Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger

I never like to read too much about a movie before seeing it, especially an experimental. I have read a lot about Anger’s work before getting a hold of it, and had even seen a few, but it was only recently that I saw Fireworks. Made when he was only seventeen, the film is strong enough to stand by all the others he made in his long career.
I knew I had to watch Fireworks (1947, Black and White, 16 Min.)
after reading an interview with Anger by Scott MacDonald, in his series “A Critical Cinema.” Anger tells us that he made the movie with a camera his eighty year old grandmother gave him. This information is important in understanding the context in which the movie was made. He was seventeen, dealing with parents who were unsupportive of his sexuality as well as his desire to make art. His grandmother, however, was very supportive, calling his movie “fantastic.”
Anger cast himself as the star of Fireworks, along with a cast of boyish and beautiful sailors. The trance like film, along with the works of Maya Deran and Sidney Petersons, helped to define the genre of psychodramas: films which use “symbolic action and detail to dramatize a disturbed state of mind, usually the filmmakers own (Scott MacDonald, Critical Cinema).”
Equally interesting to me was the context of the films first screening. Anger developed relations with other filmmakers very early on. Fireworks was shown at a theater after the regular screenings, at midnight. There was, to his surprise, an audience. There were directors there as well as Dr.Kinsey of the Kinsey Reports! Not surprisingly, he was quiet interested in Angers film and offered to buy a print. This was the beginning of a life which, to an outsider, may seem charmed.
Maybe part of why I love his work so much is the passion with which he did everything related to his work. He believed in it, and wanted to get it out there. In 1949 he entered Fireworks in The Fesitval of the Damned Films, in Biarritz. Not only did he win first prize, but also received a handwritten letter from the head juror, Jean Cocteau!
He moved to Europe, feeling that his work was more appreciated there. He worked there for the head of the Cinematheque Francais, in exchange for room as board. It was there, just three years after making his first major film Fireworks, that he made Rabbits Moon (1950).



“Inflammable desires dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness are ignited that night by the libertarian matches of sleep.” -Prologue to Fireworks


The movie begins and ends with a shot of crashing water. In the first scene, the water extinguishes a what appears to be a burning stick. Thunder looms in the background as the scene changes to a sailor, standing against a black background, holding an unconscious man in his arms. The man is Angers character. The next cut takes us to Angers bed.
Depending on one’s reading of the film, you could say he never actually leaves his bed. My interpretation of Angers book ending the movie with scenes of water is that signal entering or leaving consciousness. While it may be a moot point to argue about what is “really happening” in a psychodrama, here I think it is at least something to ponder.
Anger’s character gropes the empty side of the bed. The room is filled with curiosities: A candle etched with symbols in the shape of a hand, a pile of photographs on the floor with various shots of the previous scene with the sailor, and the item which Anger’s character wakes up holding. The item is an African Statue, but it is introduced in a comical way: A medium shot of Anger’s character, still in bed, as what looks like an erection slowly rises under the sheets near his groin. He sits up and pulls the statue from under the sheets, looking both annoyed and disoriented.
A convenient door in his bedroom, marked “Gents”, leads to a mens room. Again, the reality of the action in the movie is debatable, but here it seems that in this dream state, the door leads to a mens room. While we see other locations, my interpretation was that these locations are used to abstractly illustrate what occurs in the mens room. Anger has compressed these locations, as they are compressed in dreams.
In this room, Angers character sees a sailor showing off his muscles. The camera frames the boys back and torso as he flexes, the light creating dark shadows which accentuate each muscle. Angers character looks on, then, taking out a cigarette, asks the sailor for a light. It is worth noting here Angers comment to Scott Macdonald in his interview, in which he remarks: “If you didn’t catch the humor of the film, you missed the point.”
The sailor slaps the cigarette out of his hand, then slaps him. His movements are stylized, almost pantomimed. This is interesting considering Angers later interest in Comedia del’Arte. The sailor continues with to beat up Angers character, and then suddenly, we are back in the bedroom where we began. The sailor and Angers character are in front of a large fire place. It is impossible to miss the humor of this scene as the sailor lights Angers characters cigarette with a giant torch, then exits.
Anger character smokes his cigarette contentedly, until he notices that a group of sailors has gathered behind him, swinging chains. A counter shot of the still smoking cigarette combined with the dramatic drums and horns, let us know he is in trouble. A chase ensues, ending with a face off. Interestingly, Angers character falls to the ground without being struck (at least not that we see). The sailors giddily pummel him, strip him, and give him the most painful looking nosebleed I’ve ever seen. At this point only one sailor is left. The sailor breaks a bottle containing a milky substance on the ground, then carves into Angers body. A gruesome close up follows of the sailor rooting around inside his body, peeling back organs to reveal a small, round meter which is going haywire.
A close shot follows of Angers profile as he lays on the ground, from the top of his lips to the bottom of his adams apple. A milky substance is poured on his lips and throat. The shot changes to reveal the liquid streaming over his head, seemingly reviving him.
The next two shots, while very quick, support the notion that the violence in the previous scenes are caged within the complex idea of the mensroom. The first shot pans around the mensroom, we see the urinals and then, almost too quickly to notice, Anger laying naked on the floor wearing a sailors cap. Then we see the door to the mens room, the one marked “Gents” that we saw Anger enter in the beginning of the movie, slowly open to reveal a void. The sailor we saw carrying Anger in the opening of the film appears again, against a black background. The music is triumphant as he flexes his arms, reaching down to his fly and unzipping it to reveal a huge firecracker. As the music climbs towards crescendo as the sailor lights the firecracker, spraying sparks everywhere. The music continues and we see a boy holding a Christmas tree, dripping with tinsel, in front of his face. The tree is then angled down towards the camera, and we see the end of it is burning. The tree breaches the doorway of Angers bedroom, on a horizontal angle which accentuates its use as (yet another) phallic symbol. With the music coming to a glorious climax, the tip of the Christmas tree is lowered the fireplace and ignite the photographs of the sailor carrying Anger. We watch these burn as the music changes to an eerie symphony of strings. Panning from a high angle over the room, the camera reveals Anger in his original position in bed. This time, however, there is a sailor lying next to him, his face obscured both by his arm over his face and dancing white rays.
The movie ends with the candle we saw in the beginning of the film falling into the crashing water, signaling the end of the dream.

Silverlake Life: The View From Here - Peter Friedman, Tom Joslin

Silverlake Life: The view from here – Peter Friedman, Tom Joslin
1993, 99 min

This movie was one of the ones I had to watch twice. The first time, I realized immediately I would want to watch it again. I had actually seen this movie my Freshman year, but was excited to see it again. I did take notes my first time watching it again, but I knew I would want to watch it again and pay more attention to taking notes.
In fact, both times I watched it I took very few notes. The parts of the movie I found so riveting were consistent throughout the movie.
The movie is a pure example of a Reflexive Documentary, but it is also interactive and interventionist, in that the movie took on its own life, became part of the Tom, Peter and __ lives, and created meaning and purpose at a time when both of these things were at risk of being lost. One scene that speaks to this is when Tom and Mark visit their therapist. Tom calls Mark a “doomsday aidser”, and they talk about their being a certain desperation to the video taping. The therapist then talks about their different approaches to having the disease. Tom, he says, is trying to lower the threat, whereas Mark is making the most out of what he has. This is poignantly followed by scene of with Tom videotaping from his bed. He shows us the tapes next to his bed, which are right beside his medicine, a monitor nearby which he can adjust to his comfort while in bed. The fact that everthing has been designed to be accessible for him when he is too sick to get out of bed, which he himself tells the camera, resonates with the previous scene.
The scene after this is equally potent, capturing a sentiment and question through a painfull shot of joggers running a race. Tom focuses in on their healthy, robust legs. They are a stark contrast to his pencil thin limbs. He runs along beside a jogger, at which point I was acutely aware of the physical feat this would represent to him.
“Do you think you’ll make it all the way?’ He asks. The jogger responds:
“With all these wonderful people and the entertainment I’ll make it all the way.”
The connection to Tom’s life here is very evident. Just to make sure you get the point, Peter Friedman adds this interaction in text as an inter-title. This is one of the few times we see, or are made aware of, Peter’s hand in the movie. Was he wondering what Tom was thinking in his head?
It isn’t a surprise when Tom dies. In fact, we know he dies from the very beginning of the movie. And yet, both times I watched it, I was hoping it would end differently. Mark and Tom’s openness to the public is a cause for wonder. While I think that the movie was made at least equally for them, as a vehicle for hope and meaning, as it was for us a vehicle for understanding “the view from here”, I feel indebted to them for making it.

Pull my Daisy - Robert Frank

Pull my Daisy – Robert Frank
1959, B/W 30 min

I watched this movie with my mother, who, born in the 1940’s, had a very different connection to seeing Alice Neel and Alan Ginsberg than I did. The movie was adapted for the screen from Beat Generation. Jack Kerouac provides the improvised narration. The only other sounds we hear are also non-diegetic, and include the music and the sound of the group chatting. This gives the entire film sense of being the visual counterpart to an oral story which, if you were to close your eyes, could stand perfectly well on it’s own. In fact, I imagined sitting with Kerouac at a dinner table, listening to him recount this story.
I was so delighted by the improvised feel of the film that I looked it up to see how much of it had been planned out. I was a little disappointed to find that it had actually been shot in a studio, and was carefully directed by Robert Frank. After my initial disappointment I was able to find some new appreciation for the fact that he had “tricked” me, and apparently many others. Making a movie feel spontaneous and improvised when it is in fact well rehearsed is a skill I find really interesting, especially learning about all the different techniques directors employ to pull it off. I’m sure that the improvised narration helps to further the conception. The only other movie that has ever ‘fooled’ me as well is “The East van Porn Collective”.
Whether or not you know the truth behind the production of the movie, it still serves as a document of its time. Any document involving so many of the beat generation giants would be.
The document they created was not only delightful ( it looked to me like the actors were having a grand time), but felt like an honest portrayal of an incident that might occur in one of their lives.

The Future is Behind You/ Cake and Steak

The Future is Behind You / Cake and Steak
Abigail Child, 2004, 20 min each, film to video


The next time I watch a piece by Abigail Child, I will be sure to bring headphones. The soundtracks to her work are equally as important as their image content, which I hadn’t realized until reading Scott Macdonalds interview with her.
The Future Is Behind You uses footage of a Bavarian family, and although it is the second part to Cake and Steak, it is very different in that it has a distinct plot. The story is secondary to Childs use of the footage to explore gesture, which links it back to Cake and Steak, and by the fact that she uses editing to create the drama of the movie, rather than depending on actual drama in the found footage.
Music is the primary source of the movies drama, moving the story along. She also employs digital editing to add inter-titles, layers, and subtitles which explain the family’s fictional lives.
Childs focus on gestures throughout The Future is fascinating to watch. She slows down and/or repeats moments which would otherwise flit by on the screen. In one such example, at the beginning of the movie, she repeats a slowed down and enlarged shot of a girl kissing another girl, who we are told is her sister. This otherwise non-remarkable gesture is made meaningful through this edit, we pause to think about the girls relationship to the sister. In this movie, the soundtrack is tied to the images more so than in her other movies.
I loved watching this one, it was delightful, not because of the content but because of what it did. I definitely took a lot away from it. I’ve been trying to figure out the different effects on the reading of a film that Abigail Childs inter-titles and subtitles make, versus those of Su Friedrich. Another connection to a movie for this class was made in Cake and Steak, which used words as a structure for the film. This is similar to Su Friedrich’s Sink or Swim, but not as strict. It reminded me of my grandmother. She is a painter. Sometimes, to give herself a “problem” on the canvas to work out, she will paint a sentence onto the canvas, using it as a structure over which to paint shapes of color, until the sentence is no longer visible but some hint of the original “structure” of the sentence remains.
Obviously the words used in these films were relevant to it’s readings, but the connection I made to the paintings made me think more about the other, hidden structures of Abigail Child’s films.

Distant Voices/ Still Lives - Terrence Davies

Distant Voices/Still Lives
1988 Color, 80 min

The first few shots are still or slow moving. Popular music of the time is introduced within these first few shots (“I get the blues when it rains”), something which continues through the movie. The slowness to these shots has the quality of a memory. Another aspect of the movie that lends itself to this memory quality, at least in the very beginning, is the absence of clear dialogue.
Along with the hazy,nostalgic feeling established so early in the film, Davies demonstrates from the beginning how formally innovative it is. I agree with Brian McFarlene’s point ( in Cinema Britain and Ireland) about form and meaning being inseparable in this movie. The first thing to strike me about this film was the actors interaction with the camera. The camera feels present in the room with the actors, even while the scenes seem so removed and in the past. Form and meaning come together when the actors interact with the camera in Davies theatrical portrait shots.
The form/meaning of this movie seemed related to that of the Accursed Mazurka, at least to my reading of it. In both, I felt that the camera/auteur was exploring memory and process of remembering. The Accursed Mazurka felt like it was made for the audiences, to express and transfer these memories. Distant Voices doesn’t seem to have a distinct message.
In searching for some kind of meaning or connection I tried to connect the movie to its title. There were overarching themes throughout both movies. In Distant Voices, a photo of the father dominates the portrait shot of the family, he controls them even in death. Throughout Distant Voices and Still Lives, the men are very controlling and while the women complain to each other, it seems commonplace. The women lack control over their lives because of the men, but everyone experiences a lack of control due to death and war. Both movies are centered around life events central to the family. This lends a circular feeling to the story, as life continues but also stays the same.
Maybe this is why McFarlene finds the movie so accessible, because everyone experiences these life events, and everyone experiences memory.

Double Life of Veronique - Kieslowski

Kieslowski’s 1991 “The Double Life of Veronique” is the kind of movie that leaves behind a trail of colorful images in your head long after the credits have rolled, as well as a feeling similar to after you heard your first really good ghost story.
From the title and initial few scenes, the “double life” seems be lived by the character of Veronika. We assume this because her “twin” does not enter the movie until much later in the movie. Because of this, it’s tempting to pick apart what we see of Veronika, in order to try and find dualities. One of these might be her extreme sensitivity when she sings. While existing physically here on earth, singing with her high school choir, the look in her eyes suggests rapture – that she is here and somewhere else at the same time.
Later we see her kissing a man in an underpass while it is raining. I believe this is the first time the ethereal green backlighting shows up. With the rain closing off the other end of the underpass, creating a cave-like atmosphere, and this surreal lighting, the scene is incredibly intimate. However, the secret smile that Veronika gives to picture of herself on the wall seems even more intimate, and more telling. It shows that, again, she is physically in one place, while in her head she is someplace else.
The movie is split into two sections, the first introducing us to Veronika, and the second introducing us to her twin. Besides their other worldly connection to music, Keislowski links the two women and thus the two parts of the movie by using metaphors as well as a special filter which is used throughout the movie. One metaphor Keislowski mentions in “I don’t like the word success,” chapter for of Keislowski on Keislowski, is Veronikas shoe lace, which is used as a metaphor for a heart monitor, in connection to her twins fragile heart.
Keislowski’s writing on this movie is equally interesting as the movie itself. It was interesting to learn about his thinking in trying to make this movie have uniformity, rather than feeling like two separate movies.
His opinion that there are fewer limitations in a low budget movie was also interesting, and I related it to his saying that his goal was stand above the “mediocrity”. A big budget movie would have to at least earn back the money spent in its production. He feels that it is in some way unethical to make these big budget movies, especially without knowing if you’ll make the money back. If you don’t, you might be taking money from someone else’s project. But I think his point about low budget movies was accurate – he was able to make the movie he wanted to make. His movie was criticized for being “too beautiful”, a strange criticism. He says that he feels the movie is accessible and could appeal to people of any background, any “sensitive people”. He also talked in this chapter about a scene he used, of the children watching the puppet show, which was not necessary in terms of the plot but provided “magical ambiance.” I think that his freedom to make the movie as beautiful as it is and to choose to keep shots, which provided the ambiance he wanted, are what he means when he says a low budget movie has less limits.

Late Spring - Yasujiro Ozu

When I first tried to find this film, I ended up renting “Late Autumn” without realizing it. I’m extremely glad I did. Having both read Borwell’s article on Ozu and seen another film in this series ( though I think it was made much later), made appreciating and catching Ozu’s sometimes subtle messages more rewarding.
All of the action and drama in Late Autumn was so controlled, it took time to actually think about the movie, afterwards, to realize that it was actually full of tension and emotion. Then, after reading Bordwell and seeing Late Spring, it was easy to see this ohtension just below the surface, and to appreciate how the refined manner of the actors actually increased that tension.
The film opens at a tea ceremony, the epitome of refinement and tradition. The film continues to demonstrate to us the simplicity of the Father and Daughters life together. They gracefully and happily accept their roles, and seem to have the perfect domestic partnership.
This movie was more emotionally intense than Late Autumn. For example, the direct questioning of the father about his plans to re-marry, as well as the emotional scene at the theater when she sees the empty seat beside her male friend.
As important and well known as Ozu’s concentration on the theme of family and domestic life are his distinct camera techniques. His filmmaking is a perfect example of how a filmmaker can employ “form equals function” in their editing and camera angles; as Bordwell states it, Ozu’s techniques are , “characterized by a set of dogged refusals: Constant Angle, static camera, rudimentary editing.” Ozu doesn’t use fades or other Hollywood hallmarks like the 180 degree rule or the conventional over the shoulder shots for dialogue. Instead, Ozu created his own system of establishing shots. One of these is the Tatami shot, where the camera is at the angle one would be at if kneeling on a tatami mat. As I mentioned earlier, Ozu doesn’t use fade or other traditional conventions to transition. Instead, he uses even this opportunity to further his particular style. Often his transition shots are of objects or architecture. Sometimes he will cut directly to the next shot, which to someone used to fades and conventional transitions can be jarring. I think the objects and the shots of the traditional Japanese architecture serve somewhat the same purpose as the opening shot of the tea ceremony.

Accursed Mazurka - Nina Fonoroff

The Accursed Mazurka – Nina Fonoroff
1994, 16mm, Color, 40 Min.

The film begins with a shot of a wall on which painted cards and a bouquet of flowers are hung. A woman’s voice describes how a woman was made mad by repeated exposure to a Chopin Mazurka on the radio. Throughout the film, it is unclear if and when this woman is herself speaking, because the third person is often used. This makes more sense as the film progresses and we understand the woman’s declining sense of self, to the point where it would make sense for her to refer to herself in the third person.
The movie reads like an attempt by the unseen protagonist to represent her illness while at the same time understand and explore it. There are many motifs used throughout, including windows and window shades (often with a woman opening or closing the shade), notes from a journal, trees and leafs, and drawings.
These images read to me like the base through which the more narrative images (such as those illustrating what is being said and those with people in them) are viewed. I say ‘through which’ because the narrative images often have ‘base’ images superimposed on them.
If this is a woman’s attempt to recapture and understand her mental state, this reading makes sense to me in that these base images feel private and hallucinatory, and it is hard to clearly see the narrative images just as it is sometimes hard to clearly recall a memory. Maybe they should be read as the product of her attempts to visually represent the emotions attached to her memories of this time. Reading the film through base and narrative images makes sense if we accept that what we see on the screen is viewed through her.
Further, while these narrative images help us understand what is happening in the plot, it would be impossible to understand the themes and emotional state of the woman were we not, literally, looking through these base images.
The narrative is revealed through shots of a hospital along with audio of doctors and nurses discussing a new patient. One of the only narrative shots without anything layered on top of it is of the outside of a hospital, to which, we’re to understand from the audio, the woman is being taken. This clear shot, which is viewed on its own rather than through a base image, could signal that at the moment she was not “accursed”.
Throughout the film close attention is necessary in order to try and sort out the visual and aural information. We understand that the woman is undergoing treatment at the mental hospital. Her reason for being there is explained through images of machinery and people using machines, such as telephone operators. They read as a metaphor for her “bad wiring”.
To respond to this film I tried to think about what it did and did not accomplish. I never felt a connection with any characters, and actually wasn’t certain if I could distinguish them all the time. This isn’t a failure on the films part, since I don’t think it was trying to make you feel empathetic towards the woman. It works in this film because it’s about a woman who has lost touch with herself.
It did make me feel uncomfortable at times. The larger implications of the special effects (blurring or making someone have a double) and repeated images seemed like the point of the movie, and the woman herself wasn’t as important.
I was surprised at the end, after noting all the motifs in the film, when it ends with the words “No motif”. Thinking back to the title, perhaps this refers to the music she claims drove her mad?
While I didn’t love this movie, it was well done and interesting on a lot of levels. It’s similar to the kind of movie enjoy making, so it was great to watch how it was put together.