Anger Rising

I‘m going to tell you a secret. I first encountered Kenneth Anger via Lana Del Rey.

A “leaked” fan video (although I maintain nobody but Lana could have poured such devotion into the project) for her unreleased track “Live or Die” flashed the iconic image from Anger’s Scorpio Rising of a stunning boy in a Nazi cap, cigarette barely clinging to his lips, over the lyrics “Are you gonna be my soldier/are we gonna be Bonnie and Clyde”—and this closeted queer Jew was instantly obsessed. So much so that now, over a decade later and with the fanvid seemingly long gone from the web, it still loops in exquisite resolution on a mental magic lantern every time I hear that song. But I had no idea what it was from.

Years later, I flipped to a still from the same scene in a film textbook and it felt like a miracle. I finally had the name of my teenage Neonazi image’s satanic father. I’m not using that word (entirely) flippantly: Kenneth Anger got “Lucifer” tattooed across his chest in Old English font. He was a flagrant gossip, having authored Hollywood Babylon, the book that launched rumors of James Dean sexually serving as Marlon Brando’s human ashtray. He was a political provocateur and a longtime devotee of occultist Aleister Crowley. And he was the undisputed progenitor of queer video art.

But in the time since Anger’s Fireworks first lit up the screen in 1948 with images of sadomasochistic sailors and roman candle crotches, the idea of queer video art has developed the academic mustiness of something left too long at the back of an intellectual closet. When work like this spends decades in modern art museums and out of the scummy, cum-stained back rooms where it was born, it loses something vital. That’s not to say it doesn’t deserve its deification, but I think Anger was more in his element in the Lana collage video than my film textbook. The sacred black magic of queer video is a two-pronged affair—and neither of those points are part of its cultural reputation.

For one thing, queer video in general—and Anger in particular—has nothing to do with the floral and unrequited romances filling this month’s Pride carousels with content. Queerness, instead, lives in the cuts. Anger flashes glimpses of bare self through collection and assembly of reflecting fragments. And there are few things more queer than constructing a whole from scattered shards.

More importantly, Anger’s work is a reminder that queer video gets to feel good. Rather than the cold, academic formalism of its loudest champions, it’s full of taboo thrills and uneasy beauty and morbid fascination. In a time when queer rapture was criminalized, Anger was shameless in his hedonism and used a camera to invite us all to the sabbath. Lucifer—an angel of light.

When Anger died last month at the age of 96, I’m sure he wanted us to picture him grinning back up from a sulfur pit. Instead, his ghost reanimates inside every dream sequence and music video, every David Lynch death scene and obscure internet fanvid. And, of course, in every new work of queer video. His loss is profoundly felt. But his presence is even more so.

In Anger’s own necromantic spirit, I want to make an offering. Fresh cut pleasures from my favorite queer videos in the Kenneth-inspired canon—all viewable through the online version of this story, should you choose to partake. Consider this the altar.

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Start with 27:44-28:16 of Anger’s Scorpio Rising, when the past half hour of frenetic build-up climaxes as the gorgeous smoker’s face dissolves into a green sea of death’s heads and motorcycle crashes. Ecstatic.

After that intensity, you’re begging for a little relief, aren’t you? Andy Warhol’s Blowjob 4:46-5:00 holds still and tight on another ravishing face as—according to legend—someone lives out the film’s title just below the frame.

Now lean back. Breathe. With our famous white boys sated, it’s time for 0:26-1:00 of Marlon Riggs’ Anthem to ring out. Let the beat hit with roses and velvet. Pervert the language. It’s sacred.

Next, cut to 0:17-1:02 of Michelle Handelman’s BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes and Sadomasochism (excerpt) as blue-lit knife play drips in a chain-covered orgy of death drive highs that would have Anger reaching for his doo-wop hits.

But we’re not such cruel masters as Anger was. 27:08-27:40 of the Gay Girls Riding Club’s What Really Happened to Baby Jane arrives to break your built up tension with belly laughs in the face of Oscar-baiting cliff plunges, before—

Jose Rodriguez Soltero’s Lupe (excerpt) steps out of the shadows at 5:45-6:35 to beckon you into the dance. Hands overtake you. The ritual is complete.

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Light a candle for Kenneth Anger and repeat.