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.