Kenneth Anger: Magician of Underground Cinema

The(ir) Blurb...

Could film be a magical weapon, a magical ritual? It’s certainly what cult underground American filmmaker Kenneth Anger thinks. With films such as Lucifer Rising (1967-1980) and Invocation of my Demon brother (1969), Anger blazed through the underground and artistic avant-garde in the late Sixties with his singular vision and philosophy. Resolutely uncommercial, Anger sees film as ritual – his chosen medium through which to channel visions, cast spells, and recreate Myth.

In this rare portrait, director Reinhold E. Thiel attempts to film a documentary of Kenneth Anger, during the making of his film ‘Lucifer Rising’. But what begins as an attempt to a documentary is quickly overtaken by Anger’s play and sense of fantasy. Kenneth constructs a series of staged scenes, notably creating “an altar behind which he makes his statements, robed as a magician and artist“. As the director notes, Kenneth  “never had an affinity for documentary filmmaking“.