Currently Watching: Lucifer Rising
Short film from 1972 directed by Kenneth Anger, famous for other films such as Scorpion Rising, Invocation of My Demon Brother and Fireworks. His work is notable for homoeroticism at a time when homophobia was rampant in mainstream culture. Other notable characteristics of his films are the use of experimental editing and filming techniques and the frequent exploration of the darker sides of cinema.
Lucifer Rising is an experiment in the occult, where Satanic rituals presented in their aesthetically degenerate glory are set in the backdrop of Egypt, Germany and England. Anger presents the spectacles of hypnosis and magic with an artist’s eyes; his manipulation of colours is an integral part of his cinematography, whilst his camera work envelops the viewer into the scene. The abstract, twisted nature of his film is carried with the film score composed by Bobby Beausoleil, both angry and tense; calm and anxious, the music is in harmony at all times with the visual. One of my favourite works by Anger, alongside Scorpio Rising, a great post-modernist work which delves into corners of cinema publicly not done at the time.
