Scorpio Rising

Colour, 16 mm
USA, 1963, 29 min
Section: Midnight Screenings

Synopsis

Epochal in a number of ways, this seductive montage intercuts homoerotic shots of a Brooklyn motorcycle gang with found footage and images of American cultural icons. The splendid score of bubblegum pop adds ironic counterpoint. The film created a new cinematic language that could be seen as a prototype for both MTV-like music videos and reality TV. Its style influenced directors including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Anger claims to have cleared the rights to his impressive soundtrack, something that would cost millions today. It also proved groundbreaking in a legal sense. During its premiere run, someone denounced it as pornography to the Hollywood vice squad. The case eventually went to the California Supreme Court where the film was declared “of redeeming social merit”.

About the director

Kenneth Anger (b. 1930, Santa Monica, USA) is one of the greatest and most notorious living American avant-garde filmmakers. Drawn to cinema, glamour and scandal early on – his grandmother worked in Hollywood as a dresser and he knew Shirley Temple from school dances – he made his first film of note, Fireworks (1947), at the age of 17. It set the mould for his later oeuvre, silent films of intense sensual imagery combined with mesmerizing musical soundtracks. A follower of necromancer Aleister Crowley, Anger describes his lifework as being “Magic”. His films may be seen as cinematic manifestations of his occult practices, appealing directly to the subconscious mind. Anger also wrote Hollywood Babylon. His filmography includes Puce Moment (1949), Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), Rabbit’s Moon (1972) and Lucifer Rising (1980).