From Robert Bresson to Georges Méliès: Kenneth Anger’s favourite directors
If you haven’t seen Kenneth Anger’s 1963 short film Scorpio Rising, go and change that immediately. In a lot of ways, Anger predicted the MTV music video wave or was a pioneer of the music film, as he tells a story through nothing but a series of songs and montaged video clips. Throughout his career as one of the most scandalous underground directors round, he was pioneering and pushing the film form into new and weird places. He was a true father of experimental cinema, and so who does a legend like that look up to?
Really, Anger had Hollywood in the palm of his hand in the strangest and most unlikely way. From his first films in the 1940s, he helped herald in counter-culture as a true, early originator. His daring films like Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome and Fireworks expanded the boundaries of what was considered cinema, clearing the way for artists like Andy Warhol to rise. His forerunning spirit made Anger a revered yet somewhat feared figure. He collaborated with Mick Jagger on Invocation of My Demon Brother, as his films always intersected with music. However, with his book Hollywood Babylon, his interest in the most salacious and shocking Hollywood gossip proved why so many were slightly cautious around him.
To filmmakers, though, he’s a master. Seeing to sit at the very start of something new as if he invented American countercultural cinema out of nowhere, his work was no doubt the first of its kind. But that doesn’t mean Anger saw himself as peerless or floating around with no grounding inspirations.
In conversation with Gaspar Noe, a director who is definitely inspired by Anger’s bleak and scandalous style, the pair discussed their influences. As Noe asks for Anger’s favourite directors, the distinctly American figure shared that he always looked across the pond.
He shared that he loved “classic French tradition” and selected some of the greats of French cinema as his biggest influences. “I love Robert Bresson, and I met Georges Franju, and I love his films,” he said, keeping the list rolling, “And [Jean] Painlevé, and of course, Jean Cocteau. And I like some of the films of Marcel Carné very much. I love Arlette Langmann.”
As so many of Anger’s films were in black and white, staying heavily in that traditional format despite colour being available, it seems to nod to his more classical influences. In general, French cinema was a leading light in experimentation. In the 1940s, while Hollywood was tied up with big-budget studio shows, the influential pamphlet Cahiers du cinéma was launched in Paris with names like Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and Claude Chabrol taking on critic roles or hosting film clubs to discuss and share ideas. This coming together of the minds, as well as French cinema’s engagement with wider art forms of poetry and music, made the country a hub for experimentation. For Anger, this was far more inspiring than anything coming out of America.
“I’m influenced by director Georges Méliès, and the simplicity of his magical painted steps, and so forth,” he added. Méliès is probably best known for his iconic moon image in A Trip To The Moon. He played on the lines between realism and surrealism, merging film with art and fantasy. As he refused to stick to simple straight-to-camera filming or traditional film sets, it feels like Méliès was a majorly empowering force for Anger, who cast off expectations in the same way. As Scorpio Rising especially uses a lot of stock footage and additional details, Méliès’ engagement with more expansive art is felt as an influence.
Without Anger, a whole lineage of American experimental filmmakers would have been stopped short. But without the French circle of 1900s pioneers, there would have been no Anger to start with.
