Rather astonishing news from the fashion and film world. Dangerous Minds’ fave filmmaker Kenneth Anger has released a two-and-a-half-minute film dealing with the fall/winter collection of the Varese-based house of Missoni, produced by filmmaker/Anger manager/Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler and scored by French composer Koudlam.

Vogue Italia‘s Mariuccia Casadio provides some details:

A man of few words, this fascinating former actor who still takes care of his appearance first filmed the settings for his film “Missoni”: mostly locations near bodies of water in the Sumirago countryside and part of Rosita and Ottavio’s garden. For the indoor sequences, he built a set in the Council Room of the Sumirago Town Hall, a basement room with a vaulted ceiling. The mood of the film and the poses and movements of Margherita, Jennifer, Angela, Rosita, Ottavio, Ottavio Jr. and all other [Missoni] family members are reminiscent of Sergei Parajanov’s “The Color of Pomegranates”, a 1968 film that inspired Anger to create his Chinese box-style storyboard.

Do yourself a favor and go full-screen with this one. And if you’re unfortunate enough to not be familiar with Anger, do yourself another favor and click one or both of the links below. You’ll be glad you did.
 

 
Get: The Films of Kenneth Anger Vol. 1 [DVD]
 
Get: The Films of Kenneth Anger Vol. 2 [DVD]
 
Thanks to Ian Raikow for the heads-up!

 
Jason Gelt posts at Brand X:

“The Alchemy of Things Unknown” exhibit intends examines individual works of art in relation to theosophy, sacred traditions and devotional practice. From William Blake’s illuminated works of divine imagination to Carl Gustav Young’s drawings of collective symbolic unconscious, the artists in this exhibition sought after or seek spiritual truths through art making.

Artists include Paul Laffoley, Harry Smith, Marjorie Cameron, Willian Blake, Austin Ossman Spare, Scoli Acosta, Kenneth Anger, Aleister Crowley, Zach Harris, Susan Hiller, Alfred Jenson, Angus MacLise, JFC Fuller, and Marilyn Manson.

Khastoo Gallery, 7556 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; 323-472-6498

Image: “Kwaw”: an undated self-portrait by English occultist Aleister Crowley done in the 1920s, part of the exhibit at Khastoo Gallery through July 31. Courtesy William Breeze.

 
Last week’s Anthology Film Archives 40th Anniversary Blowout, Return to the Pleasure Dome, honored, naturally, the works of filmmaker Kenneth Anger.  Technicolor Skull—Anger on theremin (!), Dangerous Minds pal, Brian Butler, on guitar—performed that night (see below), as did Sonic Youth and Lou Reed.  Vice is carrying a stream of Reed’s 13-minute noodling performance.  Fans of Metal Machine Music Lou can check it out here.

 
What follows below are a pair of newly uploaded Rock Music Exposed clips from YouTube channeler, Triplexity, and were apparently culled from the two-part ‘89 documentary, Hell’s Bells (which, to my knowledge, remains in VHS-only exile).

The intro, clip 1 of 36 (!) and found here, lays out the Hell’s Bells agenda, “to help people understand the big picture, peel back the veneer of pop culture, and gaze into the bedrock of truth that lies beneath.”

Since it also hopes to serve as, “a wake-up call, an alarm warning of the fire raging just down the hall,” you can bet your salvation its earnest-but-porny-looking narrator means a “Christian truth.”  I know, sounds like a snooze.  We’ve seen—and smirked—at this kind of crap on numerous occasions. 

But readers of Dangers Minds might find far more compelling the below clips, 12 and 13.  In them, Hell’s Bells puts under the Christian magnifying glass Kenneth Anger, Mick Jagger, Timothy Leary and The Beatles.

 
The current Arthur‘s running a lengthy piece entitled, “Out! Demons Out!: An Oral History of the 1967 Exorcism of the Pentagon and the Birth of Yippie!”  Dangerous Minds hero Kenneth Anger is just one of the many voices chiming in (Allen Ginsberg, Paul Krassner, and Ed Sanders are others), but, judging from the snips below, the filmmaker’s bluntly amusing jabs might be hard to top.  Here’s his take on what it was like infiltrating the Pentagon:

There were a bunch of idiots there.  I didn’t consider myself an idiot, but maybe other people would. [laughs] There were these hothead lefties, who, their idea was they would take over and kill the capitalists.  Well, that’s not very practical.  Then there were Hare Krishnas, peacenik idiots, saying peace peace, or something like that.  I didn’t go for anything like that.  It was so annoying.

I just walked right in.  I had studied how the Pentagon staff were dressed, and I was just like them.  I wore a dark blue conservative suit.  I even had a small American flag on my lapel.  I was attacking Mars, the god of War.  He’s still our ruling god.  If you think Mars is an extinct thing from the antique past that we can just laugh at now, forget it.  Mars is still here.

I had a map of the Pentagon.  I went into every single men’s room and left—in a place where it was bound to be discovered, usually on the seat where anyone using that stall would have to see it, not on the floor, of course! —a talisman which was written on parchment paper, drawn in india ink.  Each one was drawn individually using one of Crowley’s talismans as my guide.  I’m sure no one in the Pentagon could figure out what this thing meant.  There was nothing like “War is bad” on it.  There weren’t even English words.  They probably could figure out it was something occult.  They know about those things, and they have a reference library.

I went from one men’s room to the next.  I didn’t stop until I had scattered all 93 of my talismans—because 93 is a sacred number for Crowley.  Then I walked out, it was all very inconspicuous.  The security guard looked at me and gave me a nice look, like we’re all looking after each other.  If I’d been stopped and put in handcuffs that would’ve been unpleasant.  That isn’t the way I want to spend my time in Washington—I had a ticket to the opera for later that week.

Won’t you now take some time out for a Puce Moment?

 
Attention New Yorkers, don’t miss Return to the Pleasure Dome, a benefit concert event for Anthology Film Archives with a Life Achievement Honor for Kenneth Anger.

Featuring Technicolor Skull (Kenneth Anger and Brian Butler), Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, The Virgins, Moby & other special guests.

Wednesday, May 19, 8:30p.m at the Hiro Ballroom, New York City, $99 via Ticketweb
 

Video: Kenneth Anger’s 42-second long film, Death. Part of the OneDreamRush project.

 
Dangerous Minds pal Brian Butler has a new short film that’s part of a film festival coming up in Los Angeles soon. Brian was a producer on the Disinformation series with me a while back, helming two of the show’s more memorable segments: the feuding Satanists and Rocketboy, the real life superhero/half cat. He also introduced me to Uncle Goddamn. Brian also contributed the great essay on Marjorie Cameron, Cameron: The Wormwood Star to my Book of Lies anthology. For these reasons and more, I shall be forever grateful. The video clip below is a shorter version of Night of Pan that was made for a Beijing arts festival, the full version will be shown at the Projections festival. It’s pretty striking, I think you’ll agree!

From the press release:

Brian Butler?��Ǩ�Ѣs Night of Pan Premiers in LA at Projections Festival, January 16 at Roberts & Tilton

Los Angeles, CA ?��Ǩ��� Noted filmmaker, artist and musician Brian Butler (http://www.brianbutler.com) will premier his short film, ?��Ǩ?�Night of Pan?��Ǩ�� in Los Angeles on January 16 at 7:30pm at the opening of Projections, a festival of rare and hard to see films including other directors such as Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Jean-Luc Goddard, and Miranda July . Projections was curated by Aaron Rose an artist, film director, writer, musician, and independent curator most noted as the co-curator of the successful museum exhibition and book Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art & Street Culture which toured the world through 2008.

Projections takes place at the Roberts & Tilton Gallery, 5801 Washington Boulevard, between La Cienega Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, in Culver City, California from January 16 ?��Ǩ��� February 20, 2010. In addition to screening on January 16, ?��Ǩ?�Night of Pan?��Ǩ�� will also be screened in a loop at the gallery on February 18, 2010.

?��Ǩ?�Night of Pan?��Ǩ�� is a seven and a half minute film featuring film auteur Kenneth Anger and actor Vincent Gallo. The film has been screened in various versions internationally ?��Ǩ��� Beijing, Lisbon, Cannes, Athens, Rome, Berlin and elsewhere, but never in Butler?��Ǩ�Ѣs base, Los Angeles.

In the film, Anger, Gallo, and Butler depict an occult ritual that symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.

Brian Butler is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works around dark magical themes. He had worked extensively as a producer on director Kenneth Anger?��Ǩ�Ѣs recent work. Additionally he has written for Dazed & Confused and performs along with Anger in the band Technicolor Skull.

 
Vodka brand 42 Below is the creative sponsor behind One Dream Rush, a Beijing-based film festival of incredibly short films.  42 filmmakers from around the world were given 42 seconds.  The results from David Lynch, Dream #7, and Kenneth Anger, Death, follow below:

 
More on OneDreamRush

 
WARNING: what follows is a video for possibly one of the most insanely catchy songs of all time.  It Came In The Night, recorded by in ‘76 by Andy Arthur under his band name “A Raincoat,” ultimately came to serve as the soundtrack to the abridged version of Kenneth Anger‘s Rabbit’s Moon.

 
You can read more about the elusive Mr. Arthur here, but the shorthand goes like this:

Mystery man ?��Ǩ?�Andy Arthur,?��Ǩ�� upon closer inspection, is revealed to be one Andrew Colin Arthurs, 53, Professor of Music at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.  The British-born Arthurs is a musical wunderkind known primarily for his studio talents, having engineered or produced albums for such artists as Joe Jackson, Bryan Ferry, and The Chords.  Arthur, who is from Cheltonham, England, attended the University of Surrey from 1970 to 1974, from whence he received the unusual tonmeister Bachelor?��Ǩ�Ѣs degree—?��Ǩ?�tonmeister?��Ǩ�� being a German term describing someone along the lines of record producer/engineer/sound designer.

And while It Came In The Night accompanies only the abridged version of Anger’s film, the “full” Moon is still gorgeous to behold.  It follows below:

Call me disputatious—or not, it’s entirely up to you—my favorite Stones album is Their Satanic Majesties Request. It’s the only one I play all the way through anymore. It sounds great as one great big, trippy chunk. It’s a great headphones album, too. Most Stones fans hate it and see it as a weak attempt to out weird the Beatles after they’d unleashed Sgt Pepper on the world, but to me, it’s just a thing of beauty, with the normal Blues-based Stones sound thrown out the door, and replaced with a colorful sonic palette the likes of which they would never return to. I’m not saying that it IS the best Stones album, I’m just saying it’s MY favorite. (My favorite Stones song, is Monkey Man, followed by Stray Cat Blues, then (Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker, dark horses, all, I grant you. I’m also partial to Don’t Know Why I Love You, but the Glimmer Twins didn’t write that one, so it doesn’t count).

If you ask me, the Stones “demonic” phase, inaugurated, if you will, by their association with the Magus of Cinema, Kenneth Anger, was when the Stones were truly on fire. Mick was still quite into his Satan/Lucifer thing well into the Let It Bleed/Gimme Shelter era, but after Altamont, Jagger was often seen wearing a crucifix around his neck, perhaps seeking to put down all the hoodoo Age of Horus energy he’d raised? Have sympathy for the poor devil. Jagger had a current running through his body during the Sixties that killed quite a few of his contemporaries. Today, like a rock and roll Dorian Gray, he hardly looks any worse for the wear.

Here is a seldom seen pop video for 2000 Light Years From Home. It seems so heavily influenced by Kenneth Anger that I always assumed that he’d directed it, but it seems more likely to be the work of photographer Michael Cooper, who not only shot the cover for the Satanic Majesties album jacket (which was originally issued with a fantastic 3-D lenticular cover (I have one!), but Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising film as well. I had a copy of this on a Japanese laser disc, comically followed by a clip of Pete Townsend in full Mod drag sternly criticizing the Stones for their then recent marijuana busts. (It’s always the bluenoses who have the really outrageous vices, isn’ it?). Other than that, I’d never seen it anywhere, but here in the YouTube era (we’re living in the YouTube era, didn’t anyone tell you this?) some kind soul has liberated it for our viewing pleasure. Take a look, it’s great:

The Rolling Stones and Satanism

Alongside my Dangerous Minds colleagues, I had the pleasure of attending last spring’s Kenneth Anger lecture at L.A.‘s Hammer museum.  Although he was reluctant to take questions from the audience, the night certainly found Ken in good spirits and receptive company.  Subjects touched upon?  Well, everything from Aleister Crowley, to, why not, Agnes. B.  KA was there per the request of artist Francesca Gabbiani, who, at the time, was curating her sorcery-themed Hammer exhibit, Houseguest.

Beautiful, erotic, phantasmagoric, the films of Kenneth Anger are a national treasure. Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Marianne Faithfull, Anton LaVey, and a parade of other 60s luminaries collaborate on this selection of short films. They range from rich mystical imagery and visual essays of psychedelic color to insider documentary footage of bikers and a glittering love letter to early black and white film. Bring blankets, picnic dinner and drinks for the lawn. Please join us under the stars for this very special screening with one of our most legendary filmmakers.

Sunday, July 19th
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
6000 Santa Monica Blvd (at Gower)
Gates 7:30 pm movie 9:00 pm
$10 donation tickets available at gate
Parking available inside