This event screened 21st February 2010.

INAUGURATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME
KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS
SCORPIO RISING

Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) is directly inspired by the life and teachings of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley: its dense, multi-layered imagery portrays a hallucinatory ritual in which magicians (amongst them Anger’s good friend Anais Nin) assume the identities of mythological figures for a Dionysian revelry. Scorpio Rising (1963) is perhaps Anger’s most influential work, in his words ‘a death mirror held up to American culture – Brando, bikes and black leather; Christ, chains and cocaine’. Its masterful juxtaposition of vivid homoerotic imagery and classic ’50s and ’60s pop songs pre-empts (many say invents) music video. This screening also includes the delicious Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), an elegant hymn to the hot rod as contemporary fetish-object.