Who was the first filmmaker arrested on an obscenity charge?
There’s a fine line between having the freedom to create absolutely anything for the sake of unmuzzled art and pushing the boundaries a little too far, but as long as no one is harmed in the making of a film, does anyone have the right to ban it or arrest a filmmaker for the contents?
It’s a tricky topic of conversation that has seen certain filmmakers and censors be at war over for decades, with everything from Pink Flamingos to A Clockwork Orange getting banned at some point or another for their shocking scenes of violence, sex, and supposedly corrupting influence.
In moments of art and life holding up a mirror to each other, transgressive cinema can also trail in the law, such as when Pier Paolo Pasolini, the director behind one of cinema’s most controversial movies, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, was charged with obscenity countless times throughout his career, or Ruggero Deodato was arrested on suspicion of murder after making Cannibal Holocaust because so many people wrongly believed it to be a snuff film.
It wasn’t until the end of the 1960s that Hollywood abolished the Hays Code, which had prohibited anything remotely suggestive or controversial for several decades, and while indie filmmakers had more free rein, if they dared, few were bold enough to show anything that explicit, except for Kenneth Anger.
So, who was the first filmmaker arrested for obscenity?
Raised in California, Anger was introduced to Hollywood at an early age, immersed in the glamour and scandal through close friends, even performing a little as a child. When he was 20 years old, he made a short film, one of many that would come to define his shocking style, which left him in trouble with the law.
Fireworks, released in 1947, was a landmark for LGBTQ+ cinema, standing as the first American film to feature a homoerotic narrative with Anger starring as a man who indulges in a twisted sexual fantasy about getting attacked by sailors, with surreal imagery colliding with his desires. Fireworks, candles, Christmas trees, and clocks all coincide as Anger’s body is opened up, revealing a raw mix of erotics and violence.
For something made in 1947, you can imagine that anyone who did see it was outraged, for not only was the topic of homosexuality incredibly taboo, not to mention illegal, but this was unlike any kind of film that people had seen before. Experimental, bizarre, and utterly low-budget, the movie followed in the footsteps of Luis Buñuel, Jean Cocteau, and Jean Genet with a proto-rock and roll edge.
When the movie was somehow screened, Anger was arrested on obscenity charges, but these were soon dropped. While people were deeply uncomfortable with a film that implied homosexual relations between its characters, it was declared art, and Anger walked free, with his controversial project proving to be his ticket to further cinematic success, which he eventually followed up with the likes of The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Scorpio Rising, and Lucifer Rising.
Talking to The Guardian, he reflected on Fireworks: “It was shown to an elite audience. Among the people who came was James Whale, the British director of Frankenstein, and I became friends with him. Dr Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher, also came. I became friends with him, too. My grandmother saw it. She was like my sponsor: she bought my camera for me. She said it’s terrific.”
