#The Enigmatic Impact of the Magick Lantern Cycle
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“#The Enigmatic Impact of the Magick Lantern Cycle”
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- Meg Shields
- August 20, 2020
Do what thou wilt, but consider watching this video essay on Kenneth Anger’s life’s work.
Like all the best avant-garde counterculture figures, Kenneth Anger is hard to talk about.
His politics are evasive. His personal life is shrouded in mystery. And to describe his films as enigmatic would be an understatement. And yet, the man’s impact on cinema is simply astounding. He’s like an occult, art-house Forest Gump, brushing shoulders with the likes of Federico Fellini, Jean Cocteau, and Alejandro Jodorowsky while effectively pioneering the concept of low-budget independent cinema. With a gay narrative horror film in 1949 no less!
Anger is most famous for Hollywood Babylon, a scandalous and wildly popular gossip text comprised of untrue and exaggerated short stories about the rich and famous. But, as the video essay below suggests, Anger should be known instead for the series of nine short films he created from 1947 to 1970. His life’s work: the “Magick Lantern Cycle” — an anthology of nine ritualistic films including Fireworks (1947), Puce Moment (1949), Rabbit’s Moon (1950), Eaux d’Artifice (1953), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Scorpio Rising (1964), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), and Lucifer Rising (1981).
The Cycle is replete with surrealism, sexuality, and spectacle. With an undeniable visual impact, it’s like a bad trip stretched over four decades. A hypnotic, upsetting dream, feverishly working through ideas of hatred, hope, and hedonism. It’s weird and it’s obtuse but, as the essay below underlines, there’s no denying the Magick Lantern Cycle left its mark on American cinema by creating a visual language of disobedience.
Watch “The Mysteries of the Magick Lantern Cycle“:
Who made this?
In Praise of Shadows is a video essay channel run by Zane Whitener and based in Asheville, North Carolina, that focuses on horror, history, and retrospectives. You can subscribe to their YouTube channel here And you can follow them on Twitter here.
More Videos Like This
- Here another taste of In Praise of Shadows on the life and career of the Polish horror painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, the man who defined the heavy metal album cover aesthetic
- Another sample of the channel: on how Nicolas Roeg‘s atmospheric masterpiece Don’t Look Now tackles grief and recovery
- In their series “Anatomy of a Franchise” In Praise of Shadows breaks down horror franchises like Tremors, The Stepfather, and Re-Animator. Here’s a link to the series’ playlist
- Kenneth Anger speaking at UCLA discussing occultist, magician, and author Aleister Crowley
- Here’s a quick biographical rundown on Crowley by Biographics
- Nicolas Winding Refn filmed an interview with Anger at The States Museum for the Arts in Copenhagen in 2008. If you’re familiar with Refn’s hilariously hubristic interview style, you’re going to want to watch this one
- 72 hours in André Balazs’ Chateau Marmont with Kenneth Anger
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