Stay Updated

Read our Weekly Gayzette for the latest (and gayest) movie screenings, community events, and industry news from the Bay Area and beyond!

You're viewing the Frameline6 (1982) archive held in 1982. Explore this years festival

Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle – Program II

Kenneth Anger, self-described "left-handed fanatic craftsman," is one of the most brilliant and influential American avant garde filmmakers. Since his 1947 film Fireworks, a startling and humorous homoerotic fantasy he filmed in his Hollywood home at age 17, Anger has been in the forefront of the underground film move-ment. While several of his films have been lost or destroyed, those that exist are dazzling, evocative works concerned with magic, ritual, popular icons, sexuality, religion and mythology.

Calling his lifework the "Magick Lantern Cycle" (a reference to the dawn of cinema, when every film was an experiment), Anger attempts to cast a spell over the audience with his films, films which reflect his worship of the spirit of Lucifer, "Lucifer created his own light show in heaven", writes Anger. And with typical humor, "Eventually he was expelled for playing the stereo too loud."

Program II contains Kustom Kar Kommandos, Scorpio Rising, Invocation of My Demon Brother, Puce Moment, and Lucifer Rising.

Short films showing in this program:

Invocation of My Demon Brother

12 mins

Experimental short, featuring strobe-like homoerotic imagery with several shots of the Rolling Stones in performance and an original synthesizer score by Mick Jagger.

Kustom Kar Kommandos

3 mins

A man in tight jeans buffs his car to the strains of "Dream Lover."

Lucifer Rising

29 mins

Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising (1972–1981) is a cinematic invocation of myth, magick, and cosmic rebellion. More than a film, it is a ceremonial transmission — summoning archetypes, planetary forces, and the eternal return of the Morning Star.

Puce Moment

6 mins

A soundtrack plays folk rock as a woman prepares, at noon, to take her Borzois for a walk. She goes through her dresses, all 1920s style flapper gowns, holding them one at a time, shaking them as if they are dancing.

Scorpio Rising

28 mins

Scorpio Rising stars Bruce Byron as Scorpio. Loosely structured around a prominent soundtrack of 1960s pop music, it follows a group of bikers preparing for a night out.

Expected Guests

Kenneth Anger
Director
Quick links
Running Time
78 mins
Language
English