And so we say farewell to Kenneth Anger, a man whose influence runs through the underground of 20th century American culture like a particularly potent seam of viscous, glimmering oil.
Normally, it would be unusual to apply such superlatives to an artist whose core body of work over 50+ years essentially consists of one book and a couple of hours of film, but Anger’s key works - into which category I would place the trilogy of ‘Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome’ (1954), ‘Scorpio Rising’ (1963) and ‘Invocation of the Demon Brother’ (1969), along with ‘Hollywood Babylon’ (published 1959) - are so densely packed, reflecting and refining so many parallel streams of culture, and setting off such explosive series of artistic/aesthetic chain reactions in their wake, that each of them feels monumental in stature.
And, that’s before we even factor in his presence as a central instigator/lightning rod for what we might broadly term Californian High Weirdness, and an observer/participant in many of the weirdest, wildest, scariest and (ultimately) most transformative moments in mid-century culture. More so than merely a guy with his finger on the pulse, he often seemed (in keeping with persona as a self-styled grand magus) as if he was the one setting, or at least quickening, that pulse (for better or for worse).
Indeed, what I find so remarkable (nay frightening) about the films I’ve listed above is that, more-so than just boiling down their respective cultural moments into a heady, psycho-active sludge, they seem to pre-empt (or, in keeping with Anger’s core belief that the act of viewing one of his films equates to participating in his magic(k)al practice, actively invoke) a psychic darkness lurking just over the horizon.
In ‘..Pleasuredome’ - so resonant of opium-soaked cocktail lounge exotica and the spirit of mystical/irrational/‘unAmerican’ weirdness germinating within the shadows of old Hollywood and the West Coast Military Industrial Complex during the 1950s that it might as well be soundtracked with theremins and spliced with footage from ‘Forbidden Planet’ - we can already see the drift toward decadence and narcissism which would wreak havoc on the lives of some of the film’s participants as the excesses of bohemian lifestyles took hold.
Then, a few years later in ‘Scorpio Rising’, we see the unstoppable juggernaut of American POP crushing all before it, revealed in its pure, pagan strangeness (and indeed queerness), filtered this time through a lens of MK Ultra LSD, casting Brando in ‘The Wild One’ and his retinue of clones as the quasi-futurist storm troopers of the flaming, maximalist, self-immolating culture to come, as U.S. consumer capitalism spread across the globe. It remains such an overwhelming experience that it’s oft-referenced role as a pivotal precursor to both gay fetish aesthetics and MTV-era video editing seem almost like side notes.
And in ‘..Demon Brother’, first screened in mid-1969 (exact dates seem to be disputed), we see the imminent black nightmare spirit of Manson and Atlamont practically conjured and made flesh before our eyes, as nameless rituals are conducted in what looks like the dankest basement in Haight Ashbury, where soon-to-be convicted murderer Bobby Beausoleil holds court as Lucifer, intercut with footage of U.S. marines descending upon the Vietnamese jungle, as clouds of noxious hash smoke seep from a skull-shaped bong and Mick Jagger (warming up for ‘Performance’) wheezes out a horrendous, atonal din on his shiny new Moog; a film almost too evil to exist.
Which seems like an appropriate note to bring us on to the way that, as a personality, Anger almost seems to have functioned entirely outside the framework by which we might usually judge a person’s beliefs and behaviour. By any conventional standard, he proved himself over the years to be spiteful, mean, narcissistic, duplicitous, vengeful and borderline unhinged, instigating public feuds and outrages at seemingly every opportunity (his disruption of Curtis Harrington’s memorial service providing an especially unforgiveable example), and turning the majority of his friends and collaborators against him at one point or another. Yet, taken on his own terms, this all just seemed like part of the package - an essential component of a man who defined himself as existing beyond good and evil, and followed that philosophy through to the bitter end.
Almost by definition, the vast majority of magickal practitioners and edgelord types who embrace ‘The Left Hand Path’ are unspeakable arseholes whose lives end in justifiable misery, but Anger strikes me as an incredibly rare example of an individual who - more so even than his beloved Crowley - seemed to thrive on an atmosphere of lies, obfuscation and psychic aggression, as evidenced by his apparent ability to hold back the ravages of time, passing away earlier this month (sharp and well-preserved as ever, insofar as I can tell) at the age of 96.
Back in 2007-2008-ish (I don’t remember the exact date), I attended a public appearance by Anger, at the Imperial War Museum, of all places, where he was presenting some of his films and answering questions. To be honest, I remember very little of what he actually said that night, but I found his sheer presence mesmerising.
Aside from anything else, I was amazed that a man who made his first surviving film in 1947 could seem so young (faint Dorian Gray vibes), and I was surprised too that - contrary to his fiery, hex-throwing reputation - he seemed so humble, self-deprecating and soft-spoken. Above all though, he had a sense of presence about him - an ‘aura’ or ‘energy’ I might say, were I of a more hippie-ish persuasion - which is difficult to explain in words. I mean, perhaps I was just projecting here, based on his legendary life and exploits, but… it felt a bit like sharing a room with one of the denizens of ‘the other place’ from a David Lynch film, if that makes any sense? All cynicism aside, it made his boasts of magickal mastery seem eerily plausible.
As another latter-day memory, I’m reminded of a cover story the British music magazine The Wire ran on Anger in around the same period (and, the very fact they put a non-musician on their cover for what might well be the first and only time in their history tells you something vis-à-vis his underground stature I suppose). As I recall, the interviewer met Anger in Griffith Park in Los Angeles, and hailed him… only to see him walk straight into a pond! The photographer caught him emerging from the mire, drenched head to foot in pond weed, looking like Swamp Thing, pulling an exaggerated military salute. Extraordinary stuff.
All in all, it feels incredibly banal to drop a mere “rest in peace” on a figure like Anger, but…. whatever idyll his Luciferian spirit is resting in (hopefully not pond weed), let’s hope it’s fiery, thrilling, awe-inspiring, frightening and strange.
It’s a real shame he didn’t make it to 100.
(In the spirit of ‘Hollywood Babylon’ by the way, I’ve not bothered fact-checking any of the above, but if any of it turns out to be grossly inaccurate -- all the better.)
No comments:
Post a Comment