Originally published at: Kenneth Anger, experimental filmmaker and occultist, RIP | Boing Boing
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Also worth mentioning his important role as a historian of filmmaking. Hollywood Babylon is an essential text for anyone interested in the history of the American film industry. It’s even more interesting in that it’s somewhat fantastical (and not entirely reliable), echoing the themes of myth and mysticism in Anger’s own films.
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When, as a student, I saw my first Kenneth Anger film — “Fireworks,” which he made in 1947 when he was just 20 — I remember being absolutely stunned by its audacity and intelligence.
It seems to me that as an experimental filmmaker Anger is second only to Maya Deren in his overall impact on American culture.
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“Fireworks” is certainly the strangest US Military recruitment ad I’ve seen. It lacks the explicit sexual overtones of later ones. 
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Mine was Scorpio Rising. It blew my mind.
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This is probably my favorite piece on Anger, an hour long German doc with some behind the scenes footage of him making (if I remember right) Lucifer Rising.
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Karina Longworth took an entire season of her always excellent podcast You Must Remember This to explore the facts behind Anger’s Hollywood Babylon.
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One of the most accurate descriptions of Finns I ever heard is in that interview from DisinfoCon (2000).
i was in finland recently and all the finns are walking around they feel isolated up there you know it’s dark a lot of the time of the year it’s very cold dark they’re colorless people they have almost white eyes very pale blue eyes and ash blonde hair there isn’t even any yellow in their air like the swedes and their skin is sort of mushroom white they don’t have any tanning salons up there they’d probably do well but those give you cancer but uh they’re all walking arwith their cell phones all day long talking looks like they’re talking to themselves you know in that with their eyes sort of glazed out and this is happening all over the world and you know it’s up to them maybe if they think it’s a good thing i think it’s it’s maybe not so good but it’s they’re the ones that are buying the cell phones but they’ve totally taken over certain countries like finland
My memory of that was something like Finns are pale mushrooms with cell phones crafted to them.
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