... tales of ordinary madness ...

«Открытие храма наслаждений» я смотрел уже по пятому разу. Не считая нас с Гренвиллем, публика состояла из кинолюбителей, которые думали, что смотрят фильм. Но на самом деле Энджер поставил ритуал, обрекающий их души на проклятие. «Открытие храма наслаждений» — это сборище оккультистов. После окутанных дымом титров следуют призывания Гора — Венценосного младенца. Великий зверь, Шива, и его супруга Кали приветствуют гостей на обряде. Среди приглашённых Лилит, Изида, Пан и Астарта. Роль Гекаты исполнял сам Энгер. Чезаре — сомнамбула из фильма «Кабинет доктора Калигари» — воскрешён и принимает участие в мероприятии в роли дворецкого, а призрак Кроули, явившийся в голубоватой дымке, неотступно следует за участниками обряда. Яркий блеск и обилие плоти привораживают глаз. Это похоже на психоделический мюзикл, снятый в лавке старьёвщика, где всё отполировано до блеска».

Роберт Ирвин, «Ложа чернокнижников» (Satan Wants Me, 1999)

I've always considered movies evil; the day that cinema was invented was a black day for mankind.
- Kenneth Anger

Kenneth Anger, the octogenarian American underground filmmaker, has largely been heralded as one of the founders of experimental film, with his role in inspiring directors such as Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. He pioneered outsider, cult and psychedelic film without ever imagining himself in a genre, and this year he crossed over into fashion and created a piece (with protegé and longtime collaborator Brian Butler) for the Italian fashion house Missoni.

Anger is a Hollywood legend. He has created some of the most disturbing, gorgeous, crazy and influential films ever, even if he has yet to make a feature. This great avant-gardist is also a writer, best known for Lalaland's two most scurrilous gossip digests: Hollywood Babylon 1 and 2; the first was published in 1965, banned immediately and not published again until 1975.

When most contemporary film-critics think of underground cinema, Kenneth Anger's unique vision quickly springs to mind. Anger is mentioned in the same breath as Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage, and his canon are perennial film school student case-studies. Anger has had a major impact on avant-garde film artists and major-league film directors like Derek Jarman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francis Ford Coppola ('Apocalypse Now'), David Lynch ('Blue Velvet') and Martin Scorcese ('Mean Streets'). 'Fireworks' (1947) established Anger's reputation as a 'living myth' (Mike O'Pray), when the seventeen year-old film-maker shot moody homo-erotic footage during a weekend whilst his parents were away. The intense poetic images within 'Fireworks' attracted the attention of Maya Deren and Jean Cocteau. 'Rabbit's Moon' (1950) and 'Eaux D'Artifice' (1953) cemented Anger's critical reputation.

Kenneth Anger sees the perversity in things — Mickey Mouse, he insists, is a demonic figure — but the now 83-year-old filmmaker always found the beauty in perversity, too. On top of the subversive but stylized homoeroticism and the fascination with the occult, Anger is a stylistic and technical innovator — his surreal way of cutting moving image in sync to pop music, if you want to get get into it, laid the foundation for the music video. Without Anger, there's no MTV. And — could you imagine?

- I am not a satanist. I am a pagan. Satanism is another thing
But, I say, people look at your dystopian films, with their myriad references to the devil, and assume you are a devil-worshipper.
- Well, I can't help what people see in them...

What is the essence of cinema for you? Is it reproducing the language of dreams, or creating a shamanistic trance?

- I think it's basically quite different from dreams. If only cinema was that easy. Because dreams, all you have to do is fall asleep, and you can have fantastic vision. I know Baudelaire and people like that enhance their dreams with opium or something. But films are very constructed—they're like architecture. They're pieced together, glued together. To me, it's a craft. It's like making a tapestry. And I prefer to think of it—you know, um, the sweat is supposed to be invisible. But a lot of sweat can go into making a film. But of course, if you enjoy doing it, you enjoy doing it. I will go on cutting for three days without sleeping. You can have everything from a realistic story with recognizable people, or...
I actually love the Italian neo-realist films, and in some ways they seem very dreamlike. You know, the early Rossellini and so forth...

Энгер остается секретным агентом хаоса, человеком автономных ячеек. Кино для появившихся на свет в год основания Гр.Об. Один из немногих, чье творчество не терпит легализации. Чьи образы не отражаются в мокрых глазах брокеров, как не отражают зеркала одного трансильванского господина.

- Георгий Осипов, Элементы

If you are a member of the media, you belong to the public. You've made that Faustian bargain with your public. Take me – all of me – I'm yours.
- Kenneth Anger

http://www.kennethanger.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Anger

http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=512

Kenneth Anger in MoMA:

http://ps1.org/exhibitions/view/202

Interview:

http://www.ratso.net/anger.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/10/kenneth-anger-interview

http://kennethanger.tribe.net/thread/0ceff572-3d4c-4ca9-b945-45650a0be7d2

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/dream-dialogue-gaspar-noe-kenneth-anger/

* Missoni F/W 10-11 - film by Kenneth Anger, 2010

OneDreamRush: Death (2009)
Runtime: 1
Country: USA
Color: Color
Director: Kenneth Anger

Description: Kenneth Anger's 42 second short movie for the collective film OneDreamRush.
http://rapidshare.com/files/415465056/Death.rar

The Films of Kenneth Anger (1947-2004)

Fireworks (1947, 15 min)
Puce Moment (1949, 6 min)
Rabbit's Moon (1950, released 1971, 17 min)
Rabbit's Moon (1950, released 1979, 7 min)
Eaux d'Artifice (1953, 13 min)
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954, 38 min)
Scorpio Rising (1964, 28 min)
Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965, 3 min)
Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969, 11 min)
Lucifer Rising (1972, 28 min)
The Man We Want to Hang (2002, 14 min) - Aleister Сrowley's paintings
Don't Smoke that Cigarette (2000, 45 min, TVRip)
Anger Sees Red (2004, 4 min)

Волшебник от кинематографии, легендарный провокатор, автор знаменитой книги "Голливудский Вавилон" и создатель некоторых самых поразительных и прекрасных работ в истории кино, Кеннет Энгер (р. 1927) является исключительной фигурой в послевоенной американской культуре. Он послужил источником вдохновения для таких режиссёров как Мартин Скорцезе, Райнер Вернер Фассбиндер и Дэвид Линч. От Энди Уорхола до MTV работы Энгера работают как талисманы - универсальные символы, объединяющие легенды, мистификации и ритуалы в одну силу, дающую кино магическую власть.

* my art: (self) Lucifer Rising (by Igor Vaganov)

Всех с Рождеством (нашим)!

Ромео Кастеллуччи (Romeo Castellucci) - испытание не для слабонервных. За несколько недель до гастролей по Москве разнесся слух, что режиссер затребовал три свежеотрубленных коровьих головы, чтобы размозжить их во время спектакля под прессом: ему нужен был звук хрустящих костей. Впрочем, этот звук - не самое шокирующее впечатление от "Генезиса" Кастеллуччи. Ветхозаветную Еву у него играет голая раковая больная, с целлюлитом и без одной груди, Каина - мужчина с обезображенной рукой, а жертв Освенцима - собственные дети режиссера. Впрочем, слово "играют" к экстремальному спектаклю Кастеллуччи не подходит. В мрачную, но завораживающую игру на сцене играет только один человек, сам постановщик, он же сценограф и звукорежиссер. Спектакль Кастелуччи – путешествие в смерть без обратного билета. Смерть для него – единственный выход из мира крови и жестокости. Но жизнь после смерти ещё ужасней, чем до неё. Тупик.

Трагедия – это не отрицательное понятие. Это просто мгновенное прозрение, озарение. Момент вспышки истины. И происходит такое озарение одновременно – и на интеллектуальном уровне, и на иррациональном.

- Romeo Castellucci

The theater, reportedly says Castellucci, is a space to show amazing events.
But what is "amazing"? Castelucci's amazing might actually come from a maze rather than from amazement. It is a dry, calculated construction, a sort of a post-Wilsonian theater of imagery. But where Robert Wilson opts for a sort of a postmodern surrealism, the Castellucci I've seen prefers semantic games with the "timeless themes": birth, death, violence, etc., directly going for the heavy-duty stuff. At the same time, his aesthetics is quite close to what we've seen in the Cremaster Cycle. The strong white light that's gloomy, the fantasy/mythological characters, the extreme slowness (they aren't only taking their time, but ours as well...), and what's most striking, the extreme ritualization of everyday activities. Actually, this passing onto the stage seems to be quite natural, as Cremaster had the performative and theatrical qualities that only maybe needed to be nourished with some sort of theater dynamics to make it a stage piece. Here, tragedy is what provides this dynamics. It raises the energy level, while keeping the aesthetics of unbearable purity unbearably pure. Castellucci's discovery here seems of some importance: you don't need the story to have the tragedy.

Or do you?

So I work a lot with images. And each image – every image is like a river. So every image has a starting point and an ending point. But we don’t know where the ending point is. So every image has a story and a strength, a force, inside. And you need to enter in this flow and be taken by this flow that is in the image. And the force that is in an image. And the images, they are coming from everywhere. Of course painting – the history of painting. Sculpture. Architecture. But also the images of the people you see on the street. Or the images you have in the newspaper, magazines. And every image has to be taken into consideration. Is important.

- Romeo Castellucci

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%BB%D1%83%D1%87%D1%87%D0%B8,_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BE

http://teatr-live.ru/2007/10/romeo-kasteluchchi-tragedia-endogonidia/

http://www.territoryfest.ru/en/2007/creators/castellucci/

interview:

http://jhlinsley.net/romeo-castellucci

http://www.ng.ru/saturday/2007-10-05/13_rozhdenie.html

http://www.plan-neuf.com/theatre/romeo-castellucci-24.html

Romeo Castellucci and subjective criticism:

http://new-art.blogspot.com/2006/07/romeo-castellucci-and-subjective.html

In the [ancient] tragedy you couldn’t see certain things. Certain things weren’t shown. They were obscene. That literally means out of the scene – outside the scene. Like all the bloody facts – all the events that had blood within – they weren’t shown. They were behind the scene and they were just told. Not to look is related to the obscene. Something that you don’t have to look [at]. But yet, you don’t have to look at something that is very important. Is the driving force of tragedy. The event that is making tragedy important is the event you don’t have to look at. So the dark that you don’t have to see, to look at, becomes the opposite. It becomes a flashlight. And with a flashlight, you cannot see because there is too much light.

- Romeo Castellucci

Tragedia Endogonidia – Episode IV
BR.#04 Bruxelles – Brussel
The Brussel episode introduces new figures to the cast of Tragedia Endogonidia, characters wich are both subject to and subjects of time. BR.#04 considers the duration of human life, focusing above all on the enigma of its start through birth into the world, the moment of initiation to language and the final swallowing of human life by bottomless pit of time.
The spectator is both a witness of that wich take place on stage and of the fact that he himself is a spectator. The episode commences with a new born child sitting on the stage, unaware of the place wich surrounds him, together with a mask wich is teaching him the alphabet. The scene shifts constantly between fiction and the reality of fiction, swapping the point of view between the stage and the stalls in such a way that all are integral spectators.
The forces of law and order appear in uniform, but they are no longer the Soldier of Conception seen in Episode 2. Now they are Policemen wearing the uniform of the country in wich the show is being performed and thus representatives of the territorial law of that place. As an Old Man “evaporates” from his death bed, the closing credits of a film scroll – albeit in the letters of an unknown alphabet – above the curtain and the episode closes.

http://rapidshare.com/files/226729135/Tragedia.Endogonidia.Episode.4.BR.04.Bruxelles.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/226728415/Tragedia.Endogonidia.Episode.4.BR.04.Bruxelles.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/226728408/Tragedia.Endogonidia.Episode.4.BR.04.Bruxelles.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/226728193/Tragedia.Endogonidia.Episode.4.BR.04.Bruxelles.avi.004

* my art: My sister moon [chernobyl] (by Igor Vaganov)

... tales of ordinary madness ...

четверг, 6 января 2011 г.

Kenneth Anger: Sympathy for the Mr Devil

воскресенье, 26 декабря 2010 г.

Grimaces of hell in paradise emptiness of Romeo Castellucci

четверг, 6 января 2011 г.

Kenneth Anger: Sympathy for the Mr Devil

воскресенье, 26 декабря 2010 г.

Grimaces of hell in paradise emptiness of Romeo Castellucci

четверг, 6 января 2011 г.

воскресенье, 26 декабря 2010 г.