Lucifer Rising (film)
| Lucifer Rising | |
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| Directed by | Kenneth Anger |
| Music by | Bobby Beausoleil |
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Release date
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Running time
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29 minutes |
| Country | United States, United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Lucifer Rising | |
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| Soundtrack album by Bobby Beausoleil and The Freedom Orchestra | |
| Released | 1981 (CD reissue 2005) |
| Recorded | 1976–79 |
| Genre | Soundtrack |
| Length | 42:55 |
| Label | Disgust Records |
| Producer | Kenneth Anger |
| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
Lucifer Rising is a short film by director Kenneth Anger. Completed in 1972, the film was only widely distributed in 1980.
In mid-1966, Anger began renting a flat on the ground floor of the Russian Embassy, a dilapidated building located at 1198 Fulton Street in the Alamo Square district of San Francisco. Then in his late thirties, Anger began to plan Lucifer Rising, initially intending for it to document the growing countercultural movement as it existed in California. As Anger had it, he wanted to film "today's new tribe of teenagers, turned-on children – teeny-boppers and adolescent hippies." Anger was influenced by Aleister Crowley's descriptions of Lucifer as the light-bearing god, and was inspired by Crowley's poem "Hymn to Lucifer". According to his biographer Bill Landis, Anger adopted this deity as a "metaphor for the ultimate bad little boy who could corrupt you without coercion."
Anger began to search for a young man who could personify Lucifer for the film, and began to bestow the title of "Lucifer" on any young men who would stay with him at the house for more than a few nights. By late 1966, a young musician named Bobby Beausoleil had moved in with Anger, who had declared him to be his Lucifer. Beausoleil later claimed that he had first met Anger at a sexual orgy held in a cathedral; he stated that he was playing his guitar and licking sweat off a woman's breasts when Anger spotted him, later approaching him to offer a part in the film. However, he has also made alternate claims about their first meeting which contravene this, for instance by claiming that they had earlier met in Los Angeles in 1965, when Beausoleil was playing at The Brave New World gay club. As Beausoleil later related:
According to Beausoleil, the agreement that he made with Anger was that the filmmaker would provide for the young musician's basic needs and would allow him to live at the Embassy, but that he would not be paid for appearing in the film. While staying in Anger's flat, Beausoleil read up on mythology and Thelema from Anger's private library, although felt that there was tension between them as a result of their different sexualities; Anger was strictly homosexual while Beausoleil was strictly heterosexual, with the latter opining that Anger "kind of resented my girlfriends which I had over, but I wouldn't let anything stop me – I was young." Beausoleil served as Anger's chauffeur during this period, and together they attended counter-cultural events such as the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in January 1967. During their conversations, Beausoleil suggested that he could also compose a soundtrack for the film, assembling a band known as the Magick Powerhouse of Oz in order to do so, largely out of jazz musicians.
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