Kenneth Anger
| Kenneth Anger | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer February 3, 1927 Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Occupation | Filmmaker, actor, author, occultist |
| Years active | 1941–present |
| Awards |
Maya Deren Independent Film and Video Artists Award (1996) Spirit of Silver Lake Award (2000) Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award (2001) Independent/Experimental Film and Video Award (2002) |
Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle". His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle". Anger himself has been described as "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers, and certainly the first whose work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised, self-implicating manner", and his "role in rendering gay culture visible within American cinema, commercial or otherwise, is impossible to overestimate", with several being released prior to the legalization of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the English poet and mystic Aleister Crowley, and is an adherent of Thelema, the religion Crowley founded.
Born to a middle-class family in Santa Monica, California, Anger would later claim to have been a child actor who appeared in the film A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935); the accuracy of this claim has come under dispute. He began making short films when he was ten years old, although his first film to gain any recognition, the homoerotic Fireworks (1947), would only be produced a decade later. The controversial nature of the work led to him being put on trial on obscenity charges, but he was acquitted. A friendship and working relationship began subsequently with pioneering sexologist Alfred Kinsey. Moving to Europe, Anger produced a number of other shorts inspired by the artistic avant-garde scene on the continent, such as Rabbit's Moon (released 1970) and Eaux d'Artifice (1953).
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