{"id":12992,"date":"2013-01-21T02:25:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-21T02:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=12992"},"modified":"2022-09-10T12:13:51","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T11:13:51","slug":"kenneth-angers-hollywood-babylon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2013\/01\/21\/kenneth-angers-hollywood-babylon\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"anger1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Nigel Finch was a key member of the team of producers and directors working on the BBC’s Arena<\/em> arts documentaries throughout their golden run during the 1980s and 1990s. The films he directed himself\u2014among them studies of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography<\/a>, and a history of the Chelsea Hotel<\/a> in New York\u2014gave him an opportunity to push some gay content into the TV schedules at a time when Britain’s gay population were seen as enough of a public threat to be legislated against<\/a>. Some of that proselytising impulse can be found in Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon<\/em><\/a> (1991), an hour-long documentary which alternates the life and work of the filmmaker with readings and enactments of the lurid episodes recounted in Anger’s scandal anthologies, Hollywood Babylon<\/a><\/em> and Hollywood Babylon II<\/a><\/em>. Finch at one point asks whether Fireworks<\/em>, the first film in Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle<\/em>, should be regarded as a pioneering piece of gay cinema; Anger’s says he’s happy if people take it that way but says little else about its evident homoerotic atmosphere. He remains as resistant to identity politics as he’s always been. (See the unauthorised biography<\/a> by Bill Landis for details.)<\/p>\n

\"anger2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Between the readings and interview sections Finch shows Anger being chauffeured around Beverly Hills in a hearse which stops occasionally at some locus of bygone scandal. Most of the Anger anecdotes are familiar ones from subsequent interviews but there is a bonus for Angerphiles with the appearance at the end of Marianne Faithfull who talks a little about their relationship before singing Boulevard Of Broken Dreams<\/em>. The picture quality of this YouTube copy could be better but it’s watchable enough.<\/del><\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> That YouTube link went private so I’ve updated the links to a better copy at the Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Lucifer Rising posters<\/a>
\n\u2022 Externsteine panoramas<\/a>
\n\u2022 Missoni by Kenneth Anger<\/a>
\n\u2022 Anger in London<\/a>
\n\u2022 Arabesque for Kenneth Anger by Marie Menken<\/a>
\n\u2022 Edmund Teske<\/a>
\n\u2022 Kenneth Anger on DVD again<\/a>
\n\u2022 Mouse Heaven by Kenneth Anger<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Man We Want to Hang by Kenneth Anger<\/a>
\n\u2022 Relighting the Magick Lantern<\/a>
\n\u2022 Kenneth Anger on DVD\u2026finally<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigel Finch was a key member of the team of producers and directors working on the BBC’s Arena arts documentaries throughout their golden run during the 1980s and 1990s. The films he directed himself\u2014among them studies of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography, and a history of the Chelsea Hotel in New York\u2014gave him an opportunity to push … Continue reading “Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,5,16,19],"tags":[2673,401,3305,4499,1185],"class_list":["post-12992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-gay","category-occult","category-television","tag-bill-landis","tag-kenneth-anger","tag-marianne-faithfull","tag-nigel-finch","tag-robert-mapplethorpe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3ny","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}