Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemeyer February 3, 1927) is an American underground avant-garde film-maker and author.
His short films, which he has been producing since 1937, have variously merged surrealism with homoerotica and the occult. He has focused upon occult themes in many his films, being fascinated by the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley and following Crowley's religion of Thelema. This influence is evident from films like 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' (1954), 'Invocation of My Demon Brother' (1969) and 'Lucifer Rising' (1972).
During the 1960s and 70s, Anger associated and worked with a number of different figures in popular culture and the occult, including Anton Szandor LaVey( founder of The First Church of Satan), Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page. Anger has described film makers such as Auguste and Louis Lumiere and Georges Melies as influences, and has been cited as an important influence on later film directors like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and John Waters.
The mid 1960s saw the arrival of the hippie scene and the increasing use of the mind-altering drugs that Anger himself had been using for many years. In particular, the hallucinogen LSD, which at the time was still legal in the United States, was very popular, and in 1966 Anger released a version of his earlier film, 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome', entitled the 'Sacred Mushroom Edition' which was screened to people whilst taking LSD, thereby heightening their sensory experience.
By this time, Anger had become well known throughout the underground scene in the United States, and several cinemas across the country screened his better known films all in one event. With this growing fame, Anger began to react to publicity in much the same way as his idol Aleister Crowley had done, for instance describing himself as "the most monstrous moviemaker in the underground", a pun on the fact that Crowley had been labelled "the wickedest man in the world" by the British tabloids in the 1920s.
Anger's fame on the underground circuit allowed him to increasingly associate with other celebrities, including Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of The First Church of Satan. The two became good friends and would remain so for many years.
Anger, born in 1930, was a child Hollywood movie star, and became a devoted disciple of Aleister Crowley. Anger, like Crowley, is a Magus, and appears to be the heir to Crowley. Anger believed that, "Lucifer is the patron saint of the visual arts. Color, form - all these are the work of Lucifer."
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