Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer; February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor and author of two controversial Hollywood Babylon books. 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", and form the basis of Anger's reputation as one of the most influential independent filmmakers in cinema history.^[1] His films variously merge surrealism with homoeroticism and the occult, and have been described as containing "elements of erotica, documentary, psychodrama, and spectacle."^[2] 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",^[3] with several being released prior to the legalisation of homosexuality in the United States. He has also focused upon occult themes in many of his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley, and is a follower of Crowley's religion, Thelema.

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).

Returning to the United States in 1953, he set about working on several new projects, including the films Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Scorpio Rising (1964), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), and the gossip book Hollywood Babylon (1965). Getting to know several notable countercultural figures of the time, including Tennessee Williams, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page, Marianne Faithfull and Anton LaVey, Anger involved them in his subsequent Thelemite-themed works, Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and Lucifer Rising (1972). Following his failure to produce a sequel to Lucifer Rising, Anger retired from filmmaking in the early 1980s, instead publishing the book Hollywood Babylon II (1982). At the dawn of the 21st century he once more returned to filmmaking, producing shorts for various film festivals and events.

Anger has described filmmakers such as Auguste and Louis Lumière, Georges Méliès, and Maya Deren as influences,^[4] and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch^[5] and John Waters.^[6] He has also been described as having "a profound impact on the work of many other filmmakers and artists, as well as on music video as an emergent art form using dream sequence, dance, fantasy, and narrative."^[2]

Biography[link]

Early life (1927–1935)[link]

Anger was born in Santa Monica, California, as Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer on February 3, 1927. His father, Wilbur Anglemyer, was of German ancestry, had been born in Troy, Ohio, while his disabled mother, Lillian Coler, who was the older of the two, claimed English ancestry. The pair had met at Ohio State College and after marrying had produced their first child, Jean Anglemyer, in 1918, followed by a second, Robert "Bob" Anglemyer, in 1921. That year they moved to Santa Monica in order to be near Lillian's mother, Bertha Coler, who herself had recently moved there. It was here that Wilbur got a job working as an electrical engineer at Douglas Aircraft, bringing in enough money so that they could live comfortably as a middle class family.^[7]

Kenneth, their third and final child, was born in 1927, but growing up he would fail to get along with either his parents or his siblings. His brother Bob later claimed that being the youngest child, Kenneth had been spoilt by his mother and grandmother, and as such had become somewhat "bratty". His grandmother, Bertha, was a big influence on the young Kenneth, and indeed helped to maintain the family financially during the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was she who first took Kenneth to the cinema, to see a double bill of The Singing Fool and Thunder Over Mexico and also encouraged his artistic interests. She herself later moved into a house in Hollywood with another woman, Miss Diggy, who equally encouraged Kenneth.^[8] He developed an early interest in film, and enjoyed reading the movie tie-in Big Little books. He would later relate that "I was a child prodigy who never got smarter."^[9] He retrospected his attendance at the Santa Monica Cotillon where child stars were encouraged to mix with ordinary children and through this met Shirley Temple, whom he danced with on one occasion.^[10]

It was in 1935, he would later claim, that he had the chance to appear in a Hollywood film, taking the role of the Changeling Prince in the 1935 Warner Brothers film A Midsummer Night's Dream by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, a film that certainly influenced him, particularly in his later production of Rabbit's Moon. Set photographs and studio production reports (on file in the Warner Brothers collection at University of Southern California, and the Warner Bros. collection of studio key books at George Eastman House in Rochester, New York) in fact contradict Anger's claims, conclusively proving that the character was played by a girl named Sheila Brown.^{[citation needed]} Anger's unofficial biographer, Bill Landis, remarked in 1995 that the Changeling Prince was definitely "Anger as a child; visually, he's immediately recognizable".^[11]

First films (1937–1946)[link]

Anger's first film was created in 1937, when he was only ten years old. The short, entitled Ferdinand the Bull, had been shot on the ends of 16mm film that had been left unused after the Anglemyer's family vacation to Yosemite National Park, where they had been making home movies with it. In Ferdinand the Bull, which has never been made publicly available, Kenneth dressed as a matador, wearing a cape, while two of his friends from the Boy Scouts played the bull.^[12] His second work, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat, which Anger himself often considers to be his first proper film, was made up of footage of children playing during the summer, accompanied with popular songs by bands like the Ink Spots. Anger had created Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat in 1941, when he was fourteen, shortly before the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent entering of the United States into the Second World War, adding to the poignancy of this early work.^[13] The following year he produced another amateur film, Prisoner of Mars, which was heavily influenced by Flash Gordon, a series that he was a fan of. In this science fiction-inspired feature, he added elements taken from the Greek mythological myth of the Minotaur and himself played the protagonist, as well as constructed a small volcano in his back yard to create a form of home-made special effect.^[13] It is believed that many of these early films are lost, with Anger burning much of his previous work in 1967.^[14]

In 1944, the Anglemyers moved to Hollywood to live with their grandmother, and Kenneth began attending Beverly Hills High School. It was here that he met Maxine Peterson, who had once been the stand-in for Shirley Temple, and he asked her, alongside another classmate and an old woman, to appear in his next film project, which he initially called Demigods but which was later retitled Escape Episode. Revolving partially around the occult, it was filmed in a "spooky old castle" in Hollywood and was subsequently screened at the Coronet Theatre on North La Cienega Blvd. in Los Angeles. Around this time, Anger also began attending the screenings of silent films held at Clara Grossman's art gallery, through which he met a fellow filmmaker, Curtis Harrington, and together they formed Creative Film Associates (CFA). Harrington is said to have introduced Anger to the work of Aleister Crowley. [1]. Crowley's philosophy of Thelema would exert a profound influence on the remainder of Anger's career. CFA was founded to distribute experimental films or "underground films" such as those of Maya Deren, John and James Whitney, as well as Anger's and Harrington's.^[16]

It was while at high school that he began to get interested in the occult, which he had first indirectly encountered through reading Frank L. Baum's Oz books as a child, with their accompanying Rosicrucian philosophies. Kenneth was very interested in the works of the French ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi, as well as Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough,^[17] although his favorite was the writings of the English occultist Aleister Crowley. Crowley had founded a religion known as Thelema based upon a Spiritual experience that he had in Egypt in 1904, in which he claimed a being known as Aiwass had contacted him and recited to him The Book of the Law. Kenneth subsequently became a great fan of Crowley's work and converted to Thelema.^[18]

[edit] Fireworks and early career (1947–1949)

As Anger discovered his homosexuality, at a time when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United States, he began associating with the underground gay scene. At some point in the mid 1940s, he was arrested by the police in a "homosexual entrapment", after which he decided to move out of his parents' home, gaining his own sparse apartment largely financed by his grandmother,^[19] and abandoning the name Anglemyer in favor of Anger.^[20] He started attending the University of Southern California, where he studied cinema, and also began experimenting with the use of mind-altering drugs like cannabis and peyote.^[21] It was then that he decided to produce a film that would deal with his sexuality, just as other gay avant-garde film makers like Willard Maas were doing in that decade. The result was the short film Fireworks, which was created in 1947 but only exhibited publicly in 1948.

Upon release of the work, Anger was arrested on obscenity charges.^[22] He was acquitted, after the case went to the Supreme Court of California, which deemed it to be art rather than pornography.^[23] Anger made the claim to have been seventeen years old when he made it, despite the fact that he was actually twenty, presumably to present himself as more of an enfant terrible.^[24] A homoerotic work lasting only 14 minutes, Fireworks revolves around a young man (played by Anger himself) associating with various navy sailors, who eventually turn on him, stripping him naked and beating him to death, ripping open his chest to find a clock ticking inside. Several fireworks then explode, accompanied by a burning Christmas tree and the final shot shows the young man lying in bed next to another topless man. Of this film, Anger would later state in 1966 that "This flick is all I have to say about being 17, the United States Navy, American Christmas and the fourth of July."^[25] He would continuously alter and adapt the film up until 1980, with it finally being distributed on VHS in 1986.^[26]

One of the first people to buy a copy of Fireworks was the sexologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey of the Institute for Sex Research. He and Anger struck up a friendship that would last until the doctor's death, during which time Anger aided Kinsey in his research. According to Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis, Kinsey became a "father figure" whom Anger "could both interact with and emulate."^[27] Meanwhile, in 1949 Anger began work on a film called Puce Women, which unlike Fireworks was filmed in color. It starred Yvonne Marquis as a glamorous woman going about her daily life; Anger would later state that "Puce Women was my love affair with Hollywood... with all the great goddesses of the silent screen. They were to be filmed in their homes; I was, in effect, filming ghosts."^[28] A lack of funding meant that only one scene was ever produced, which was eventually released under the title Puce Moment. That same year, Anger directed The Love That Whirls, a film based upon Aztec human sacrifice but, because of the nudity that it contained, it was destroyed by technicians at the film lab, who deemed it to be obscene.^[29]

[edit] France, Rabbit's Moon and Eaux d'Artifice (1950–1953)

In 1950 Anger moved to Paris, France, where he initially stayed with friends of his (who themselves had been forced to leave Hollywood after being blacklisted for formerly having belonged to trade union organisations).^[30] He would later remark that he travelled to the country after receiving a letter from the French director Jean Cocteau in which he told Anger of his admiration for Fireworks. Upon arrival, Anger and Cocteau became friends, with the Frenchman giving the young protege his permission to make a movie of his ballet The Young Man and Death, although at the time there were no financial backers for the project.^[31] It was while in Paris that he continued producing short films; in 1950 he started filming on Rabbit's Moon, which was also known as La Lune des Lapins and revolved around a clown who was staring up at the moon, in which a rabbit lived, something found within Japanese mythology. Anger produced 20 minutes of footage at the Films du Pantheon Studio in the city before he was rushed out of the studio, leaving the film uncompleted. He stored the footage in the disorganized archives of the Cinémathèque Française, and only collected it again in 1970, when he finally finished and released Rabbit's Moon.^[32][33] It was at the Cinémathèque Française that he befriended the head, Henri Langlois (later claiming that he worked for Langlois for twelve years^[30]) and was allowed to rummage through the Cinémathèque's archives, in which he found prints of Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico!, which he attempted to put into Eisenstein's original order.^[34]

In 1953, he travelled to Rome, Italy where he planned to make a film about the sixteenth century occultist Cardinal d'Este. To do so, he began filming at the garden of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, in which a lady in eighteenth century dress walked through the gardens, which featured many waterfalls (an allusion to the fact that d'Este allegedly sexually enjoyed urination),^[35] accompanied by the music of Vivaldi.^[36] This was supposedly going to be only the first of four scenes, but the others were not made; the resulting one-scene film was entitled Eaux d'Artifice. As Anger's biographer Bill Landis remarked, "It's one of Anger's most tranquil works; his editing makes it soft, lush, and inviting. Eaux d'Artifice remains a secretive romp through a private garden, all for the masked figure's and the viewer-voyeur's pleasure."^[37]

[edit] Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome and Hollywood Babylon (1953–1960)

In 1953, soon after the production of Eaux d'Artifice, Anger's mother died and he temporarily returned to the United States in order to assist with the distribution of her estate. It was during this return that he began to once more immerse himself in the artistic scene of California, befriending the film maker Stan Brakhage, who had been inspired by Fireworks, and the two collaborated on producing a film, but it was confiscated at the film lab for obscenity and presumably destroyed.^[38] Around this time, two of Anger's friends, the couple Renate Druks and Paul Mathiesin held a party based upon the theme of 'Come As Your Madness'; Anger himself attended dressed in drag as the ancient Greek goddess Hekate. The party and its many costumes inspired Anger, who produced a painting of it, and asked several of those who attended to appear in a new film that he was creating – Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.^[39] Inauguration, which was created in 1954, was a 38 minute surrealist work featuring many Crowleyan and Thelemite themes, with many of the various characters personifying various pagan gods such as Isis, Osiris and Pan. One of the actresses in the film was Marjorie Cameron, the widow of Jack Parsons, the influential American Thelemite who had died a few years previously, while Anger himself played Hecate.^[40] He would subsequently exhibit the film at various European film festivals, winning the Prix du Ciné-Club Belge and the Prix de l'Age d'Or as well as screening it in the form of a projected triptych at Expo 58, the World Fair held in Brussels in 1958.^[41]

In 1955, Anger and his friend Alfred Kinsey travelled to the derelict Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù, Sicily in order to film a short documentary entitled Thelema Abbey. The abbey itself had been used by Aleister Crowley for his commune during the 1920s, and Anger restored many of the erotic wallpaintings that were found there as well as performing certain Crowleyan rituals at the site. The documentary was made for the British television series Omnibus, who later lost it.^[18][42] The following year Kinsey died, and Anger decided to return to Paris, and was described at this time as being "extremely remote and lonely".^[43]

In desperate need of money, Anger wrote a book titled Hollywood Babylon in which he collected together gossip regarding celebrities, some of which he claims he had been told. This included claiming (with no corroboration or citing of sources) that Rudolph Valentino liked to play a sexually submissive role to dominant women, that Walt Disney was a drug-user, addicted to opiates (reflected in the character of Goofy, who's perpetually stoned on cannabis), as well as describing the nature of the deaths of Peg Entwistle and Lupe Vélez. SThe work was initially not published in the United States, instead the publisher was the French Jean Jacques Pauvert.^[44] A pirated (and incomplete) version was first published in the U.S. in 1965, with the official American version not being published until 1974. Now with some financial backing from the publication of Hollywood Babylon, his next film project was The Story of O; essentially a piece of erotica featuring a heterosexual couple engaged in sadomasochistic sexual activities, although it refrained from showing any explicit sexual images.^[45]

[edit] Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1961–1965)

In 1961, Anger once more returned to America, where he lived for a time with Marjorie Cameron.^[46] Meanwhile he began work on a new feature, a film about the emerging biker subculture, which he titled Scorpio Rising. For this, he employed a biker named Richard McAuley, and filmed him and some of his friends messing around, adding to it scenes of McAuley, or "Scorpio" as he became known, desecrating a derelict church. Anger incorporated more controversial visuals into the piece, including Nazi iconography, nudity, and clips of the life of Jesus Christ taken from Family Films' The Living Bible: Last Journey to Jerusalem. In Scorpio Rising, Anger intercuts images of Christ from the cheap religious film with those of Scorpio. The whole film has a soundtrack made up of popular 1950s songs, including "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, "Torture" by Kris Jensen and "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March.^[47] Anger himself described the film as "a death mirror held up to American culture... Thanatos in chrome, black leather, and bursting jeans."^[48] It immediately became popular on the underground cinema scene although was soon brought to court with complaints claiming that it was obscene. The all-female jury ruled in favor of the prosecutors, and Scorpio Rising was banned, although this ban was subsequently overturned on appeal to the California State Supreme Court.^[49]

With Scorpio Rising finished and Anger now living in San Francisco, he went to the Ford Foundation, which had just started a program of giving out grants to filmmakers. He showed them his ideas for a new artistic short, entitled Kustom Kar Kommandos, which they approved of, and gave him a grant of $10,000.^[50] However, Anger spent much of the money on living expenses and making alterations to some of his earlier films, meaning that by the time he actually created Kustom Kar Kommandos, it was only one scene long. This homoerotic film involved various shots of a young man polishing a drag strip racing car, accompanied with a pink background and the song "Dream Lover" by The Paris Sisters. Soon after, Anger struck a deal that allowed Hollywood Babylon to be officially published in the United States for the first time, where it proved a success, selling two million copies during the 1960s, and around the same time Anger also translated Lo Duca's History of Eroticism into English for American publication.^[51]

[edit] The hippie movement and Invocation of My Demon Brother (1966–1969)

The mid 1960s saw the emergence of the hippie scene and the increasing use of the mind-altering drugs that Anger himself had been using for many years. In particular, the hallucinogen LSD, which at the time was still legal in the United States, was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version of his earlier film, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome entitled the "Sacred Mushroom Edition" which was screened to people while taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience.^[52] By this time, Anger had become well known throughout the underground scene in the United States, and several cinemas across the country screened his better known films all in one event.^[53] With this growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity in much the same way as his idol Aleister Crowley had done, for instance describing himself as "the most monstrous moviemaker in the underground", a pun on the fact that Crowley had been labelled "the wickedest man in the world" by the British tabloids in the 1920s.^[54] Anger's fame on the underground circuit allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, including Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan who named Anger as godfather to Zeena Schreck (LaVey's daughter)^[55]. Despite Anger and LaVey's differing philosophies, the two became good friends and would remain so for many years. However, Anger also held a resentment towards certain celebrities, namely Andy Warhol, who at the time was achieving success not only in the art world but also in the underground film scene.^[56] In 1980 Anger threw paint over the front door of a house that Warhol had recently moved out of.^[57]

In 1966, Anger moved into the ground floor of a large nineteenth century Victorian house in San Francisco known as the Russian Embassy.^[58] Around this time he began planning a new film entitled Lucifer Rising echoing his Thelemite beliefs about the emerging Aeon of Horus. He tattooed the name of Lucifer upon his chest and began searching for a young man who could symbolically become Lucifer, "the Crowned and Conquering Child" of the new Aeon, for Lucifer Rising. While living at the Russian Embassy, he met and lived with various young men who could fit the position. Finally, he settled upon Bobby Beausoleil for the role of Lucifer.^[59] Beausoleil founded a band, the Magic Powerhouse of Oz, in order to record the music for the film.^[60] In 1967, Anger claimed that the footage which he had been filming for Lucifer Rising had been stolen, placing the blame on Beausoleil, who would deny the claims. Anger's unofficial biographer Bill Landis quotes Beausoleil who states, "what had happened was that Kenneth had spent all the money that was invested in Lucifer Rising" and that he therefore invented the story to satisfy the film's creditors.^[61] Beausoleil and Anger fell out, with the former getting involved with Charles Manson and his cult, the Family, eventually carrying out Manson's bidding by torturing and murdering Gary Hinman.

In the October 26, 1967 issue of Village Voice, Anger publicly reinvented himself by placing a full-page advert declaring "In Memoriam. Kenneth Anger. Filmmaker 1947–1967". He soon publicly reappeared, this time to claim that he had burned all of his early work.^[62] The following year he travelled to London where he first met J. Paul Getty, who became Anger's patron, and where he also met and befriended Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, members of The Rolling Stones,^[63] as well as actress/model Anita Pallenberg.^[64] Anger then decided to use much of the footage created for Lucifer Rising in a new film of his, Invocation of My Demon Brother, which starred Beausoleil, LaVey, Jagger and Richards, as well as Anger himself, and the music for which had been composed by Jagger. It was released in 1969, and explored many of the Thelemic themes that Anger had originally intended for Lucifer Rising.^[65] The story of the film, its making, and the people involved are the inspiration for the novel "Sway", by Zachary Lazar.^[66]

[edit] Lucifer Rising (1970–1981)

Now, having used up much of the footage originally intended for Lucifer Rising for Invocation of My Demon Brother, Anger again set about to create "Lucifer Rising", a symbolic analogy of the coming Aeon of Horus as prophesied in the Thelemic sacred text, The Book of the Law. Anger persuaded the singer and actress Marianne Faithfull to appear in it. He also tried to convince his friend Mick Jagger to play the part of Lucifer in the film but Jagger refused. Instead he offered his brother Chris for the part. Anger accepted, but was not happy about it.^[67] Anger subsequently filmed eight minutes of film and showed it to the British National Film Finance Corporation who agreed to provide £15,000 in order for Anger to complete it – something that caused a level of outrage in the British press. With this money, he could afford to fly the cast and crew to both Germany and Egypt for filming.^[68] Anger befriended Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page around this time, the two sharing a great interest in Crowley. At Page's invitation, Anger travelled to Page's new home, Crowley's former residence Boleskine House located on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland, to help the musician exorcise the building of what Page believed to be a headless man's ghost.^[69] Page subsequently agreed to produce the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising,^[70] and used the editing suite which was in the basement of his London home to shape the music which he produced.^[71] Anger later fell out with Page's wife Charlotte, who kicked him out of the house. In retaliation, Anger called a press conference in which he ridiculed Page and threatened to "throw a Kenneth Anger curse" on him.^[72] Page's music was dumped from the film and replaced in 1979 by music written and recorded by the imprisoned Bobby Beausoleil, with whom Anger had reconciled.^[73]

Meanwhile, Anger, who moved to an apartment in New York City, took the footage that he had filmed for Rabbit's Moon in the 1950s, finally releasing the film in 1972, and again in a shorter version in 1979. Around the same time he also added a new soundtrack to Puce Moment and re-released it.^[75] It was also around this time that the publisher Marvin Miller produced a low budget documentary film based on Hollywood Babylon without Anger's permission, greatly angering him and leading him to sue.^[76] He also created a short film entitled Senators in Bondage which was only available to private collectors and which has never been made publicly available, and had plans to make a film about Aleister Crowley entitled The Wickedest Man in the World, but this project never got off the ground.^[77] In 1980, he holidayed with his friend, the playwright Tennessee Williams.^[78]

It was in 1981, a decade after starting the project, that he finally finished and released the 30-minute long Lucifer Rising. Based upon the Thelemite concept that mankind had entered a new period known as the Aeon of Horus, Lucifer Rising was full of occult symbolism, starring Miriam Gibril as the Ancient Egyptian goddess Isis and Donald Cammell as her consort Osiris, as well as Marianne Faithfull as the Biblical figure of Lilith and Leslie Huggins as Lucifer himself. Anger once again appeared in the film, starring as the Magus, the same role that he played in Invocation to My Demon Brother.^[79] He had surrealistically combined the roles that these characters played with footage of volcanoes, various ancient Egyptian temples and a Crowleyan adept reading from the man's texts.

Retirement (1982–1999)[link]

Soon after the release of Lucifer Rising, a PBS documentary of Anger and his films was made, entitled Kenneth Anger's Magick, which was directed by Kit Fitzgerald, who later recalled interviewing him in his New York flat on a very hot July evening, during which Anger revealed that he was so broke that he had been forced to sell his air conditioner.^[80] Anger himself considered producing other films that would continue on from Lucifer Rising in a series, and he began referring to his finished film as "Part I: Sign Language", to be followed by two further parts.^[74] Nonetheless, these projects would never be finished, and Anger himself would not produce any further films for nearly two decades. In need of money, Anger subsequently released Hollywood Babylon II in 1984, as well as continuing to screen his films at various festivals and at universities; around this time he began wearing an eyepatch to these public events, something likely due to him having been beaten up and getting a bruised eye, a story that he would bring up in various interviews, although partly changing who it was who had beaten him up in various versions of the story.^[81] In 1984, a notorious incident occurred when Anger was invited to appear on The Coca Crystal Show, however upon arriving at the studio he demanded that somebody pay for his taxi ride there, and when they refused, he attacked the talent coordinator Maurice Ivice and tried to drag her into his taxi, before she was rescued by other members of staff – Anger reportedly escaped the scene by flinging a $100 bill at the cab-driver and screaming "GET ME OUT OF HERE!"^[82]

In 1986, he sold the video rights to his films, which finally appeared on VHS, allowing them to have greater publicity. The following year he attended the Avignon Film Festival in France where his work was being celebrated in commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of Fireworks. Soon after this, he appeared in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon, a BBC documentary for the Arena series directed by Nigel Finch. In 1991, Anger moved to West Arenas Boulevard in Palm Springs,^[which?] where the British Film Institute sent Rebecca Wood to assist him in writing an autobiography, which was never actually produced.^[83] Instead, in 1995, Bill Landis, who had been an associate of Anger's in the early 1980s, wrote an unofficial biography of him, which Anger himself condemned, describing Landis as "an avowed enemy".^[84]

Return to filmmaking (2000–)[link]

Signature and handprints of Kenneth Anger in front of the Vista Theatre, Los Angeles.

For twenty years from the early 1980s, Anger released no new material. In 2000, at the dawn of the new millennium, Anger began screening a new short film, the anti-smoking Don't Smoke That Cigarette, followed a year later by The Man We Want To Hang, which comprised images of Aleister Crowley's paintings that had been exhibited at a temporary exhibition in Bloomsbury, London. In 2004, he began showing Anger Sees Red, a short surrealistic film starring himself, and the same year also began showing another work, Patriotic Penis. He soon followed this with a flurry of other shorts, including Mouse Heaven, which consisted of images of Mickey Mouse memorabilia, Ich Will! and Uniform Attraction, all of which he showed at various public appearances. Anger's most recent project has been the Technicolor Skull with musician Brian Butler, described as a "magick ritual of light and sound in the context of a live performance", in which Anger plays the theremin, and Butler plays the guitar and other electronic instruments, behind a psychedelic backdrop of colors and skulls.^[85]

Anger makes an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine entitled FLicKeR.^[86] In 2009 his work was featured in a retrospective exhibition at the MoMA PS1 in New York City,^[87] and the following year a similar exhibition took place in London.^[88]

Anger has finished writing Hollywood Babylon III, but has not yet published it, fearing severe legal repercussions if he did so. Of this he has stated that "The main reason I didn't bring it out was that I had a whole section on Tom Cruise and the Scientologists. I'm not a friend of the Scientologists."^[88] The Church of Scientology has been known on several occasions to heavily sue those making accusations against them.

Themes[link]

Several recurring themes can be seen within Anger's cinematic work. One of the most notable of these is homoeroticism; this was first seen in Fireworks (1947), which was based around Anger's own homosexual awakening, and featured various navy officers flexing their muscles, and a white liquid (often thought of as symbolising semen), pouring over the protagonist's body. Similar homoerotic imagery is found in Scorpio Rising (1963), which stars a muscled, topless, leather-clad biker, and Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), where a young man sensually polishes a car, with close up shots of his tight-fitting jeans and crotch. Images of naked men also appear in Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969), where they are eventually filmed wrestling, and in Anger Sees Red (2004), in which a muscled, topless man performs press-ups.

Another recurring theme in Anger's films is that of the occult, particularly the symbolism of his own esoteric religion, Thelema. This is visible in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Invocation of My Demon Brother and Lucifer Rising, all of which are based around the Thelemite concept of the Aeon of Horus and feature actors portraying various pagan gods. Anger himself linked the creation of film to the occult, particularly the practice of ceremonial magic, something that Aleister Crowley had been a noted practitioner of, and Anger once stated that "making a movie is casting a spell."^[89]

One of the central recurring images found in Anger's work is the concept of flames and light; in Fireworks there are various examples of this, including a burning Christmas tree, and it subsequently appears in many of his other works as well. This relates to the concept of Lucifer, a deity whom Anger devoted one of his films to, and whose name is Latin for "light bearer".^[90]

In many of his films, heavy use is made of music, both classical and pop, to accompany the visual imagery. For instance, in Scorpio Rising he makes use of the 1950s pop songs "Torture" by Kris Jensen, "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March and "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, something that he believed was later copied by David Lynch in his 1986 movie Blue Velvet.^{[citation needed]} He first used music to accompany visuals in the 1941 work Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat?, where he used tracks by the Mills Brothers.^[30] His use of popular music to accompany his films has been cited as a key influence on the development of music videos and of MTV, although he has stated his dislike for the whole music video industry. On one occasion the band Combustible Edison asked him if he would direct a video to accompany their song "Bluebeard" but he declined the offer, believing that while music could be used to accompany film, it was pointless to do it the other way around.^[30]

Personal life[link]

Anger has always been an "extremely private individual,"^[84] although has given various interviews over the years, with one interviewer, David Wingrove, describing him in 2008 as "a joy. Gentle, soft-spoken, immaculately tanned, he looks a good two decades younger than his 78 years".^{[92][Note 1]} In such interviews, he refuses to disclose information on his name change from Anglemeyer to Anger, telling an interviewer who brought the topic up in 2004 that "You're being impertinent. It says Anger on my passport, that's all you need to know. I would stay away from that subject if I was you."^[24] In a 2010 interview however he stated that "I just condensed my name. I knew it would be like a label, a logo. It's easy to remember."^[88] Anger is openly gay, with one of his friends describing how he "was attracted to people who were either well endowed or the Arnold Schwarzenegger type."^[93] He once joked that he was "somewhat to the right of the KKK" in his views about black people,^[94] opening him up to criticism for racism. He is a passionate supporter of the Tibetan independence movement.^[95]

Anger is a Thelemite^{[citation needed]} and after many years joined the Thelemic organisation, the Ordo Templi Orientis.^{[citation needed]} He viewed many of the men he associated with as living embodiments of Lucifer, a symbol of the Aeon of Horus in Thelemic philosophy, and had the name of Lucifer tattooed onto his chest, which he identifies as being his own.^[95] Despite being a Thelemite, Anger has shown an interest in various other religious movements, particularly those that are in some way occult. For instance, he was a lifelong friend of Anton LaVey, both before and after the founding of the Church of Satan in the 1960s, and lived with LaVey and his family during the 1980s. LaVey also made an appearance in one of Anger's films, Invocation to My Demon Brother (1969) while Anger wrote forewords to two of LaVey's books, The Devil's Notebook (1992) and Satan Speaks! (1998). He describes himself as a "pagan" and refuses to consider himself to be a Satanist.^[88] He also claims Wicca to be a "lunar", feminine religion, contrasted with the "solar" masculinity of Thelema.^[95]

Filmography[link]

Bibliography[link]

References[link]

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

Further reading[link]

• Bhattacharya Sanjiv, Look back at Anger 22 August 2004. The Observer.
• Claiborne K.H. Smith, Kustom Film Kommando November 17, 1997. The Austin Chronicle.

External links[link]

• Official website
• Kenneth Anger at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview (Quicktime) on Arte, May 5, 2004.
• Magick Lantern Cycle: Images & Synopses
• bentclouds.com. Essay on Kustom Kar Kommandos Non-Normative Sex in Kustom Kar Kommandos.
• The Film Journal. Review of Alice Hutchison's book on Anger
• NNDb profile
• Works by or about Kenneth Anger in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Anaïs Nin
Portrait of Nin, c. 1920
Born	Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell 1903 Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris
Died	January 14, 1977(1977-01-14) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Author
Nationality	American
Genres	Journals Erotic literature Short stories Essays
Spouse(s)	Hugh Parker Guiler (1923–1977) Rupert Pole (1955–1966)
Relative(s)	Joaquin Nin (father), Joaquin Nin-Culmell (brother)

Anaïs Nin (Spanish pronunciation: [anaˈiz ˈnin]; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus and Little Birds, was published posthumously.

Early life[link]

Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly, France, to artistic parents. Her father, Joaquín Nin, was a Cuban pianist and composer, when he met her mother Rosa Culmell,^[1] who was a classically trained singer in Cuba^[2] of French and Danish descent. Her father's grandfather had fled France during the Revolution, going first to Saint-Domingue, then New Orleans, and finally to Cuba where he helped build that country's first railway.^[3]

Nin was raised a Roman Catholic^[4] and spent her childhood and early life in Europe. After her parents separated, her mother moved Anaïs and her two brothers, Thorvald Nin and Joaquin Nin-Culmell, to Barcelona, and then to New York City. According to her diaries, Volume One, 1931–1934, Nin abandoned formal schooling at the age of sixteen years and later began working as an artist's model. After being in America for several years, Nin had forgotten how to speak Spanish, but retained her French and became fluent in English.^[5]

On March 3, 1923, in Havana, Cuba, Nin married her first husband, Hugh Parker Guiler (1898–1985), a banker and artist, later known as "Ian Hugo" when he became a maker of experimental films in the late 1940s. The couple moved to Paris the following year, where Guiler pursued his banking career and Nin began to pursue her interest in writing; in her diaries she also mentions having trained as a flamenco dancer in Paris in the mid-to-late 1920s. Her first published work was a critical evaluation of D. H. Lawrence called D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, which she wrote in sixteen days.^[1] She also explored the field of psychotherapy, studying under the likes of Otto Rank, a disciple of Sigmund Freud.

Nin left Paris in the late summer of 1939, when residents from overseas were urged to leave France due to the upcoming war and returned to New York City with Guiler (who was, on his own wish, all but edited out of her diaries published in her lifetime and whose role in her life is therefore difficult to gauge).^[6] During the war, Nin sent her books to Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart in New York for safekeeping.^[7]

Personal life[link]

According to her diaries,Vol.1, 1931–1934, Nin shared a bohemian lifestyle with Henry Miller during her time in Paris. Her husband Guiler is not mentioned anywhere in the published edition of the 1930s parts of her diary (Vol.1–2) although the opening of Vol.1 makes it clear that she is married, and the introduction suggests her husband refused to be included in the published diaries. Nin appeared in the Kenneth Anger film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) as Astarte; in the Maya Deren film Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946); and in Bells of Atlantis (1952), a film directed by Guiler under the name "Ian Hugo" with a soundtrack of electronic music by Louis and Bebe Barron. The diaries edited by her second husband, after her death, tell that her union with Henry Miller was very passionate and physical, and that she believed that it was his child that she aborted in 1934.

In 1947, at the age of 44, she met former actor Rupert Pole in a Manhattan elevator on her way to a party.^[8][9] The two ended up dating and traveled to California together; Pole was sixteen years her junior. On March 17, 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona, returning with Pole to live in California.^[10] Guiler remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin's second marriage until after her death in 1977, though biographer Deirdre Bair alleges that Guiler knew what was happening while Nin was in California, but consciously "chose not to know".^[9]

Nin referred to her simultaneous marriages as her "bicoastal trapeze".^[9] According to Deidre Bair:

[Anaïs] would set up these elaborate façades in Los Angeles and in New York, but it became so complicated that she had to create something she called the lie box. She had this absolutely enormous purse and in the purse she had two sets of checkbooks. One said Anaïs Guiler for New York and another said Anaïs Pole for Los Angeles. She had prescription bottles from California doctors and New York doctors with the two different names. And she had a collection of file cards. And she said, "I tell so many lies I have to write them down and keep them in the lie box so I can keep them straight."^[9]

In 1966, Nin had her marriage with Pole annulled, due to the legal issues arising from both Guiler and Pole having to claim her as a dependent on their federal tax returns.^[11] Though the marriage was annulled, Nin and Pole continued to live together as if they were married, up until her death in 1977.

After Guiler's death in 1985, the unexpurgated versions of her journals were commissioned by Pole.^[12] Pole died in July 2006.

Nin often cited authors Djuna Barnes and D. H. Lawrence as inspirations. She states in Volume One of her diaries that she drew inspiration from Marcel Proust, André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Paul Valéry, and Arthur Rimbaud.

Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books located at 45 Christopher Street.^[13]

Literary career[link]

Journals[link]

Anaïs Nin is perhaps best remembered as a diarist. Her journals, which span several decades, provide a deeply explorative insight into her personal life and relationships. Nin was acquainted, often quite intimately, with a number of prominent authors, artists, psychoanalysts, and other figures, and wrote of them often, especially Otto Rank. Moreover, as a female author describing a primarily masculine constellation of celebrities, Nin's journals have acquired importance as a counterbalancing perspective.

Previously unpublished works are coming to light in A Café in Space, the Anaïs Nin Literary Journal, which most recently includes "Anaïs Nin and Joaquín Nin y Castellanos: Prelude to a Symphony—Letters between a father and daughter."

So far fifteen volumes of her journals have been published.

Erotic writings[link]

Nin is hailed by many critics as one of the finest writers of female erotica. She was one of the first women to explore fully the realm of erotic writing, and certainly the first prominent woman in the modern West to write erotica. Before her, erotica written by women was rare, with a few notable exceptions, such as the work of Kate Chopin.

According to Volume I of her diaries, 1931–1934, published in 1966 (Stuhlmann), Nin first came across erotica when she returned to Paris with her [husband,] mother and two brothers in her late teens. They rented the apartment of an American man who was away for the summer, and Nin came across a number of French paperbacks: "One by one, I read these books, which were completely new to me. I had never read erotic literature in America… They overwhelmed me. I was innocent before I read them, but by the time I had read them all, there was nothing I did not know about sexual exploits… I had my degree in erotic lore."

Portrait of Anaïs Nin in the 1970s.

Faced with a desperate need for money, Nin, Miller and some of their friends began in the 1940s to write erotic and pornographic narratives for an anonymous "collector" for a dollar a page, somewhat as a joke.^[14] (It is not clear whether Miller actually wrote these stories or merely allowed his name to be used.^[15]) Nin considered the characters in her erotica to be extreme caricatures and never intended the work to be published, but changed her mind in the early 1970s and allowed them to be published as Delta of Venus^[16][17] and Little Birds.

Nin was a friend, and in some cases lover, of many leading literary figures, including Henry Miller, Antonin Artaud, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, James Agee, James Leo Herlihy, and Lawrence Durrell. Her passionate love affair and friendship with Miller strongly influenced her both as a woman and an author. Nin wrote about her infatuation with the Surrealist artist Bridget Bate Tichenor in her diaries.^[18][19] The rumor that Nin was bisexual was given added circulation by the Philip Kaufman film Henry & June. This rumor is dashed by at least two encounters Nin writes about in her third unexpurgated journal, Fire. The first is with a patient of Nin's (Nin was working as a psychoanalyst in New York at the time), Thurema Sokol, with whom nothing physical occurs. She also describes a ménage à trois in a hotel, and while Nin is attracted to the other woman, she does not respond completely (229–31). Nin confirms that she is not bisexual in her unpublished 1940 diary when she states that although she could be attracted erotically to some women, the sexual act itself made her uncomfortable. What is irrefutable is her sexual attraction to men.

Nin's first unexpurgated journal, Henry and June, makes it clear, despite the notion to the contrary, that she did not have sexual relations with Miller's wife, June. While Nin was stirred by June to the point where she says (paraphrasing), "I have become June," she did not consummate her erotic feelings for her. Still, to both Anaïs and Henry, June was a femme fatale—irresistible, cunning, erotic. Nin gave June money, jewelry, clothes, oftentimes leaving herself broke. In her second unexpurgated journal, Incest, she wrote that she had an incestuous relationship with her father, which was graphically described (207–15). When Nin's father learned of the title of her first book of fiction, House of Incest, he feared that the true nature of their relationship would be revealed, when, in fact, it was heavily veiled in Nin's text.

Later life and legacy[link]

The explosion of the feminist movement in the 1960s gave feminist perspectives on Nin's writings of the past twenty years, which made Nin a popular lecturer at various universities; contrarily, Nin disassociated herself from the political activism of the movement.^[1]

In 1973 Anaïs Nin received an honorary doctorate from the Philadelphia College of Art. She was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974. She died in Los Angeles, California on January 14, 1977 after a three year battle with cancer.^[20] Her body was cremated, and her ashes were scattered over Santa Monica Bay in Mermaid Cove. Her first husband, Hugh Guiler, died in 1985, and his ashes were scattered in the cove as well.^[9] Rupert Pole was named Nin's literary executor, and he arranged to have new unexpurgated editions of Nin's books and diaries published between 1985 and his death in 2006.

Philip Kaufman directed the 1990 film Henry & June based on Nin's novel Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. She was portrayed in the film by Maria de Medeiros.

List of works[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anaïs Nin

• Waste of Timelessness: And Other Early Stories (written before 1932, published posthumously)
• D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932)
• House of Incest (1936)
• Winter of Artifice (1939)
• Under a Glass Bell (1944)
• Cities of the Interior (1959), in five volumes:
  • Ladders to Fire
  • Children of the Albatross
  • The Four-Chambered Heart
  • A Spy in the House of Love
  • Seduction of the Minotaur, originally published as Solar Barque (1958).
• Delta of Venus (1977)
• Little Birds (1979)
• Collages (1964)
• The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1947), in four volumes
• The Diary of Anaïs Nin, in seven volumes, edited by herself
• The Novel of the Future (1968)
• In Favor of the Sensitive Man (1976)
• A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller (1987)
• Henry and June: From a Journal of Love (1986), edited by Rupert Pole after her death
• Incest: From a Journal of Love (1992)
• Fire: From A Journal of Love (1995)
• Nearer the Moon: From A Journal of Love (1996)
• White Stains a collection of erotica to which, according to most Nin scholars, Anaïs Nin did not contribute, although it possibly includes the work of others who wrote for the same collector.
• Aphrodisiac: Erotic Drawings by John Boyce for Selected Passages from the Works of Anaïs Nin

See also[link]

Literature portal

• List of Cuban American writers
• List of Cuban Americans
• Barthold Fles
• Otto Rank

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Deirdre Bair, Anaïs Nin: A Biography (New York: Putnam, 1995) ISBN 0-399-13988-5
• Noël Riley Fitch, Anaïs: The Erotic Life of Anaïs Nin (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993) ISBN 0-316-28428-9

External links[link]

• Anaïs Nin quotations at WikiQuote
• The Official Anaïs Nin Blog
• Sky Blue Press Preserving and promoting her literary work.
• Anaïs Nin.com
• Anaïs In Paris Anaïs Nin scholarly resources, news & multimedia – since 1995] (new site host October 2011)
• "Anaïs Nin" Encyclopædia Britannica,
• Works by or about Anaïs Nin at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Anaïs Nin at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Anaïs Nin in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Anaïs Nin: 82nd Avenue
• The House of Incest
• Ian Hugo (Nin's husband)
• Fox, Margalit. (30 July 2006). "Rupert Pole, 87, Diarist's Duplicate Spouse, Dies", The New York Times
• Anaïs Nin Letters, 1932–1946 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
• Anaïs Nin video text

Marie Menken (born "Marie Menkevicius", May 25, 1909 – December 29, 1970), was an American experimental filmmaker, painter,^[1] and socialite. She is noted for her unique filming style that incorporated collage as well as a strong influence from her background in painting.^[2]

Early life[link]

Menken was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 25, 1909, to a Catholic-Lituanian immigrant couple.^[3] She studied at the New York School of Fine and Industrial Arts as well as the Art Students League of New York and honed her craft as a painter. To support herself, she worked as a secretary at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum before receiving a scholarship from Yaddo and moving to upstate New York.^[4]

Professional career[link]

There is no why for my making films. I just liked the twitters of the machine, and since it was an extension of painting for me, I tried it and loved it. In painting I never liked the staid and static, always looked for what would change the source of light and stance, using glitters, glass beads, luminous paint, so the camera was a natural for me to try – but how expensive!

—Marie Menken, c.1966.^[5]

Menken and her husband Willard Maas began a well-respected avant-garde art group known as The Gryphon Group^[6] in the mid-1940s. It was around this time that Menken, bored of the static nature of paint on canvas, began to experiment with film. She released her first film Visual Variations on Noguchi in 1945 to acclaim within the experimental art circles of the time.^[7] She used a hand-held and hand-cranked 16mm Bolex camera for this as well as many of her later films, contributing to the spontaneity and agility of her work. Noguchi is a non-narrative film that combines quick, decontextualized shots of the sculptures of Isamu Noguchi with shrill, discordant music.^[8]

Menken, along with the Gryphon Group, began to produce numerous short experimental films around the time of Noguchi's release. She also began to experiment with various types of animation techniques, including collage and stop-motion cinematography, owing to her background in painting.^[9] Menkin's 1962 film Notebook was shot during between the years of 1940 and 1962, and is arguably her most well known film.^[10] The film consists of short snippets of film she had shot over the years, spliced together in a meditative fashion. Menken continued to make films that both took influence from and commented on the various art movements her contemporaries took part in, including abstract expressionism with Drips in Strips (1963) and pop art in Andy Warhol (1964).^[11]

Personal life[link]

In 1931 she met Willard Maas, a professor of literature at Wagner College in Staten Island. They married in 1937, but it was a rocky and unstable marriage, described as a "succession of fights and drinking bouts.^[12] Menken and Maas lived in a penthouse at 62 Montague Terrace in Brooklyn.

As core members of the Gryphon Group, Menken and Maas were highly respected by the experimental and avant-garde art circles of the time. Menken was known for her association with and influence on many of the leading members of the movement, including pop artist Andy Warhol and experimental filmmakers Kenneth Anger and Stan Brakhage.^[13]

Menken appeared in Andy Warhol's films Screen Tests (1964), The Life of Juanita Castro (1965), Bitch (1965), Prison (1965), and Chelsea Girls (1966).

Glimpse Of The Garden, Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles 1958

Style and Legacy[link]

Menken's painting style utilized unconventional mediums, particularly reflective materials such as glass, phosphorescent paint, and sequins. She attributed this to her desire to capture movement in her paintings, something that would eventually influence her move to film as well as her films' emphasis on the theme of light.^[14]

Her background in painting was evident in her later experiments with animation, collage, and stop-motion work. Movement is prominent in her films, either slow and meditative or quick and spastic. Unlike many other avant-garde films at the time, her early films lacked any obvious symbolism, and were instead to be experienced purely visually.^[15][16]

She was the basis of the 2006 documentary film Notes on Marie Menken by Martina Kudlacek. The film featured Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Gerard Malanga, Jonas Mekas, and Marie's nephew, Joseph J. Menkevich.

In 2007, Menken's Glimpse of the Garden (1957) was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Filmography[link]

Note: Marie Menken was highly prolific and also worked on many films attributed to the Gryphon group, its members, and other filmmaking circles. As such, this is only a partial filmography.

Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945)

Hurry! Hurry! (1957)

Glimpse of the Garden (1957)

Dwightiana (1957)

Eye Music in Red Major (1961)

Notebook (1962)

Drips in Strips (1963)

Mood Mondrian (1965)

Andy Warhol (1965)

Wrestling (1964)

Moonplay (1964–66)

Drips in Strips (1961)

Go Go Go (1962–64)

Lights (1966)

Sidewalks (1966)

Excursion (c. 1968)

Watts with Eggs (1967)

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Brennan, Sandra. "Marie Menken – Biography." <http://movies.nytimes.com/person/48440/Marie-Menken/biography> New York Times. Retrieved 5/6/12.
• "Of Light and Lightness–The Films of Marie Menken". <http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2009janfeb/menken.html>. Harvard Film Archive. Retrieved 5/6/12.
• Suárez, Juan A. (2009). Myth, Matter, Queerness: The Cinema of Willard Maas, Marie Menken, and the Gryphon Group, 1943-1969. Grey Room, (36), 58-87.
• Haller, Robert A. "First Light - Marie Menken". <http://www.roberthaller.com/firstlight/menken.html>. First Light. Retrieved 5/6/12.
• "Visual Variations on Noguchi". imdb. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438476/>.

External links[link]

• Marie Menken at IMDB
• Marie Menken at Ubuweb
• Notes on Marie Menken
• Harvard Film Archive article on Marie Menkin

Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio, March 8, 1948, Lansdale, Pennsylvania^[1]) is an American pop singer. She is primarily remembered for her 1963 million-selling song "I Will Follow Him".^[2]

Career[link]

She was discovered at age thirteen singing at her cousin's wedding^[2] and was introduced to the record producer partnership Hugo & Luigi. They gave her the nickname Little Peggy March because she was only 4 ft 9 in (1.45 m) tall, she was only 13, the record she did with them was "Little Me," and her birthday was in March.

On April 24, 1963,^[3] her single "I Will Follow Him" soared to number one on the U.S. charts.^[1] Recorded in early January 1963 and released January 22, March was only 14 at the time.^[1] March became the youngest female artist with a number one hit, a record that still stands for the Billboard Hot 100. The recording also took the number one spot in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan, and Scandinavia. It was a translation of the French song "Chariot" recorded a year earlier by Petula Clark.^[1]

March's success also came with financial trouble. She was a minor and the Coogan Law prevented her parents from managing her money. The responsibility was placed on her manager, Russell Smith. It was discovered in 1966 that he had squandered the fortune away, leaving her with $500. Peggy graduated from Lansdale Catholic High School in 1966. She soon had a new manager, Arnie Harris, who later became her husband.^[1] They had one daughter, Sande, born in 1974.

Although she is remembered by some as a one-hit wonder, her singles "I Wish I Were a Princess" and "Hello Heartache, Goodbye Love" made the Top 30 in the United States, with the latter also reaching #29 on the UK Singles Chart.^[4] She recorded 18 singles for RCA Victor between 1964 and 1971 and several albums as well, none of which charted well in the United States.^[1] She began making a strong presence in the European and Asian music markets and moved to Germany in 1969.^[1] Her commercial success in Germany continued through much of the 1970s;^[1] she tried her luck in representing Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, only to be placed second in the national final with the song "Hey! Das ist Musik für Mich". March made another Eurovision attempt in 1975, when she performed the Ralph Siegel composition "Alles geht vorüber" in the German national contest. Again she was placed second.

In 1979, she experimented with disco on the album Electrifying, but it failed to achieve commercial success. By 1981 record companies did not renew her contracts, and she moved back to the United States.^[1] In 1984, however, Jermaine Jackson and Pia Zadora achieved a major European hit single with the track "When the Rain Begins to Fall",^[5] co-written by March. Although not a hit in the UK or in the US, it went to #1 in Germany, France, The Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1998, the song entered the German Top 10 again when covered by rapper Pappa Bear. The cult film Hairspray featured "I Wish I Were a Princess" in 1988, and a retro fad in Germany brought her some continuing success starting in the mid 1990s with the album Die Freiheit Frau zu sein (1995). Her song "I Will Follow Him" was featured in the 1992 movie Sister Act. Currently she works largely in the Las Vegas music scene and has also performed at Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Missouri. In 2005, she released an album of standards, Get Happy, followed by the album Meine Liebe ist stark genug (2008).^[6]

In March 2010, Peggy March went into the studio to lay down vocals for her first album of new, original material in English in over 30 years. A collaboration with Scandinavian songwriter and producer, Soren Jensen, the album Always and Forever was released on October 13, 2010,^[7] followed by a special edition for the German-speaking countries, April 2012^[8], including two duets with Dutch singer José Hoebee formerly of 70s hit group Luv', one of them being a cover version of March's #1 hit "I Will Follow Him" which had also been a #1 single in the Netherlands and Belgium for José in 1982. March also recorded her own version of her 1984 #1 hit "When The Rain Begins To Fall" as a duet with German singer Andreas Zaron.

Singles[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official site
• fan site
• Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater
• Little Peggy March biography provided by Allmusic

Pop Levi (born Jonathan James Mark Levi^[1][2] 22 September 1977 in Surrey^[3][4]) is an English singer, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and filmmaker.

Biography[link]

Levi grew up in a the suburbs of Birmingham and attended Shrewsbury School, a public school in Shropshire between 1991 and 1994^[5] where he would skip church to write songs in the basement.^[6] In 1997 Levi re-located to Liverpool to study at LIPA^[7] and formed the experimental instrumental band Super Numeri with Karl Webb and James Morgan^[8][9] who signed to Ninja Tune in 2002 and released albums "Great Aviaries" in 2003 and "The Welcome Table" in 2005. During this period, Levi also played bass for Ladytron live and on the album Witching Hour.^[10][11]

In 2004 Levi released singles "Rude Kinda Love" and "Reindeer In My Heart" on the independent "Invicta Hi-Fi" label set up by Daniel Hunt of Ladytron.^[12] A planned follow-up single in 2005 entitled "Kissed Her Sister" was shelved along with the album "Foxwatch",^[13] and Levi formed The Emergencies^[14] with organ player Jake Field and Zukanican members, rhythm guitarist Dominic Lewington (AKA Domino), bass player Harry Sumnall and drummer James Pagella. The band played regularly around Liverpool as "Pop Levi & The Emergencies"^[15][16] including slots at the Merseyside Unity Music Festival and Unite Against Racism Festival. Now backed by The Emergencies, Levi released "Blue Honey", his last single on "Invicta Hi-Fi", before signing to Ninja Tune.^[17] After signing the new deal, Levi moved to Los Angeles which resulted in The Emergencies disbanding. With Lewington still on board,^[18] Levi recruited drummer Marius Simonsen and bass player Luke Muscatelli (AKA Lucky Beaches) and the band moved to the US, living together in the same house in Echo Park, Los Angeles.^[19] The new backing band was named "Woman".^[20]

In February 2007 Levi released his debut solo album on Counter Records, an imprint specifically created for Levi by Ninja Tune. The Return to Form Black Magick Party was self produced and recorded over several years, solely on a lap top, at Liverpool studio/rehearsal space The Kif^[21] (where previous Super Numeri albums were recorded^[22]) and whilst on tour with Ladytron^[23] in a number of different locations in "England, China, France, Greece, LA, New York"^[24] such as "on trains, in planes, in warehouses, on the top of Cathedrals, at the beach, in bathrooms, hotel rooms and tombs. I made sure to capture the first take of everything I recorded and then took the tracks to Sacramento to be mixed".^[25] The album was toured extensively across the US, UK, Europe and Australia, and was listed as one of Lauren Laverne's favourite artists to make it big in 2007 on BBC Two's The Culture Show.

In July 2008, Levi released the follow up album Never Never Love, which was preceded by the single "Dita Dimoné" which made BBC Radio 6's 'Record Of The Week'. Levi set out to make the follow-up, in contrast to the loose feel of the debut, sound artificial and soulless, that it sounded "like Japanese toys falling in and out of love with each other". The album was recorded at Westbeach Recorders^[26] and Westlake Recording Studios, in the same room Quincy Jones recorded Michael Jackson's Thriller and Off The Wall albums.^[27] Following the recording of the album, Simonsen returned to Norway^[28] and joined pop band Montée^[29] and Lewington returned to England, leaving Levi with no band to tour the album. Levi and Muscatelli played sporadic shows across LA as a duo, with Muscatelli shifting from bass guitar to synth bass. Aside from a handful of solo acoustic shows in London, there was also no tour to support the album in the UK either.

2008 also saw the emergence of Levi's World Empire, Inc. film and music production company.^[30] In September, the 37th Festival Nouveau Cinema in Montréal held the world premiere of You Don't Gotta Run, a surreal 37-minute docu-featurette directed by auteur Lucky Beaches and starring Levi.^[31]

A planned double album of home demos and outtakes entitled "Micro Sex Tapes", which was originally set for release in 2009 was never released.^[32][33] A stand-alone double A-Side single "Police $ign/Terrifying (For Kenneth Anger)" was released in June 2009,^[34] with a new lineup featuring drummer Hayden Scott.^[35] An early version of Police $ign was featured in the in-game soundtrack of Gran Turismo 5.^[36]

In 2009 Levi travelled to Norway where drummer Simonsen was now based^[37] to record his third album, tentatively titled "Records", which was intended to be live and raw sounding.^[38] The album was recorded in a mountain-top converted barn^[39] and re-titled "‎Smack Musick",^[40] however, after being left in a state of limbo for 2 years, with the last scheduled release date being March 2011, it was eventually shelved.^[41]

In April 2011, "Levitation Vol. 1" was temporarily made available as a free download via worldempireinc.com. The 14 track mixtape was recorded and mixed mostly in 2010-11 at The White Arc, Levi's studio in Los Angeles.^[42] The release was followed up by "Motorcycle 666" in July 2011, recorded during the "Smack Musick" sessions in Norway.^[43] The b-side "Rock Solid" was recorded at The White Arc.^[44] The single was backed by select dates in London and Liverpool, with a new lineup with Muscatelli now on guitar.^[45] Levi is currently signed to Ninja Tune/Counter Records for one more album.^[46]

Levi has also produced and performed with Canadian-born artist and American Apparel model Bunny Holiday in Los Angeles and on a five-city tour of China.^[47][48][49] In 2010 Pop Levi and Bunny Holiday directed the music video for former N.W.A. star Arabian Prince's "Let's Hit The Beach" single on Stones Throw Records.^[50] The duo also directed a music video for "The Look" to promote the 2010 VansXStussy shoe collaboration.^[51]

Levi's song "Sugar Assault Me Now" was used in the trailers for the 2010 film, Get Him to the Greek^[52] and his music has also been featured in numerous television shows including Chuck, Entourage and 90210.

Discography[link]

Solo[link]

Albums

• 'The Return to Form Black Magick Party' CD/LP (UK/US) (2007, Counter Records)
• 'Never Never Love' CD/LP (UK/US) (2008, Counter Records)
• 'Smack Musick' Unreleased (2010, Counter Records/World Empire, Inc.)
• 'Levitation Vol. 1' Mixtape (2011, World Empire, Inc.)

Singles

• 'Rude Kinda Love / Clearly Dearly' 7" (UK) (2004, Invicta Hi-Fi)
• 'Reindeer In My Heart / Hayley Square [Instrumental]' 7" (UK) (2004, Invicta Hi-Fi)
• 'Kissed Her Sister / Supermarket Woman' Promo-only CD (UK) (2005, Invicta Hi-Fi)
• 'Blue Honey / Mournin' Light' 7" (UK) (2005, Invicta Hi-Fi)
• 'Blue Honey' 7"/10"/CD EP (UK/US) (2006, Counter Records)
• 'Sugar Assault Me Now' 7"/10"/CD EP (UK) (2007, Counter Records)
• 'Pick Me Up Uppercut' 7" (UK) (2007, Counter Records)
• 'Never Never Love' 7" (UK) (2008, Counter Records)
• 'Dita Dimoné' 7" (UK) (2008, Counter Records)
• 'Police $ign / Terrifying (For Kenneth Anger)' 7" (UK) (2009, Counter Records)
• 'Motorcycle 666 / Rock Solid' Digi-single (UK) (2011, Counter Records)

Mixsets

• 'Interfunk Express #1' Download (2011, World Empire, Inc.)

w/ Super Numeri[link]

Albums

• 'Great Aviaries' CD/LP (UK/US) (2003, Ninja Tune)
• 'The Enochian Way' CD (JP) (2005, Counter Records)
• 'The Welcome Table' CD/LP (UK/US) (2005, Ninja Tune)

Singles

• 'The Electric Horse Garden' 7" (UK) (2002, Ninja Tune)
• 'The Coastal Bird Scene (Parts 1, 2 & 3)' 12" (UK) (2003, Ninja Tune)

w/ World Empire, Inc.[link]

Singles

• 'Welcome Song' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'The Rah Rah Star Sound Thief' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'Holy Musick' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'Play This To People And They'll Do Stuff For You' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'The Reason To Stay In LA' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)

w/ Bunny Holiday[link]

Singles

• 'Chyna Girl' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'Teach Me How To Bunny' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)
• 'Rabbit Fever [Moombahton Mix]' Digi-single (2011, World Empire, Inc.)

w/ Zukanican[link]

EPs

• 'E 5Number' 10" (2004, Pickled Egg Records)

w/ Ladytron[link]

Albums

• 'Softcore Jukebox' CD/LP (UK/US) (2003, Emperor Norton)
• 'Light & Magic' CD (UK/US) (2004 Re-release, Emperor Norton)
• 'Witching Hour' CD/LP (UK/US) (2005, Island Records)

Singles

• 'Evil' CD (UK) (2003, Telstar)

Filmography[link]

• 'You Don't Gotta Run' documentary (dir. Lucky Beaches) Hand-numbered limited (50) edition DVD (2008, World Empire, Inc.)

Filmettes[link]

The following are the short films directed & produced by Pop Levi.