a saturated, multiple-exposed image of people in various costumes and a woman's red facealr

Lucifer Rising

Directed by Kenneth Anger

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome

Directed by Kenneth Anger
Screening on Film
  • Lucifer Rising

    Directed by Kenneth Anger.
    US, 1972/81, 16mm, color, 30 min.
    Print source: Brian Butler

Filmed in a London studio and at sacred sites in Egypt, France, Germany and England, Lucifer Rising was one of Anger’s most elaborate productions. Its assorted cast includes Scottish director Donald Cammell; Marianne Faithfull; and, briefly, Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger’s brother Chris as ancient gods engaged in occult ritual. Based on the teachings of Aleister Crowley, including his interpretation of Lucifer as a bringer of light, Anger’s film remains starkly beautiful and mesmerizing with startling edits, featuring an otherworldly score composed in prison by Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil. – Haden Guest / Brittany Gravely

  • Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome

    Directed by Kenneth Anger.
    US, 1954/1966, 16mm, color, 38 min.
    Print source: Brian Butler

Steeped in the mythology of Aleister Crowley, art nouveau–era decadence and Hollywood artifice, Anger’s astonishing masterpiece unleashes a constellation of imagined gods choreographed by the filmmaker and inspired by one of the bohemian “Come as Your Madness” costume galas hosted by surrealist painter Renate Druks. Inauguration was filmed in the luxurious abode of silent film actor and reclusive impresario Samson De Brier, who plays many of the self-fashioned deities and demons alongside fellow artists Anaïs Nin, Curtis Harrington, Marjorie Cameron and Druks, among others. The film was reworked several times by Anger, once as a dazzling three-screen version which he then condensed to the “Sacred Mushroom Edition” (seen here) by brilliantly using superimposition to create complex mandala-like images in an ecstatic Babylonian descent. – Haden Guest / Brittany Gravely

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