Legendary Filmmaker Kenneth Anger Passes Away at 96

By Umesh Dhiman Last updated May 25, 2023

Experimental filmmaker, artist, and writer of a significant era Kenneth Anger is no more with us. He was 96 years old. The news was confirmed on the gallery’s website, which he shared with Monica Spruth and Philomene Magers, who said of him, “Kenneth was a trailblazer. Onlookers long after his death. His films, ideas, And vision will continue to have a profound impact.

Kenneth Anger was an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and novelist. He made over 40 short films, nine comprising the “Magic Lantern Cycle.” Anger’s films have won the hearts of millions for years because of their elements of surrealism, homoeroticism, the occult, and “eroticism, documentary, psychodrama, and farce.”

Top Ten Films The Kenneth Anger-directed:

Fireworks 1947, 20 min
Puce Moment 1949, 6 min.
Rabbit’s Moon 1950, 16 min.
Eaux d’artifice 1953, 13 min
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome 1954, 38 min.
Invocation of My Demon Brother 1969, 12 min.
Scorpio Rising 1964, 28 min.
Lucifer Rising 1972, 29 min.

He was not only the person who produced the first openly gay relationship films in America, but who also released many films before homosexuality was allowed in America, at one point, he was even credited with Aleister Crowley and Crowley’s The Religion was made the object of anger and ostracism by the followers of Thelema. But many of his works continued to explore mystical subjects.

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Kenneth Anger, original name Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, sometimes spelled Anglemeyer, Anger achieved such success even after being born into a middle-class family in Santa Monica, California. Presbyterian claimed to have been a child star in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), but this has been disputed.

Patake (1947), a gay short film, became his first success. After which, he was forced to acquit the obscenity test. Since then, people have come forward to adopt them, one of whom, the sexologist Alfred Kinsey, has become a friend and colleague.

Eaux d’Artifice (1953) and Rabbit’s Moon (1971) were Anger’s avant-garde shorts after moving to Europe.Following the success of the early 1950s, Anger began work on various new projects, including the films Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Scorpio Rising (1964), Custom Tax Kommandos (1965), and Hollywood Babylon (1965). The latter made many baseless and fantastic claims, some becoming urban divinities.

The Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972) were Thelemite-themed works by Anger, after failing to make a Lucifer Rising sequel in the mid-1980s when he met various counterfeiters. Later, Anger resigned from filmmaking and focused on Hollywood Babylon II (1984). But he later returned to filmmaking in the 2000s, making several shorts for festivals and events.

Anger, who gave life to his work, again amazed Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, and Maya Deren with his work and impressed everyone and Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and John Waters with his determination and determination—Kinsey Today claimed that Anger “had a significant influence on music videos as an e, along with many other filmmakers and artists.

RIP Kenneth Anger. the last of his kind and one of the few to understand cinema as ceremony. pic.twitter.com/cIcswS2M2N

— Adam Piron (@adam_piron) May 24, 2023

The lively attractiveness of the underground films of the era was so great that even haters of the genre couldn’t ignore them. The New York Times noted in 1967 that “when Establishment film critics attack the Underground for sloppy craftsmanship, self-indulgence, and perversity-for-perversity’s-sake, they usually make an exception of Kenneth Anger’s ‘Scorpio Rising,'” written by the director himself.

The picture was chosen for preservation by the Library of Congress in 2022 because it still has the same impact it did when it was first released.

The bizarre themes explored in Scorpio Rising would be taken much further in subsequent works. In the 1965 short film Kustom Kar Kommandos, ripped men buff a hot rod automobile suggestively to the tune of “Dream Lover” by the Paris Sisters. Cute pink tones are reminiscent of teen movies, and commercials are used as the camera slowly follows their every move.

Many of the ceremonies in Lucifer Rising (1970–1981) have mystical overtones. Bobby Beausoleil, a crew member with ties to the Charles Manson cult, was responsible for the death of a musician. Anger paid a prison visit to Beausoleil and convinced him to provide the music for Lucifer Rising with the help of other inmates.

Because of his prominence, Anger has been the target of stories about his being a gossip, a mythmaker, and a fantastic thinker. In or around 2010, Jeffrey Deitch, then-director of LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art, expressed interest in presenting a show devoted to rage. Sadly for Deitch, he had heard falsely that Anger had passed away.

Kenneth Anger’s work has been studied for decades by cinephiles, artists, and scholars interested in the intersections of film, art, and the supernatural. He will always remain in the hearts of the audience.

Kenneth Anger’s net worth:

Kenneth Anger has an estimated net worth of $60 million.

Kenneth Anger family:

There is nothing known about Anger’s background or family other than that he was born in Santa Monica to a middle-class Presbyterian household.

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