HOMOSEXUALITY IN EXPERIMENTAL FILM: THE 1940s
FIREWORKS (1947)
dir. KENNETH ANGER
perf. kenneth anger
USA
RUNTIME: 14 MINUTES
Directed by, and starring, seventeen year-old Kenneth Anger, Fireworks was created in 1947 while the bourgeoning filmmaker’s parents were out-of-town (Murray, 127). Anger grew up in Santa Monica and was all too familiar with the lure of Hollywood. His grandmother was a former costume designer for Hollywood silent films and also was the woman who funded his early film endeavours (Murray, 127). The 1940s also brought forth a variety of experimental filmmakers interested in a ‘personal’ side of filmmaking (Maya Derren, as an example). Kenneth Anger was a part of the growing American avant-garde and he created Fireworks because of his belief that Hollywood, mainstream, films had a ‘cold’ quality. His ‘personal cinema’ would favour filmic poetry, expression, improvisation, and symbolism (O’Pray, 49).
Fireworks, as a whole, has a dream-like quality that is very similar to surrealist films that were first created in Europe in the 1920s. Some of these European films, as well as the early Surrealist style American films, are said to have been available to be seen through film societies in California during the 1940s (O’Pray, 48). Anger must have had access to them because his dream-like visuals seem reminiscent of Cocteau or Dulac, but they also have a style that seems directly affected by Hollywood. Murray suggests that this ‘professional’ look in Fireworks may be due to his early work as an actor in Hollywood films (127).
The film’s overall theme is about a symbolic death and rebirth, as well as self-realization (Hunter, 62). It follows the filmmaker/protagonist, Anger, on a journey to seek out ‘rough sex’ (Murray, 127). Anger wakes from a dream, dresses, and goes into a room labeled ‘GENTS’ which leads him into a bar. In the bar he meets a shirtless sailor who flexes for him and hits him a few times. After this he lights a cigarette and proceeds to meet a group of sailors carrying weapons by the waterfront. They tear off his clothes, beat him, and cut him open revealing a dial meter, which stops ticking. Anger is then covered in his own blood and the sailor’s semen. He comes-to, naked and alone in a public restroom and opens the door to the sailor he met earlier. The sailor has a firework lit, and standing erect, from the zipper in his pants. The firework shoots sparks and Anger is now carrying a Christmas tree on his back; he wakes from the dream in his bed next to a man who has a firework halo surrounding his head.
Homosexuality was still considered a crime in the United States during this period, so creating a film that was so explicitly gay was a brave move for a teenager. When Fireworks was first shown publicly in 1948 Anger was arrested on obscenity charges. His case went to the California Supreme Court, which ended up deciding the film was art (Hattenstone, WEB). In addition, the films public premiere also marked the beginning of the American Gay Underground/Avant-garde movement (Stevenson, 26). This film was added to our filmography because of its combination of surrealist visuals and sexual symbolism. True, it does not show nudity, but it is the first film to directly deal with sexual content in relation to homosexuality. The scene where Anger has the milk poured over him as a symbolic reference to semen solidifies Fireworks as an obvious choice for our project.
Fireworks, as a whole, has a dream-like quality that is very similar to surrealist films that were first created in Europe in the 1920s. Some of these European films, as well as the early Surrealist style American films, are said to have been available to be seen through film societies in California during the 1940s (O’Pray, 48). Anger must have had access to them because his dream-like visuals seem reminiscent of Cocteau or Dulac, but they also have a style that seems directly affected by Hollywood. Murray suggests that this ‘professional’ look in Fireworks may be due to his early work as an actor in Hollywood films (127).
The film’s overall theme is about a symbolic death and rebirth, as well as self-realization (Hunter, 62). It follows the filmmaker/protagonist, Anger, on a journey to seek out ‘rough sex’ (Murray, 127). Anger wakes from a dream, dresses, and goes into a room labeled ‘GENTS’ which leads him into a bar. In the bar he meets a shirtless sailor who flexes for him and hits him a few times. After this he lights a cigarette and proceeds to meet a group of sailors carrying weapons by the waterfront. They tear off his clothes, beat him, and cut him open revealing a dial meter, which stops ticking. Anger is then covered in his own blood and the sailor’s semen. He comes-to, naked and alone in a public restroom and opens the door to the sailor he met earlier. The sailor has a firework lit, and standing erect, from the zipper in his pants. The firework shoots sparks and Anger is now carrying a Christmas tree on his back; he wakes from the dream in his bed next to a man who has a firework halo surrounding his head.
Homosexuality was still considered a crime in the United States during this period, so creating a film that was so explicitly gay was a brave move for a teenager. When Fireworks was first shown publicly in 1948 Anger was arrested on obscenity charges. His case went to the California Supreme Court, which ended up deciding the film was art (Hattenstone, WEB). In addition, the films public premiere also marked the beginning of the American Gay Underground/Avant-garde movement (Stevenson, 26). This film was added to our filmography because of its combination of surrealist visuals and sexual symbolism. True, it does not show nudity, but it is the first film to directly deal with sexual content in relation to homosexuality. The scene where Anger has the milk poured over him as a symbolic reference to semen solidifies Fireworks as an obvious choice for our project.
CHRISTMAS USA (1949)
GREGORY MARKOPOULOS
USA
RUNTIME: 13 MINUTES
Markopoulos was a twenty-one year-old film student at the University of Southern California when he created Christmas U.S.A in 1949. The footage was shot locally and was Markopoulos’s fifth short film since he began creating them in 1948. His early work and much of his later work subtly uses themes of homosexuality (subtle, when compared with Kenneth Anger). It is important to note that due to the mass production and standardization of military movie equipment, 16mm filmmaking became more wide-spread and affordable. Post-war America was also lightening government restrictions on gay themed magazines like Physique Pictorial and physique photographs being distributed openly in public. It led to “physique cinema” which would become popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Overtly homosexual subject matter was still not permitted because of the states anti-sodomy laws (Stevenson, 25). The influence of physique films is evident in Christmas U.S.A. in the shirtless posing of one of the central male characters.
Christmas U.S.A. is a film about the quest for identity. The film opens with objects at an amusement park and records spinning around. Markopoulos was known for his intercuts and fragmented editing style, which is something he uses here; in the opening sequence a young man awakens, dresses, shaves and talks on the phone while another walks around a park in a kimono where he finds a decorative case, which he proceeds to open up. A man walks through the amusement park again. A mother and daughter set the table and prepare a meal and clean and a young man comes home. This part of the film is very interesting visually because Markoploulos utilizes strange close-ups to set the scene very different from mainstream cinema. The family sit at the table and afterwards he has a bath then leaves the house in search of a man. He finds the fellow he is looking for, who is waiting for him with outstretched arms, he walks toward him holding a candle (perhaps intended as a phallic object) and the two lay down together. Afterward the boy returns home and there is a distance between him and his family, he has started a separate life from them and embraced his sexuality.
Despite the difficulty in finding information on this film we chose it because it is one of the only other gay themed films of the 1940s aside from Kenneth Anger's Fireworks. Markopoulos’s work was not as obvious in its use of homosexuality because he tended to rely more-so on phallic imagery and symbolism in his work to make such themes apparent (Brennan, WEB). Like Anger, Markopoulos’s films were shown in the underground circuits and were seen as risqué for the time period. He made another film in 1948, titled The Dead Ones, which also tackled similar subject matter; Homosexuality is a recurring theme in the works of Markopoulos (Beauvais, WEB).
Christmas U.S.A. is a film about the quest for identity. The film opens with objects at an amusement park and records spinning around. Markopoulos was known for his intercuts and fragmented editing style, which is something he uses here; in the opening sequence a young man awakens, dresses, shaves and talks on the phone while another walks around a park in a kimono where he finds a decorative case, which he proceeds to open up. A man walks through the amusement park again. A mother and daughter set the table and prepare a meal and clean and a young man comes home. This part of the film is very interesting visually because Markoploulos utilizes strange close-ups to set the scene very different from mainstream cinema. The family sit at the table and afterwards he has a bath then leaves the house in search of a man. He finds the fellow he is looking for, who is waiting for him with outstretched arms, he walks toward him holding a candle (perhaps intended as a phallic object) and the two lay down together. Afterward the boy returns home and there is a distance between him and his family, he has started a separate life from them and embraced his sexuality.
Despite the difficulty in finding information on this film we chose it because it is one of the only other gay themed films of the 1940s aside from Kenneth Anger's Fireworks. Markopoulos’s work was not as obvious in its use of homosexuality because he tended to rely more-so on phallic imagery and symbolism in his work to make such themes apparent (Brennan, WEB). Like Anger, Markopoulos’s films were shown in the underground circuits and were seen as risqué for the time period. He made another film in 1948, titled The Dead Ones, which also tackled similar subject matter; Homosexuality is a recurring theme in the works of Markopoulos (Beauvais, WEB).
OTHER NOTABLE FILMS (Mainstream):
(All are very subtle in their references, 'thanks' to the Hays Code)
1940 - Rebecca
1941 - The Maltese Falcon
1942 - Cat People
1948 - Rope
(All are very subtle in their references, 'thanks' to the Hays Code)
1940 - Rebecca
1941 - The Maltese Falcon
1942 - Cat People
1948 - Rope
CITATIONS:
Beauvais, Yann. "Gregory J. Markopoulos : THE SONG OF A POET." (1995): Yann Beauvais: Filmmaker. Ed American Center, Paris. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. <http://manou16.phpnet.org/article_us.php3?id_article=171>.
Brennan, Sandra. "Gregory J. Markopoulos." AllMovie. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.allmovie.com/artist/gregory-j-markopoulos-p162745>.
Hattenstone, Simon. "Kenneth Anger: 'No, I Am Not a Satanist'" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/10/kenneth-anger-interview>.
Hunter, Jack. Moonchild: The Films of Kenneth Anger. [London]: Creation, 2002. Print.
Murray, Raymond. Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. Philadelphia: TLA Publications, 1994. Print.
Stevenson, Jack. "From the Bedroom to the Bijou: A Secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema." Film Quarterly 51.1 (1997): 24-31. JSTOR. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/stable/1213528>.
Beauvais, Yann. "Gregory J. Markopoulos : THE SONG OF A POET." (1995): Yann Beauvais: Filmmaker. Ed American Center, Paris. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. <http://manou16.phpnet.org/article_us.php3?id_article=171>.
Brennan, Sandra. "Gregory J. Markopoulos." AllMovie. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.allmovie.com/artist/gregory-j-markopoulos-p162745>.
Hattenstone, Simon. "Kenneth Anger: 'No, I Am Not a Satanist'" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 10 Mar. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/10/kenneth-anger-interview>.
Hunter, Jack. Moonchild: The Films of Kenneth Anger. [London]: Creation, 2002. Print.
Murray, Raymond. Images in the Dark: An Encyclopedia of Gay and Lesbian Film and Video. Philadelphia: TLA Publications, 1994. Print.
Stevenson, Jack. "From the Bedroom to the Bijou: A Secret History of American Gay Sex Cinema." Film Quarterly 51.1 (1997): 24-31. JSTOR. Web. 31 Mar. 2013. <http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.kwantlen.ca:2080/stable/1213528>.