Fireworks, 1947

A film by Kenneth Anger
with Kenneth Anger, Gordon Gray and Bill Seltzer

Kenneth Anger began making films as a teenager in the late 1930s, though his first work to be widely seen was Fireworks (1947), which would become a landmark of experimental cinema for its mixture of surrealism, open sexuality, and spectacular direction. Each of Anger’s classic films is distinct in subject and aesthetic, though they share an attraction to psychological intensity, occult themes and symbolism, and deeply artistic staging. Anger has been cited as a major influence on the aesthetic of music video, with its emphasis on dream sequence and elevated affect, and his own soundtracks have featured collaborations with Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page, among other rock legends. From the 1940s onward, Anger has worked in a counterculture milieu of staggering diversity, a fellow traveler with Jean Cocteau, Alfred Kinsey, Stan Brakhage, Marjorie Cameron, Tennessee Williams, Anton LaVey, and Marianne Faithfull, among many others. Filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, John Waters, and Guy Maddin have all acknowledged Anger’s impact on their own work.

via MOCA