Ritual Magic Through Art - Kenneth Anger - with Prof Judith Noble

Hello everyone, I'm Doctor Angela Puka and welcome to the Livestream Symposium. As you know, I'm a PhD and a university lecturer and a religious studies scholar, and this is your online resource for the academic study of magic historicism, paganism, shamanism, and all things of course. Now um before we start. I'd like to remind you that uh this project is uh brought to you by you. Actually, this might be a better view.

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Hello. Hi. I think that we can start talking about our topic then. Um first of all let me let me introduce you. Judith Nobel is professor of film and the occult at Arts University Primo. Uh she began her career as an artist, filmmaker, exhibiting work internationally and worked for over twenty years as a production executive in the film industry, working with directors including Peter Greenway and Amma Azante.

Her current research centers on artist moving image, surrealism, the occult and work by women artists. And she has published on filmmakers including Maya Derek, Derek Jarman, and Kenneth Anger. Her most recent publication as editor is The Dance of Moon and Sun. Um British Women and Surrealism. She continues to practice as an artist and filmmaker, and her most recent film is Fire Spells, a collaboration with director Tom Chick. Uh her recent work can be found at the www ice space.

And her film work is distributed by uh Cineova. So you also find um all the this information in the description box. So nice to see you, Judith. Sorry, I'm a little less less prepared visually than I was hoping to be. I hope this light is oh No, it was better. Yeah, just legally. Yeah, it's okay. So um, um everybody is welcoming you. So uh I think uh shall we crack on and start talking about kinet anger? Yes, tell us anger.

Yes. Uh could you could you tell us who he was and his work and why that was innovative? Okay, so um Kenneth Anger was um one of the um great American avant garde filmmakers I'm saying was because um sadly he died earlier this year at the age of ninety seven. And he began working on the West uh on the West Coast as an independent filmmaker in his teens, um, made his first film Fireworks in nineteen forty nine.

and at the same time um was becoming very involved in the occult in the world of magic and he um as as as was working very much in the thelemite tradition. So uh his films reflect that. Oh, someone deciding to be at my doorbell, I just ignore it. Um He's not having a very good day today. I'm so sorry. So from the beginning, his films are magical and were magical. So um after fireworks uh he went to uh Europe um at the um invitation of Jean Cocteau.

and uh made uh travel around Europe for four or five years. um made a film called Rabbit's Moon in Paris in nineteen fifty three and another in Italy called Odatifis. and then um returned to America and in nineteen fifty four made inauguration of the pleasure dome, which I suppose is like the first yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r and uh and the occult. Uh more films followed Scorpio Rising in nineteen sixty three.

Invocation of My Demon Brother in nineteen sixty-nine and Lucifer Rising in nineteen eighty-one. So um there's a brief historical overview. One of the things about the films I think it's really important to think about in addition to their magical content, is that they are actually Rydyn ni'n gwybod. Rydyn ni'n gwybod. Rydyn ni'n gwybod. Anger was working uh on analogue film on celluloid before anything digital had been invented.

and special effects had to be made by hand and his films are hand printed with lots of overlaid images and his technical mastery of the film medium is just extraordinary. Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â phobl, ac yn ymwneud â phobl, ac yn ymwneud â phobl, ac yn ymwneud â phobl, ac yn ymwneud â phobl. for the films but also for that extraordinary um technical uh beauty and brilliance really. So that's a there's a really brief overview. I hope that um is there's something to talk about.

Yes, and what makes uh Kenneth Anger different? What makes Kenneth Anger different? Well, there there is absolutely no one like him in history filmmaking. He is really, really unique. And I suppose uh with for Kenneth Anger, um He when he would write his magical biography, the way that um occultists do Mae'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r amser.

Um the films themselves are the magic. They're not films of magic. They're not recordings of something that takes place somewhere. They're not documentaries. The films themselves are the magic. And I think um he was the first filmmaker to really do that and to understand that. Uh and that was that was something absolutely unique. And I know other people have followed in that tradition, but not in quite the same way. And so I think that that that's that's the really

um extraordinary thing about Anger's work. So whereas we might say piece of sex magic or some other kind of manifestation. For anger it isn't. It's the film it's the film itself. So that's why if you are um practicing occultist or a magician, watching Anger's work is so is is such a very interesting experience because it's watching that film that is itself the magical act.

I suppose what else makes it it's it's hard to break Kenneth Angadown into component parts because what you get is one glorious whole really. So Um I suppose other characteristics of the work are um that he's a c here he's a queer man and the films all reflect a a queer am sensibility and sexuality, although they don't do that in a kind of They don't don't do that, um in uh the in a very upfront way. It's just uh it's just part of the film.

and you you are you're just given it as part of the film. But also his love of cinema itself. So he had a great reverence for silent cinema. Um, his members of his family had worked in Hollywood before the Second World War. So he uses not just the language of silent cinema, So He uh he couldn't he was working on sixteen millimeter film. He couldn't use sync sound where you can record sound straight onto the film. That was technically not possible. So he invented the technique

of using pop music and cutting the film to the music. So he inadvertently y invented the um soundtrack technique that became the basis um, not only for the music video industry, but also until um about the m end of the nineteen seventies, also for the porn industry. So he was a technical innovator, although, you know, s this I think this for him was just making the work the way work in the way that he wanted it to do. So

all those things make him unique. But as I say, I don't think they're things that you can take apart. I don't think you can say, um yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r uh to early sixties girl group music because it's not you can't you can't separate the elements like that. It's the way they are just one beautiful unified package that I think

makes him such an important filmmaker. And I haven't even talked about his use of colour because um uh af uh all all his films use colour. And he uses colour in a magical sense. He uses uh he uses golden dawn and crowly colour scales.

Mm. And you said that a for Kenneth Anger the movie is the magic itself. Could you elaborate more um on it in what ways? where his movies m magic magic retraws. Well it varies every yeah. Yeah. I mean that that varies from film to film. So um at the moment I've been doing some um Some writing about inauguration of the pleasure dome. Um that's a film which is very deliberately constructed as a kind of um orgeastic ritual at the end of which um the god Pan is kind of

sacrificed, overcome, consumed by um the other characters in the film. Um it He got the idea from a party that was held by some fellow artists and occultists in Los Angeles in 1953, and it was called Come As Your Own Madness. And it was Hosted by a woman called Renata Druck.

and involves um various people, including the writer Anne Z Nin, fellow filmmaker Curtis Harrington, occultist Marjorie Cameron, and they all um ac yn ymwneud â'r ffilmio ymwneud â'r ffilmio ymwneud â'r ffilmio ymwneud â'r ffilmio ymwneud â'r ffilmio ymwneud â'r ffilmio.

by um uh a male magus um played by Samson DeBrier and Scarlet Woman, played by Marjorie Cameron, and they summon up various magical personages, deities, entities, who then um Kind of entheogenic brew, which Anger describes in various different ways at different times and program notes as yage, wormwood. I think we'd say returned back. um into the inner realms by the Magus and the Scarlet Woman. So um that that is a film ritual.

um and it's um made in nineteen fifty four but he re-edited it in the nineteen sixties and heightened it sydd wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i Продолжение следует...

time and and that's where it's um that's where it became well known. Um Scorpio rising uh is described as uh uh uh a ritual dialogue between Eros and Thanos. Um, it's very much a leather movie, a biker movie. Um Invocation of my demon brother had been if you've been uh if you have knowledge of Crowley's magical system, um this is a film um designed to depict the invocation of the holy guardian angel. And it's a film that uh ritually moves around the centre of the tree of life on the Kabbalah.

um between the central area, um between um Gebura uh and Tifareth very much and it's uh it it's it's also his kind of ritual protest against the Vietnam War. It was made in nineteen sixty nine. So it harnesses all the energy of Gebura magically um to condemn what's going on in the Vietnam War. Lucifer Rising, the last film, which is really different. um is an invocation of Lucifer. Anger regarded Lucifer

um as his patron deity, Lucifer the light bringing, the light bringer, he called him the light behind the lens, and obviously a very appropriate deity for a filmmaker. So that film is an invocation of Lucifer. Um I I once was able to um Show invocation of my demon brother. and Lucifer rising to an audience of occultists. It's wonderful actually. It's a quite a long time ago now, in Bath in England, at an event organised by uh a fabulous occult society in Bath called Omfalas.

And they very kindly allowed themselves to be kind of guinea pigs because what I wanted to do was test the way that uh test on them, the way that Angus said, Well, this is a uh these are film rituals. Rydyn ni'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio

And that was very, very interesting. Um, the two films are incredibly different. Uh for the fur for Invocation of My Demon Brother, um, th the the audience got completely that this was um a very active, almost aggressive um film based around Geburah and a kind of quite um very energized movement around the centre of the tree of life. And several people said that they felt felt the film was trying to was and succeeding in edging them out of their consciousness and into another place entirely.

whereas Lucifer Rising was much more kind of uh stately and meditative. and had the effect of Rydyn ni'n gwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. art house cinema with an audience of people who are not necessarily particularly concerned with the occult, um, you probably wouldn't get such a, you know, a strong range of perceptions and reaction and I think

you know, having the opportunity to share a film to an audience entirely of a cultist was absolutely um brilliant for me, um, in in terms of studying his work. So yeah. Does that does that make sense to you as

Yes. I was think yeah, absolutely. So I was thinking, um, when we talk about um a movie or a film being a magic ritual doesn't mean that is a magic ritual meant to affect the people watching it. Or is it just a recording of him doing a mandric ritual? No, it's it's it's it's meant to work on the people watching it. Okay. Um and if you there are There's only there are very few um sequences in Angus films of him actually performing rituals.

Mae'n ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud. So that editing, putting together and in the old analogue way of working, printing the work are really important.

at Samson de Bree's house in Hollywood. But the editing and the printing happened over three months, maybe a little bit more. And then he um reedited and reprinted the film again in the nineteen fix sixties so it became substantially different.

Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r Ymwneud â'r performing um a uh one of Crowley's rituals in San Francisco in nineteen sixty seven, um, that's Libre Oz, where the um ritualist is freeing themselves from the old slave god. But he's taking snatches of that ritual. refilming it um at a different speed and then cutting it into other m other material. So uh we're not watching a ritual we're not watching Kenneth Angus at you know

performing a ritual, but there are elements of him performing a ritual cut into the film. But the pacing and what happens are completely dictated by the editing and what happens there. So Yeah, what what we're talking about is a ritual that's specially constructed as a film that can only exist as a film. Um and in the way that he's um he's following in the steps of Maoderen, um who preceded him by some eight or nine years, in that she was creating films, not all of them as strongly rituals.

uh rituals, angers, but things that could o a magic that could only exist on screen. So we're definitely not watching or recording something of el else. We're watching something that's been really specifically constructed to work on us magically. Um I have to say in the wild cul countercultural nineteen sixties, um when uh inauguration of the pleasure dome was was being screened in nineteen sixty six and sixty seven. in a version which he'd re-edited and retitled Lord Shiva's Dream, get it?

um LSD, he actually at some screenings told audiences at what point in the programme they needed to take. ymwneud â llawer o'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r But uh in terms of doing magic through art in his case, so how would he do that historically? How would he make a movie a ritual that is meant to to act on people?

Is there something specific that uh he he was doing as a filmmaker to imbue those movies with uh magic power?

Well, um, we're never going to know the actual ritual context of the filmmaking because he never told us. You know, and in in in i he we don't literally know um that such and such a deity was invoked in the circle before the filmmaking took place and this is what happened. I don't think he's he's you know, that's private. He's never going to tell us that.

Um but what you have got is all the things I was talking about earlier. So for example, the use of colour. Every every every nothing in an anger film is there by accident. Felly, mae'n llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer o'r llawer It's um it's in a house in Hollywood that belonged to a friend that he chose specifically um for its decor and the occult object. In the house, and then he went round and meticulously um placed every single object.

and coloured everything that he wanted to colour in that room. So there was nothing there by accident. Every single thing um was placed there for a magical reason. And he does that in all the films. So it's more it's more, I think, the bits we'll know about are putting together colour, light, and working with

They're not narrative films, but working with ritual elements that we recognise as magicians when we see them. So if we watch Invocation of My Demon Brother... we'll see um brief snatches of footage of the Rolling Stones concert um in memoriam of Brian Jones um in nineteen sixty nine. intercut with um sigils, intercut with um anger setting fire to a mummified cat. um um c cut into um Bobby Bausole's band. Magic powerhouse of Oz.

um moving down a staircase and through a space and so on and so on and so on. And there's a richness of overlaid images in that, but all of them um individually have elements of magical meaning that he's bringing together. So what we have is someone whose knowledge of ritual magic is really, really profound.

and it's being deployed in a really kind of complete way. Um, I don't think we'll ever know um ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud ymwneud you know, what invocations or ceremonies were taking place to uh set the consciousness of those making the film. He doesn't tell us that. And in a way I'm fine with that. I think that's you know, that's quite a a private thing.

Hm. And um in terms of his uh uh the the type of tradition or traditions that he followed, uh would he identify as a telemite and And what were the esoteric traditions that had an influence on his esoteric practice? Although um it's uh certainly not in his early days. He wasn't actually a member of the OTO. I'm not in the OTO myself, so people from the OTO will be able to

say more about that than I can. But um I think certainly in his later days, um, he was very happy to have a relationship with with the OTA, although earlier on he he um denied it, although he was quite a contrary person, so um he was he was likely to um answer any kind of question with a denial or a very contrary answer, but he's um certainly by by the time he's twenty years old, he's really steeped in the Thel Thelemic tradition and in um

in Crowley's magic, which he quotes extensively and quotes in interviews, and he really knows what he's doing. So yes, it's the Thelemite tradition and in I must get the date of this right, I think. Um nineteen fifty six he um worked with um Albert Kinsey you know famous for writing the the um Kinsey report about human sexuality and he and Kinsey went to Cefalou in Sicily and

uh visited um the Abbey of Thelamer and yeah and uh took photographs and made some film which does not survive. Photographs survived is quite well known photographs. of Anger and Kinsey standing in the dark with a torch looking at Crowley's paintings and Thelema. So it was Crowley um Crowley that did it for him. And he did a series of

Very good interviews in the late nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies. The ones he did in England with Tony Raines were particularly good, where he would explain his magical practice. in quite a lot of detail. And he was always explaining it to people who did not share it.

Ond mae'n ddewis yn ddewis yn ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis yn ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac mae'n ddewis ac

This uh this is based on Crowley's hymn to pan. Here is the hymn to pan. Um there is a red jewel in the corner of that image. um because I'm referring to the line where Crowley says a root you know a ruby radiant etc. So yes it's very it's very much Crowley. Um I can't finds uh evidence of where he first picked it up, except it's there in his high school days. Um he was close friends. in his teens with the filmmaker Curtis Harrington. who went on some uh make night tide.

gyda Dennis Hopper, a gyda Marjory Cameron, a gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda'n gyda

But where they where they began that quest, I don't think anyone yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw yw He um his association with Marjorie Cameron postdates um her marriage to Jack Parsons, he didn't meet Parsons. Um he knew he knew Cameron after that, so there's um absolutely no evidence that um he he ever met Parsons. Um so but it it's it it is it is very much crowly. Um if if there's time and space for an an anecdote, uh one of the things that um

I I enjoyed very much. I found found um a great account of he took um inauguration of the Pleasure Dome to London and it was screened in uh in the old institute of contemporary arts in Dover Street on the first of February nineteen fifty five. Um there were various friends and former associates of Crowley's presence. Uh Kenneth and Steffi Grant were there and um it's recorded in their their diaries. Um one of the people there uh was Lady Frida Harris.

um who of course created the images for the Thoth Tarot. And she really hated the film and she um told him so in no uncertain terms. And he um was very very young and all always quite kind of dealing with things and and when she started tearing him off the strip, he said he started saying, Oh, but my dear and she just got really angry and said, Don't you call me my dear you know, this is a woman who had been involved in suffragette direct action in her youth. So The idea of um the idea of uh

that film as a magical ritual certainly didn't go down well with her in nineteen fifty five, which is a shame. Um he does. Uh incidentally in that film there are A number of really um Overt visual references to the Thoth Tarot.

There there are you probably recognise a number of times we see in the film an image that's uh that's taken straight from the poses of um the what would you call them, the characters they but the images in the Thoth Tarot, particularly the Emperor, um the high priest and the priestess card. So um there's a there's uh extensive use of the Thoth Tarot deck going on in that film, but Lady Frieda Harris didn't um didn't uh enjoy it a little bit.

Um why do you think that uh Kenneth Anger is so popular among practitioners? Especially in the US. Magical practitioners or filmmakers? Magical practitioners, as far as I know, probably even filmmakers. Well, I'd say my own subjective response to that is that the films work. The films work as magic rituals, and they're wonderful experiences. So, um I would think that that's the absolute core reason. You know, you can watch Lucifer Rising

invocation of my demon brother, Scorpio rising, etcetera. And they are a powerful form of magic, which you can join in with by watching. And then you can also um since um since the digital age began. You are able to watch them in the comfort of your own home and if you want to, like I did when I first started, um doing in depth research into how his films worked. Oh now some fifteen years ago, you can watch them very slowly and take them apart frame by frame and really understand

all the magical elements that have gone into them. So I think they're an absolutely multi layered, in depth magical experience if you want them to be. Um and in as I said, in filmmaking terms, they're actually really um skilled and beautiful things. So you know there's a whole world of people involved in the arts in film.

sy'n gwybod bod yn gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod beth sy'n gwybod then I think that accounts for a lot of their popularity. And the other thing is that he is so

immersed in popular culture. Although, you know, now that now that's becoming a little historic. Um, but there's immense pleasure um in watching say in watching Scorpio Rising where he's cutting um he's cutting um quite S and M biker images and images of dirt track racing and what have you, to very kind of innocuous, sweet, innocent girl group music. And there's one point where we see um Sh a Sunday school film of Christ crucifixion.

intercut with a biker ish initiation ritual and the soundtrack is He's a Rebel and it it's it's hard to explain in words but when you watch it you know it's quite Mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod, mae'n gwybod. uh they they are not uh I think difficult to watch, which of course some avant garde film is. So um All those things I think.

make him really popular. And it uh it's until well, he he resisted making his films available on video although they were pirate copies. So Until... D V D in the late nineteen nineties, really, you had to experience Angus films in the cinema with a group of other people. So they they were A collective ritual.

And um, but since then I think there is an explosion of interest in him and it's people watching him at home on their own. And as I said, you know, being able to relate them to their own magical practice and look at the film slowly, replay them, uh and and really um enjoy all the elements of them. And maybe they are a great way of learning about magic too in themselves.

I don't know. Is there any danger in watching uh his films considering that they are rituals? Is it something that yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw. Um, I would have said probably not, um, because I think if you um If you're oblivious to that element or you don't want that element, it just goes over your head. I'd be interested to know more about... I'm too young for this. I probably saw...

Angus films for the first time at the end of the nineteen seventies, beginning of the nineteen eighties, but be interested to know what it was like for people watching them uh whilst taking acid in the nineteen sixties. I think that that could be quite a tricky experience. But that's more to do with um well, taking acid, you know, is is um be quite an extreme experience anyway. But I I wouldn't have thought there's that much danger in watching them.

I was interested in the response I got from them, showing them to a cultist, which is, this film is forcing me out of my consciousness. You know, that was something that several people said to me. This film is taking me out of my consciousness. But they were quite comfortable with where they went. um because they were practicing occultists. So it's a difficult question to answer. I mean I I think for me, you know,

Uh there's an awful lot of magic in an awful lot of cinema, including mainstream Hollywood. Um and I think um there can be some very difficult um and quite um ymwneud â phobl gwirionedd yn ymwneud â phobl gwirionedd yn ymwneud â phobl gwirionedd yn ymwneud â phobl gwirionedd um, into a in a movie that's depicting graphic sexual violence that you weren't expecting and didn't want to watch. Didn't know you were gonna watch. Um you know, film as an art form has a way of

intruding uh deep deep into layers of your mind and stain. And I don't think um that's unique to Kenneth Angus. Um the the Sura the great, you know, Surro search practitioner An Antonine Otto noticed that very early on um in the history of commercial cinema that that that film um had that effect on the audience of going straight through the layers of the conscious mind and and and tapping into to very deep layers. So that that is something that film does.

Um, and maybe we make we make a kind of um bargain with the devil of cinema when we watch a film. That's that's what happens, I don't know.

Um, I was thinking also that and then I will start asking questions from the audience, that um Uh I was kind of surprised because Kenneth Anger is not really known or popular in Italy. I think that in Italy and other European countries, uh Yodorowski is more known for uh making movies than are rituals.

Um, though he comes after can can uh anger, I think yeah, he must because he's still liar. Yes. And they knew each other. There's a there's a fantastic film of um sorry, fantastic photographic image. um taken in nineteen seventy of Anger, Dennis Hopper, um, Donald Campbell and Jodorowski all in a line, all kind of link linked arms. So yeah, they knew each other and uh there's um a degree of influence go going on. Um

uh, you know, from anger to Janovsky, I guess. But you're right, you know, he he's I would say when I talk about his work He's probably um best known in Anglophone countries, which is interesting the films don't rely on language at all. You know, there is there is no speaking anywhere in a Kenneth Anger movie. There there there is there is there is none, you know. There's music, there's the there's no dialogue anywhere. So um but also in Scandinavia and um

Germany and the Netherlands too. Um and of course he was initially when he was a young filmmaker, it it his work was um well known in France before anywhere else. And continues to be so. So, but as as far as I'm a uh aware, it's an interesting thing that

in Italy and Spain and Greece and maybe other southern you know, Mediterranean, southern European countries. No. It's not so well known and maybe not so well appreciated. I don't know. Do you have a do you have any thoughts about why that might be? Um I uh I was uh surprised uh because, well, I didn't know of him myself, so I'm a good representative of Italians, but I was also asking to um pagan friends and uh historic practitioners that I know in Italy and none of them knew kind of anger.

So uh and when I explained his work, uh they were comparing him to Yodorowski. Interesting. Yes. Because that's probably the the most similar thing that you can associate uh his work with. Uh although in Italy we also have um songwriter who recently passed who uh has also made short movies that were meant to be rituals.

Although in in his case his name uh was Franco Battiato. Yes. Oh, you know him. I wouldn't say probably nobody knows about I know of him, but I wouldn't say I know I know the work very well. Hm. I I'm just wondering as we're talking this uh Yodorowski um anger comes out of experimental, non narrative filmmaking, okay? The underground film, which is a s a phenomenon that takes place In the US. By the way, Jo Joao who's Portuguese is saying the same thing, so that might be Portuguese.

Janarovsky comes from somewhere different, which is the kind of narrative art house cinema, you know, in the tradition of say for example Bunwell, um where where the the film is longer and it has um narrative and I'm thinking also of uh v initially very much Pasolini um you know and he's he's yes, his films are rituals, but they're more in terms of um, filmmaking, they're much more in that tradition of the art house feature film where there's more of a narrative thread.

And the films are much longer, whereas anger isn't coming from there at all. you know, he's coming from fairly and squarely, from experimental cinema that begins really in the US with Maya Darren and then you have Stan Brackett um and and all the you know the the filmmakers who were active in the early sixties. So I'm wondering if that probably one of the reasons and that that that that kind of experimental cinema um didn't didn't become a feature so much in southern European countries.

It was it was Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. It could also be yeah, it could also be that even though the the movies don't really present the the language barrier, but uh he f uh if his work has been distributed more in English speaking countries, maybe you know, the word never reached the Southern European countries.

Yeah. But it was I I was kind of surprised myself because uh Kenneth Anger is you know, once I got to know his work in obviously fascinated me as well and I was really surprised that I had never heard of him before. I mean, yeah, before moving to the UK and getting in talk in contact with other people outside of Ethan.

And he did make a really beautiful film in Italy. Mae'n ddiwedd yn ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn, mae'n ddiweddar iawn. And it's been there. Yeah, me too. I I've been there on a on a school trip. I think early dinner. Oh well I went there on a Kenneth Anger pilgrimage. So I wanted to see where the film I wanted to see where the film was made.

And it's a very beautiful film, so I made this film in Italy. Um it's very short, only only a f five, six minutes they filmed but they they didn't tell us that during the school trip. No, I don't think they would. Um No. Um but it's it's it's a it's a beautiful film. Um kind of shot um printed with a blue filter and just o'r play of light and water. Gorgeous thing. I definitely have to catch up all of the movies.

Um let me move on to some questions from the audience. So we have uh Draskus Mike uh who is asking without a large knowledge about his practice. Uh, did he have a specific outlook or theory on the impact of film on his audience? What was he trying to achieve? Okay, so um we're talking about someone making um work over a period of some 35 years and I think

for anyone doing that, your your what you're trying to achieve evolves over time. And most filmmakers, especially when they're young, they just start with a passion to make films, which is certainly what what you see in fireworks.

um which is Angus first film. And he um I think I'd refer you to uh he wrote this w wonderful um magical um biography list list of attributes for himself, which he used in the late nineteen sixties, used it at various places, including the Edinburgh Film Festival, where he where he um

little aspects of that. It was very much in the in the Crowley tradition. And I you know, I would say he's thinking of himself as a filmmaker and a magician equally. And you can't dis you can't divide the two things. Um, in terms of the impact on his audience, what he wants, I would have said is for the audience to in z immerse themselves in the film and share the experience that he had. um in making it and putting it together. I think it's hard to reduce any any

um any filmmaker who makes films a serious art form, you know, r reduce their intentions to um to one thing. Uh he's In in um oh let me see. In Invocation of My Demon Brother, he's using subliminal images Mae'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid i'n rhaid. um unlike say Lucifer Rising which is much slower and quite lyrical, um it's it's uh it's not a comfortable watch and Subliminal images were something that people got very worried about.

in the late 1960s because if you Uh sorry if this is getting technical here, but if you're making uh film, what you're normally doing is you're shooting film at twenty-four frames per second. So twenty-four little pictures. go through your camera and they make up one second of film. And if you um have an image that lasts for three frames or less. it will imprint itself on the viewer's mind, but they may will probably not consciously remember it.

Some people can remember they've seen something that appears for three frames, with others it's four. And he was using um Three um three frame images in invocation of my demon brother. So um explicitly by using that, he is doing something um with your consciousness because you probably consciously Can't say that you you you can't say consciously, Oh yes, I've just seen that. The image concerned in invocation of my demon brother is um three three frame

little blips of American GIs getting out of a helicopter in Vietnam. There's one place in the a couple of places in the film where he uses um a slightly longer clip of the the image so that you are aware that you've seen it. But throughout the film he's using those

um three frame clips. So in that film he's very definitely wanting to have an effect on the audience that it that is um you know, use it going going straight to the subconscious and they um the the use of uh incidentally the use of subliminal images were was banned very quickly, um, because it was it uh the cinemas were that was being used in advert.

So um in commercial cinema and particularly in advertising it was banned very soon after it people became aware of what it was. But you know, he he will use um techniques like that. for his magical purposes. Uh does that is is that make sense to you, Mike?

Yes. Well, Mike, tell us in the chat. The next question, I think it does make sense. Um the next question is from Nightcont and he says, Do you know if he added sigils in some of his films and utilized them being viewed by others as a means of chaos magic? He uses sigils, um he uses them Mm-hmm. in Invocation of My Demon Brother and particularly in Lucifer Rising.

But Lucifer Rising is it was made over a long period, started making it in the mid sixties, didn't come up with the version that he wanted to show until nineteen eighty one. So th that sort of predates chaos magic, really. is using sigilization but in a pre in a pre chaos magic kind of a way. Um you can read it now, uh, if you're a chaos practitioner and uh and and critique it from a chaos perspective, I think, uses um He uses the unicursal hexagram in

Thank you. And we have another similar question from Latif who asks, Do you think anger was a successor of Ostinosman Speh in terms of the magic being in the art? Was anger influenced by speech? Hello Latif. I recognise Shim. I think he was a successor of Spare in general terms. In the magic the you know, the magic is the film, the film is the magic. Um Definitely in that sense, Whether he was directly influenced, I don't know. He spent some quite a chunks of his life um in the UK, in London.

Um a large part of the um time between nineteen sixty-six and nineteen seventy, he was in London. He um he was very influential on the Rolling Stones for a time. Um was introduced to them by Anita Palenberg. And so he may well have looked at Spare's work during that time. I can't find um any recorded evidence of him. Um Talking about it or mentioning it or Uh so I just don't I just don't know that. Um I I know that I mean um Michael Staley who is

doing uh working on Kenneth and Steffi Grant's diaries, very kindly shared um information from those diaries with me. So he um he was Anger was very interested in what Kenneth Grant was doing for a while in nineteen fifty five and fifty six. um they kept up a correspondence and the grants were very interested in him and also very much in in Marjorie Cameron. But I don't have any concrete evidence. that he actually looked at spare's work.

Um but it would have been perfectly possible given the circles he was uh moving in in London in that period for him to do so. And of course he you know he visited London many times in subsequent years. Um the la uh I I remember seeing him at um Exhibition of Crowley's paintings. yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna, yna.

So I don't know. I'm sure he s saw spares work later in life. But I can't find any yeah, we'll never know. I don't think.

So it's a great thought. It's a great thought. One thing I did work out was that um he was uh He and Jean Luc Godard, the great French filmmaker, were on set. in the same room at the same time with the Rolling Stones when Goddard was filming um what became one plus one, Sympathy for the Devil. And there's a combination, you know, Goddard in many ways the absolute

polar opposite of anger. Although Goddard did come come up with a great line. I don't know if he I d I'm sure he didn't mean it in a cult sense, but he did say film is magic at twenty four frames a second. So yeah.

Then we have another question which is a bit cheeky and Good. Artists are known to be very eccentric and to play with their audience. Is there any way to demarcate the practitioner from the artist who is possibly posing as a practitioner? Well, um, Ken Thanger was completely eccentric and played with his audience all the time and he played with his interviewers, he told outrageous stories and um I was quite happy for people to believe them.

He one of the great things he did in nineteen sixty-seven was that he announced his death in various newspapers in New York. and um what he was doing was evolving from one magical stage to another. But most of the um avant garde filmmakers who knew him, people like Jonas Mikas, P. Adam Sidney, um Stan Brackage actually thought he died um for a couple of days and he was absolutely able to uh play with the audience.

Um I don't think the films um play with the audience in quite the same way, but the films are so multi layered that there are la you know, there are layers of humour in there. So, you know, in invocation of my demon brother, he'll um intercut These really fragmentary shots of him doing Crowley's Lieber Oz ritual with Um, Bobby Beausoley's band Magic Powerhouse of Oz. And he wants you to play with that idea. He wants you to think about Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz.

a Crowley's Lieber are in the same frame. He plays with all that, absolutely. Is that some kind of answer, I hope, for Peter? He's a very tricksy character. And you know and what what about the um uh the similarities between the the wizard of oz and Libra? Yeah, absolutely. What about what about them? You see, but Yn yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw, yw.

as the really deep ritual aspects of Lucifer Rising, which is a very beautiful and very lyrical film. Um But you know, still have those odd touches of humour and popular culture in it. Um but e every single every single thing in these films has layers of meaning. So um

uh Lucifer rising frame by frame. Um there's a little bit where you see um anger treading around a magic circle very deliberately and then there are flash cuts of an image of a tiger and there's A little phrase in Crowley which I am indebted to my friend Julian Vane. for for for locating where Crowley says the tread of the tread of the mu something like the tread of the magician around the circle should be purposeful, exactly like the tiger stalking its prey.

So that so the you know, there'll be that tiny little image of a tiger that's there just for a second or so, but it's got it you know, it's got those layers of uh those layers of meaning behind it.

Yeah, that's very interesting. Um, and then uh Patch Christ is asking, what was the film Kenneth made in Italy? It's called O d'Artifice. Um uh E A U X Waters plural in French Datifice. He um he mistakenly thought that audifice in French meant water work. and he was obsessed with um the idea that that Cardinal Deste, who uh yn gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio

kind of pornographic uh edge to them. O d'artifuse doesn't mean I don't think it makes much sense in French French. But, you know, his previous film had been called Fireworks, so he thought he was making a film in.

in with a French title of waterworks and he shot it in Italy in nineteen fifty three. Uh maybe we can put that in the chat uh or something at the end so you can look for it. If you get if you get um Rwy'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio'n fesio

um DVD of Anger, which is actually really, really good if you still got the means to play it. Um that has Odatifies and all the short films on it. And how would otherwise, how can people watch Kenneth Anger's films? Well um I mean I I I still tend to watch the DVD. You can you can download them from various um download sites.

You can watch them on YouTube. Um the quality of the versions on YouTube is variable. That happened, you know, because fans put them there and and what have you. Um but he's his um Towards the end of his life he was represented by the first time. a gallery called Spoothhmakers and Spoothmakers have um uh you can find your way in into the down uh into downloads via them. I think they're very good. Uh Mm. They will be some of them in some of them will be on the British Film Institute's iPlayer.

Actually I know it's slightly old fashioned these days, but I really do recommend that D V D because the quality is just really, really good. And for someone who's working um Mae'n gweithio cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol, mae'r cymdeithasol.

local art house, cinema or film festival, that's that's kind of the best way. Um on the big screen. I mean you you you always gonna see a a digital version these days, not cellular print, but that's fine. He he um that they're uh J. Paul Getty Junior was um was an admirer of Anger's work and paid for really good digital restored versions of all the films, which are what we watch now. So

In a really good quality way because they are so beautiful. You know, sometimes watching a version that somebody's put on YouTube can be a little bit like watching a photocopy, I think. We have somebody else from the audience asking whether you're familiar with the Cremaster Cycle by Matthew Barney. Um and they say I've only ever seen clips, but they feel ritualistic.

Yeah, I I am familiar with the Chromaster Cycle and I think it's a really wonderful piece of work. I think Matthew Barney's a really interesting filmmaker. I I don't think they uh I think they have a ritualistic element to them, but I don't think they are intended to be full-on magical acts. within a ritual magic tradition, like the Telemet tradition, in the same way as Angus. But they're great they're great films and they're really worth seeing. I would really recommend them.

Thank you. So I guess the we have answered a lot of questions, so we can let you go, Judith. I'm happy to stay as long as you want me having having been um you know, missing inaction at the beginning for which I can only apologize. I l I live in I live in a very rural area and um this hasn't happened for a long time and it would just happen today and I'm really sorry. Thank you.

It's fine. Apologies. Accept it. I'm sure that everybody's kind of you and thank you everyone for sticking for for sticking with it and Yeah, thank you to everybody who um remain here connected. Yeah, thank you. It's very above and beyond, really. Okay. And thank you again, Judith. I was it was lovely chatting with you. And you, Angela. It's great. Thank you. Okay. uh close now. So thank you all so much for sticking around for um the the whole

the whole interview. And I hope you enjoyed it. And let me know in the comments what you thought about it, especially if you're watching this afterwards. And Um, if you like this interview, don't forget to smash the like button, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, activate the notification bell because that way you will always be notified when I upload a new video.

And share this interview and all of my videos around so that the symposium can grow. So uh thank you all so much for being here and stay tuned for all the academic fun. Bye for now.