Time for Some Anger

... as it will see the DVD release of "The Films of Kenneth Anger Volume 1."
Anger was one of the most important, influential filmmakers of the 20th century. He was one of the biggies, alongside Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, and Maya Deren. From 1947 up through 1980 Anger would release a series of powerful, unique short films. This first volume contains:

Fireworks (1947)
Puce Moment (1949)
Rabbit's Moon (1950, the rarely seen original 16 minute version)
Eaux d'Artifice (1953)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954)

Anger's films are, for the most part, silent films. He often depicts mythological and religious characters that relate to his occult spiritual views. Anger has been a lifelong devotee of English occultist Aleister Crowley, promoting Crowley's religion Thelema and holding membership in Crowley's secret society the Ordo Templi Orientis. But his films actually go a step further from simply depicting magic and sorcery. As Maximilian Le Cain notes in his essay on Anger at the Australian online film journal Senses of Cinema,

"Offering a description of himself for the program of a 1966 screening, Kenneth Anger stated his 'lifework' as being Magick and his 'magical weapon' the cinematograph. A follower of Aleister Crowley's teachings, Anger is a high level practitioner of occult magic who regards the projection of his films as ceremonies capable of invoking spiritual forces. Cinema, he claims, is an evil force. Its point is to exert control over people and events and his filmmaking is carried out with precisely that intention."

Part of the reason why the release of Anger's films is such an event is the fact that for the last twenty years these films have been very difficult to come by. They were released on video by a small company called Mystic Fire Video and have been out of printed for a long time. Options for film fans have been paying ridiculous prices on Amazon or ebay, gambling with bootlegs, or catching them at a film festival. Anger now has the opportunity to corrupt a whole new generation...