in the world beginning his obsession with celebrities celebrity gossip and the culture of wealth that he would gather from other children about their parents he was also a child actor and dancer appearing in films as early as the 1930s alongside well-known actors like Mickey Rooney James Cagney and Shirley Temple but he decided at a young age that he no longer wanted to act only (02:04) appearing in his own films from then on and he was encouraged by his mother and grandmother to develop his own style of filmmaking despite the fact that it was entirely from pretty much all other contemporary art but sadly all of these early experimental films that he made have since been lost with the earliest work of his surviving being fireworks from 1947 the first film of the Magic Lantern cycle fireworks is the first gay narrative American film and so through that not only was the film the first openly gay American story presented on (02:36) screen it was arguably also the first openly gay horror movie and it was a body horror movie at that depicting a dreamlike story of a man being attacked by a group of sailors while out on a walk at night an idea inspired by similar attacks the anger witnessed personally during the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 the movie today is still so evocative that in 2011 when asked what the most obscene movie ever made was director John Waters responded by saying that it was probably either Salo or fireworks anger and film distributor (03:08) Raymond rohauer actually both spent time in jail over indecency laws because of anchors films and their case with this movie over this shot of a lit firework sticking out of a man's zipper eventually went before the California Supreme Court who ruled the depictions of homosexual relationships and depictions of the male body on film fell with an artistic merit and should not be considered indecent a decision that would help to protect the rights of other LGBT artists and creators all over the country from then on but not only (03:37) was fireworks the first openly gay American movie and first gay horror movie it is an extremely important film in the development of independent cinema you see in 1941 the Society of independent motion picture producers was formed in secret out of a growing fear of the large Hollywood studios monopolizing the art of filmmaking their founding members were David O Selznick Mary Pickford Alexander Korda Samuel Goldwyn Charlie Chaplin Walter Wagner Orson Welles and ironically Walt Disney and one of their main goals and (04:10) trying to keep power away from these large companies was to distribute lightweight handheld film cameras they had just been invented to document World War two to average people in hopes that they would make their own movies and try to distribute them and fireworks as well as my adarand's meshes in the afternoon we're two of the only film that were made in this time that rose to prominence using those cameras and so through using this equipment with the help of these Hollywood producers trying to siphon power from what were the major (04:37) studios at the time Kenneth Anger inadvertently helped in the process of creating the art form that is low-budget independent filmmaking with fireworks anger begins to show some of the stylistic flares that will be featured all throughout the Magic Lantern nobody ever speaks in an anchor film they are entirely silent with the exception of the soundtrack that plays over them Pines of Rome by author Rina Respighi in the case of this film they are all so dreamy with some of them being almost incomprehensible of what they could (05:05) possibly mean or what is actually happening in the story he said of a style that basically I've always made silent films with music I've sort of veered away from what I call talkies even when the means were available and I prefer film to be a kind of vision like a silent dream surrealist film had been going strong in France since the 1920s from artists such as Rene Claire Louie bunnell and Man Ray but fireworks represents one of the first attempts within that movement by an American filmmaker and as such would be very (05:37) influential for that anger had a large appreciation for the silent era of film that was already fading away as he grew up but he also had an affinity for France and their artistic movements and values and would even live there for a time becoming friends with filmmaker Federico Fellini he also wrote while there for the film magazine Calle du Cinema and claims that he was the person who convinced two of their head writers Francois Truffaut and jean-luc Godard to go into filmmaking for themselves although there's only (06:05) anecdotal evidence to back this claim fireworks was screened at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles and Alfred Kinsey known for creating the Kinsey scale was in attendance and bought the first copy and would later also incorporate anger into a few of his studies on human sexuality French filmmaker Jean Cocteau who directed the iconic 1946 adaptation of Beauty and the Beast also reportedly loved fireworks and was said to have written a letter to anger telling him how much he appreciated the movie angers next film puce moment is a music video (06:37) created in 1949 ten years before the Big Bopper would actually coined the term music video it features Yvonne Markey who was said at the time to be the secret mistress of the former President of Mexico Lazaro Cardenas as she takes dresses off a rack deciding what to wear that day the movie like most of his work focuses on the question of what it means to be glamorous she is in a very nice room filled with very nice things surrounded by expensive dogs puce moment doesn't necessarily make a comment on those objects anger just shows them as (07:10) they are but when viewed through the lens of what would come later in his career as well as his hatred of old Hollywood as evident in his publication of Hollywood babble-on then this decadence shown here may very well be a critique on elite wealth but what this movie should be known for is the fact that it is the first music video to be done in a more modern sense of the term as we would understand it today at the time most works that would be closest to what we would think of as music videos would have been animated such as the (07:38) Fleischer brothers screen songs Disney's Silly Symphonies or Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies in live-action short musical films like st. Louis Blues actually feature the musical artists on screen performing when the music is actually playing but puce moment doesn't have the musicians in it physically and it does tell its own rudimentary story and so with this short anger delivers a concept that would eventually develop into what we now consider to be the medium of music videos angers follow-up to peace moment was (08:08) intended to be the love that worlds that seemed as if it was going to be a much more straightforward story than his usual surrealist works it was to be about an Aztec boy who was chosen to become king for one year before being ritualistically sacrificed anger shot the footage in 1949 for the film but when it was sent to the Kodak factory to be developed they destroyed everything because they objected to the nudity and violence that was shown in the film was lost forever for me at least rabbits moon that was shot in 1950 is (08:38) the best work that Kenneth Anger ever produced and is the one that I would most recommend watching it's his most entertaining film at the very least and also the closest he ever got within the cycle to making a traditional narrative this is the film that I believe had the most obvious influence on the work of David Lynch who has spoken about his admiration of anchors films in the past it just feels like one of his movies and it has a lot of the same DNA and tropes that he would use multiple times in his (09:05) career in it you have demonic like entities shrouding themselves and the guise of a benevolent figure people going through a barrier of transformative spaces into a magical location people moving their bodies in strange uncomfortable ways dancing that is somehow tinged with feelings of intense dread bodies falling from the sky rabbits and obviously fake trees that give off an uncanny appearance to name a few the whole movie just looks like it was shot by Lynch and without its existence some of his more out there (09:40) projects like Eraserhead might have ended up being very different in style and tone the use of music and rabbits moon is also exceptionally influential on modern cinema as up until this point popular music had not really been used all that much in films movies only really had orchestral scores to use as music if they were using pre-existing music than they were almost always based on hit musicals or song would be written specifically for a movie as a theme song and would only then afterwards become a popular song it was pretty rare for a (10:11) pre-existing pop song to just appear within a movie in this era it certainly happened but it wasn't frequent and it usually was sung by a character within the film when it did happen the soundtrack of rabbits moon consists entirely of 1950s pop hits such as there's a moon out tonight oh what a night bye bye baby I only have eyes for you and tears on my pillow and this not only influenced David Lynch's use of music later on in blue velvet but this film also along with angers other works Scorpio Rising (10:40) is what convinced Martin Scorsese to use a similar tactic in creating the tone of Mean Streets the he would also go on to use for a large amount of the rest of his filmography so without Kenneth Anger Goodfellas no longer feels like Goodfellas and the countless movies that copy Scorsese's use of pop hits for their soundtrack similarly probably would not exist in the same way that they do today Scorsese said of anger style that I was entranced by Scorpio rising when I saw it for the first time and had a powerful effect on (11:07) me and my own films over the years the way anger used music in that film in such perfectly magical harmony with the images opened my thinking about the role music could play in movies it could become as important to the characters in the world of the film as it was to all of us at that time oh the artifice is my least favorite anger film in the cycle it features a woman in a nice formal dress running through fountains for 13 minutes set to Vivaldi's Four Seasons it to me feels more like an experiment that one would (11:38) do to get used to a new camera or piece of equipment rather than an entry into a series that is one's life work I don't know the meaning behind this movie if there is a meaning at all and it is so stylistically different and constrained compared to everything else that he ever did that I'm not sure why he even made it it definitely isn't bad there's nothing particularly offensive about it but for me there's also nothing even close to a point of why it exists which is why I would rate it the worst of the (12:04) bunch his next film inauguration of the Pleasure Dome is a parody of the pure absurdity of life and the social constructs of groups of people all of his movies to some degree flirt with the concept of what it means to belong to a group and to be a part of something and here is where he works with that really head on for the first time in his career it depicts a party of gods and man it is a complete horror with mingled images of faces laughing depicting horrible garish representations of exaggerated emotions (12:34) this was also anchors first time experimenting with wild uses of color and a movie and the style that he forms here in 1954 is pretty much the beginning of what would develop into the psychedelic art movement of the 1960s it's a look that pretty much everyone is familiar with that he largely invented himself in this movie to explore these themes of occultism and madness on the inspiration for the film he would later say there was this Halloween party in Malibu called come as your madness and I incorporated some of the people who were (13:04) there because each one had different costumes reflecting their madness or obsessions and so I saw that it could be worked into an idea for a film one of the attendees of this party was Marjorie Cameron the wife of Jack Parsons who invented the rocket engine she was an artist an actor and a cultist and athel Emma stand through her anger would learn more about the teachings of Aleister Crowley which would influence the direction his career would take from then on and she can be found in Pleasure Dome portraying (13:34) the Scarlet woman Pleasure Dome is his most visually interesting and creative film and if you're interested in early surrealist work in America this is a must-see that demonstrates a budding interest on angers part in the supernatural and the occult Scorpio Rising is a love letter lamenting the end of the 1950's while also highlighting the darkness of that post-war decade that hid itself within the shadows in his own dramatic fashion anger spoke of the film better than I ever could when he described it as a (14:03) death mirror held up to American culture Brando buycks black leather Christ chains and cocaine a high view of the American Motorcyclist the machine as totem from toy to terror Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans and as big of a description as that is it's pretty apt here male-bonding clashes with shared identity appropriated from fascism in a mad dance of drugs violence and sexual tension the camera lingers on the bodies of the men and is by far angers most sexually driven work part documentary (14:39) part reflection on a time that had already passed by the making of this film Scorpio Rising is angers most iconic work the film also calls into question the worship of idols images of Elvis James Dean and Marlon Brando hover throughout the film as well as flashes of Hitler and Jesus with his disciples which on the surface don't seem to be connected but in relation to 50s motorcycle grease our aesthetic it strangely makes an interesting comment on the nature of style and what it means to have a shared cultural following and (15:11) look having Peggy March blasting I will follow him over images of Jesus intercut with a biker gang leader waving a death flag is one of the most impactful moments of any movie from the 60s everything related to anger is about aesthetics almost everything is a comment on uniforms in his films from sailors to the elite of Hollywood the Regency of the Pleasure Dome and old-world power of oda artifice and here he questions more than ever the meaning of what a uniform is and what it means to belong and to be a part of something (15:43) when the film was released the American Nazi Party protested the premiere of the movie saying that the content of the film defamed their flag and I didn't make that up they actually argued that the two sides got out of hand and the police eventually showed up and arrested the theater manager for showing the picture and causing a public disturbance cancelling all further showings thus ending Scorpia risings first theatrical run before ever even began with this also is where his filmography begins to take a bit of a nastier turn as this was (16:13) when anger began to fall deeper into the occult and everything here on would be tinged with a bit of malice to it his next few films would feel a bit mean-spirited and purposefully subversive just for the sake of being subversive but that isn't entirely surprising coming from a man who literally renamed himself anger as stated before anger was a massive follower of Aleister Crowley and similarly to Crowley he would make some really controversial statements in his personal life and would put things in his movies with the sole intent of (16:43) pissing people off and that starts right here with some of the more intense images that he flashes onto the screen and would develop to being at its worst in invocation of my demon brother six years later if you've watched my videos before you can probably assume that I don't personally ever give the benefit of the doubt with most people who do or say hateful things typically if someone says something hateful that sounds like a joke they actually mean it I don't think anyone should ever be given a pass (17:11) on that and as audiences I think it's our personal responsibility to always question the motives of any work of art that we consume to me it is always part of the viewing experience but because of his connection to Crowley this makes things a little more gray part of me thinks that anger didn't actually believe a lot of the things that he said or did in this time and that instead he reveled and being as infamous and upsetting as he could be Crowley became renowned around the globe as the wickedest man in the world he (17:41) loved the thought of people hating him for being a radical and didn't mind what people thought of him and would constantly say things that he either do believe or were simply not true just to get a rise out of the newspapers who wrote about him but despite everything he did and said his famous motto that his lifestyle and religion was based on was do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law love is the law love under will as well as every man and every woman is a star a quote that can be found on the first page of Hollywood (18:13) babble-on the concept of dilemma that Crowley initiated is one of personal liberation and acceptance and even though the way he went about that was to be as publicly shocking as possible to normalize radical ideas the very basic tenets of his philosophy is surrounded around love and finding your true self and accepting others for their true selves and is a really appealing concept to people like Ankur who feel marginalized by society and I think in the same vein as Crowley anger and Joy's getting a reaction in people and enjoyed (18:45) to either shock or disgust with his art whenever he could in this phase of his career but he also believed I think in a basic love of everyone the situation I believe is kind of similar to early John Waters who included as much filth and shocking imagery in his films as he possibly could who also often cited anger as a major inspiration for his work and in turn just like waters when you watch interviews of anger he actually just seems to be a respectful mild-mannered person who was kind and cares about others he's very polite and (19:18) cordial in every interview that he does and if he isn't actually that way he at least gives off that perception when on camera the man doesn't like to talk about his life very much and like most surrealist s' he hates talking about his work or what his work means but I don't think there's any real malice in him or if there was I don't think there is now but this aspect of anger makes him a difficult figure to cover in a video like this because while I think he did a lot of really important things in his (19:46) life that significantly affected media today he also did and set a lot of things in the 60s that were both selfish and hateful that I do not agree with on any level and cannot condone and I worry that by even making a video talking about these influences he had that it may seem like I believe that those things were either acceptable or good or that I agree with them which I certainly don't and while I don't want to spend too much time on this I just thought it would not be a true comprehensive overview of his life and (20:15) work to not at least mention it part of me even still thinks it to be a little unethical to give him a platform here anyways as the possibility exists of promoting some of the toxic things that he said and did during his time which is not my goal he is not a perfect person no one is and my take on him may be entirely wrong Kenneth Anger very well may be harboring some real hatred and venom in him but I really think that he saw himself as the modern equivalent of Aleister Crowley and through that took both the man's best aspects as well as (20:47) his worst the parallels between the two of them are numerous and some of those may be purposeful on Angers part and also with this furthered obsession of Crowley mixed with the nature of being an avant-garde counterculture shocked artists in the 50s and 60s means by its definition that Kenneth angers main prerogative as he saw it was to push as many boundaries as he could in that time anger would even go so far as to insert controversy into something where it didn't organically fit such as the three K's and the title of his next movie (21:19) custom-car commandos which is despite its title actually innocent in content being only a music video set to dream lover performed by the Paris sisters that features a man in blue against a pink background fondling a car I personally believe that there's a good chance that anger was never actually filled with any real actual hate but more so was just too much like Crowley for his own good and liked attention at any cost while also being interested in the nature of evil and also what was considered taboo and what was then (21:49) modern society I take him as a man who enjoyed testing limits wherever he found them just for the sake of doing so even if that meant saying things that he didn't actually believe and if he did then it's a major problem and I cannot agree with it and I also acknowledge and would like to reiterate that very well may not be the case and my take on him may be entirely wrong which is what makes his work difficult to talk about it time's the ambiguity of his true feelings leave a nasty stain over all his work and is a constant feeling in (22:20) the back of my mind when watching his films that I think is significant and is a necessary aspect to be talked about in a video about him he also accused others of this kind of edgy behavior as well saying in 1996 to Todd Anthony of the Miami New Times that none of these rock and roll people were ever into Satanism Mick Jimmy Page Ozzy Osbourne none of them had a deep understanding of the subject they're only interested in finding something they can manipulate to add an edge to their own work they're (22:49) all sort of post literate they've never actually sat down and read one of Crowley's books page bought an entire library of Crowley originals but I doubt he's ever read them they'll probably just sit in his library unopened and be auctioned off again after he dies but seeing his here in his 90s he runs a website selling shiny jackets that say Lucifer on the back that cost about $800 a piece that he was possibly projecting a little when he said that I have no doubt the anger is very well read on (23:18) books of witchcraft and mystic symbolism and tradition and that he holds these things as an important part of his identity but I also believe that he has used controversy and the devil substantially in the past for notoriety and financial gain or as he puts it at an edge to his work he also said one time that movies can be evil although of course my definition of evil is not everybody else's evil is being involved in the glamour and charm of material existence glamour in its Old Gaelic sense meaning enchantment with the look (23:49) of things rather than the soul of things and it is through this lens that I think his absolute hatred of Old Hollywood makes sense it is still the modern definition of the word glamorous and it also makes sense why he would publish a book defaming as many celebrities as he could whether his claims were true or not and could also be the reason for the subject-matter of his own films glam style is present in almost everything he ever made maybe this is a critique of what he views as evil within modern society rather than an embrace by his (24:21) own admission he lives a very modest life and has never even owned a television maybe selling hundred dollar gold Satan jackets is an act of parody unto itself a joke on the people who are buying them but in interviews anger gives so little about his personal beliefs and life that it's hard to tell anything concrete about him at least for me and maybe that in itself is the point to ask questions rather than to give any answers or opinions Scorpio Rising was the first film of angers to become a somewhat well-known (24:52) work of art and is what propelled him in this time to the frontlines of the counterculture scene and it is here that we crossover with another story recently told on the channel as john paul Getty jr. who had at this point been disowned by his billionaire father saw the film and loved it inviting anger to London and introducing him to figures such as the art dealer Robert Fraser William Burroughs Marianne Faithfull the Beatles as well as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who he would become close friends with invocation of my demon (25:21) brother released four years later represents anger at his most raw it to me is by far the most counterculture underground trash cinema that he ever got and is the only film of his that I do not enjoy watching there's a moment here involving a cat that I will not show or describe that caught me by complete surprise the first time I viewed it and it was the only time I felt genuine real hatred for his work a circle smoke from a skull a satanic Rite is performed Mick Jagger provides the score free of charge and Anton LaVey (25:51) himself even cameos here also this is the face of Bobby Buzzelli who would later the same year murder Gary Hinman under the direct order of Charles Manson if you're watching this and wondering to yourself he was the one with the top hat in last year's once upon a time in Hollywood it has suggested that anger and Boo sully at this time were in a relationship they were confirmed to at least have been living together anger who would have in this time been in his 40s invited boo Sully who was 19 to live (26:18) with him and certain reports claimed that the relationship was platonic but the anger was very possessive over him and would become upset when he brought women back to the house while other sources hint that there was some sort of deeper connection between the two and anchor himself when talking about it sometimes seems to imply that the latter is true using words like wind boo sully left me rather than wind boo Sally moved out in 2015 when being interviewed over the phone for vice Buzzelli described this time as follows (26:45) I met him in the spring of 1967 and he was working on Lucifer rising he was very passionate about this concept that he had for a film that would be kind of a sequel and antithesis to his previous film his most popular film Scorpio Rising he wanted me to play Lucifer in the film that was in 67 and we worked together on the project for a while there were some problems that developed between Kenneth and I it's hard to describe to be honest I don't really understand what happened some kind of psychological breakdown that was going (27:15) on with him I can't really say what was the cause of it but we had a famous falling-out at that point when questioned about his involvement with boo Sulley at this time the most the anger will say on the subject is I seem to be attracted to bad boys but I'll never let it go too far I was a smart boy too smart to be involved in badness he would also say that he more prefers to be bad by association the years 1972 and a crocodile is born magma spits up from the earth and the tar pits bubble all while the goddess Isis watches along (27:47) with the god Osiris all signs that can only signal that of Lucifer rising the last film of the Magic Lantern cycle and Kenneth angers magnum opus they encapsulate all ideas presented so far into a single capstone film anger says of this film that Lucifer is not the Christian devil according to Crowley who wrote a wonderful poem called him to Lucifer Lucifer is the god of beauty and light and his name actually means I bring the light I am the Light Bearer as I said the beginning of the film is heralded by Osiris the Egyptian god of the dead and (28:21) Isis the goddess of life and by having this in the film I believe that this interpretation of Lucifer is intended to be a celebration of all things carnal on earth all enjoyments of the flesh a very Thelema stye diya in his book magic in theory and practice I believe Crowley expands on this concept of Satan more clearly as he says the devil is historically the god of any people one personally dislikes this serpent Satan is not the enemy of man but he who made gods of our race knowing good and evil know thyself and taught initiation he is (28:57) there for life and love in a way I think you can view this interpretation of the devil as being the patron saint of all artists especially artists like them that were hated by many in their time for showing and exploring radical ideas and through that Lucifer rising is not a portrayal of darkness like Scorpio rising was but instead is a celebration and affirmation of life they are film companion pieces that are both at the same time very similar and entirely different from one another also as a fun piece of trivia anger claims that the (29:32) Rolling Stones song sympathy for the devil was born out of this interpretation of Lucifer that he introduced to the band in conversations with them complications plagued the film though and the entire production took over 10 years to complete as he said in his quote a moment ago bobby-boo celli was originally supposed to star in the film as Lucifer but when the two had their falling out before the events with Manson took place boo slowly stole all of the footage that contained him they had been filmed for the movie some (29:58) speculate that he buried it in the desert somewhere near spawn ranch but there is little to back this claim this sequence in the movie here of Omegas played by anger himself dancing in a Magic Circle was the first to be filmed and was made as a proof-of-concept to raise the additional 15,000 pounds needed to complete the picture by the National Film Finance Corporation and when that money was eventually granted to anger it sparked mild controversy in the newspapers the English tax dollars were being used to fund a blatantly (30:26) satanic work of art also as a side note standing just off camera watching the filming of the sequence was actor Dennis Hopper and director Alejandro Jodorowsky after the completion of production on the film anger moved into Jimmy Page's house to collaborate together on the music of the film but within weeks anger entered into an intense argument with Paige's wife who kicked him out of their home and ended the partnership between the two anger would later hold a press conference announcing that Paige would (30:53) no longer be providing music on the film saying I'm beginning to think Jimmy's dried up as a musician he's got no themes no inspiration no melodies to offer and it was here that Buzzelli stepped back into angers life after the time apart to provide the music from prison that was eventually used in the film and if you're curious about what ever happened to the score that Paige created before the two went their separate ways he released it as an album in 2012 and I think it's really good I (31:19) actually do think that boosts Elly's music fits the finished film better than this would have but I see where Paige was going with it and I think it would have worked with a different editing style I get the feeling that the fact that their collaboration broke apart also saddened Paige a little as he said later on that the mix is really really superb I'm really proud of it I've got some experimental music done with a bow and theremin which is like hang on to your seats because it's really really (31:44) something else it's disturbing despite by far being his largest production I'm actually not the biggest fan of Lucifer rising maybe it is because it feels the most polished but I think something is kind of missing here that is present in earlier movies like Pleasure Dome or Scorpio rising to me Kenneth Anger is an agent of chaos his work is emblematic of the crazed nature of creativity rapidfire shots with little to no continuity madness personified but here I think his style is the most refined and controlled that it ever was when (32:18) watching Lucifer rising you can tell that it is the project that he cared the most about and worked the hardest on but that doesn't make it necessarily all that fun to watch but the themes here that he's dealing with I think are very important and understanding Lucifer rising is the key I think to understanding him as an artist as well as the rest of his work like Crowley I think that anger saw himself as an artist that felt constrained by the popular zeitgeist of the time and I think Lucifer was a great figure of (32:47) liberation for him he probably felt for most of his life that he wasn't able to do as he wished and publicly be the person that he truly was that is generally the story of how intense artists are born and I think that Lucifer rising represents anger transitioning from a period of disdain for society to a more hopeful period of wishing for change that would allow him to simply be himself and through that lens you can see in all his films a view of the changing times and how anger saw the world as it was and also how we wished it to actually be (33:19) a more open world inviting to new ideas of mysticism acceptance and dreams a world of love and a world of embracing the unbound spirit of all things in life and art with his message being that the key of joy lies in disobedience [