Fireworks

Anger's first film was made over the course of a weekend at his family home. His parents were away. He was Seventeen.

The film is a short and immensely effective exploration of sexuality. That the fantasies are of homosexual leaning bears no relevance; it is merely the chosen vehicle for the subject.

The film is fascinated with the violence of sexual submission as well as the fear of it. The narrative seems to take the form of a dream sequence and is laced with astonishingly mature sarcasm and gentle wit. It is by far Anger's greatest film and a landmark of the American avant-garde.

Depicts a dream sequence about the brutal rape and torture of director Kenneth Anger himself (as a teenager) by a group of sailors on the street (after trying to pick one of them up).

Anger later said, "This flick is all I have to say about being seventeen, the United States Navy, American Christmas, and the Fourth of July." Holy smokes, guys. This is about as hard-hitting as it comes for the 1940s. The homosexual theme, the intense violence... this is still shocking and revolting in the 2010s... we have have grown soft to violence, but if we have I can only imagine how people in the 40s reacted when they saw this. Terrifying!

Fireworks is powerful stuff, and, with the exception of a narrated prologue that explains what fireworks mean in poetic language (at least in the version that's currently online, there are others and they may not include this), is all done through the powerful visual motifs of dreams. Or, at the least, that's how Anger wants to present this vision of what happens when the ideal of MALE-ness is put into danger and promiscuity.

From seeing Scorpio Rising first, Anger's most well-known and semi-notorious film, I knew that this director knew how to shoot a shot of a man below the chest. Now, this doesn't mean to suggest nudity; he has his actors sometimes without a shirt or it unbuttoned (or in the 1964 film in some leather), and jeans being put on or taken off. But in its strange way he has a tastefulness to his erotica, the idea of the visual being the tease, the prolonged state of something that you KNOW is really sexual and provocative, but you're not seeing as much as you are.

This may be why he was arrested on obscenity charges when the film was first screened (where exactly I'm not sure, who knows where underground cinema could get screened in 1947), but it went to the Supreme Court and, in one of those early/landmark decisions, it was ruled as art. But it was the suggestion of sex, and certainly *male*, homo-erotic sex, and remember our friend context which is that in this decade homosexuality was thought to be a crime and/or psychological ailment that could be legitimately cured. So just in the manner of creating this film, whether out of a dream or not, it was a brave act on Anger's part.

The film is basically showing a guy waking up, seeing some (suggestive? likely?) photos that he tosses in the fireplace (though not yet lit), getting dressed, going through a door marked "GENTS", and then coming upon some sailors who... proceed to beat the hell out of him. This is all done in such a stylized manner that it reminded me of how Cocteau treated violence in Blood of a Poet: when blood comes out it feels otherworldly and yet very real in its way, like because it's not the blood we're used to seeing (yes it's graphic in how much comes out and in a sustained shot/angle), it has an effect that is uncanny.

The way music is used adds to the poetry of it all, how it evokes feelings of high drama and curiosity and intense violence - whether it's underscoring the man who is flexing his muscles in such a campy manner (not funny so much as exaggerated), and then when the group of sailors accost our main character (played by Anger himself, the one nitpick I'd have is he doesn't carry a lot of screen presence as an actor, even in, yes I know, a scenario that doesn't ask for naturalism) it takes on the feeling of being in a nightmare you can't escape.

How it ends takes on another feeling, but it's one I can't pinpoint yet. As far as a through-one may be tempted to say it's simply that he's still asleep by the end, but I'm not sure. The power of this whole 14 minute experience is to get into an intense psychological state, meditative even, about what it means to have the male gaze: it can be powerful, it can be imposing, it can be tough, and it can be beautiful, but all the while it can be dangerous as well. It's also worth noting that as this was 1947 this was before sailors and those in the navy were seen as something that could be mockable as 'that's gay' or something derogatory. This was just after WW2, don't forget, and the Navy sailors were among the heroes of the war. At the same time Anger's taking from an event - when sailors beat up a Mexicans on a famous day, I don't recall the name - so that adds to the provocation.

Fireworks may lack some of the visual sophistication in little parts of the cinematography (not overall as far as lighting and composition, more like things involving focus, which makes sense as he shot this over a weekend on extremely limited resources), but that doesn't matter to the full scope: this is a brave little package of a cinematic experience that works much like its title: an explosion and series of things to look at, and from afar it may appear delightful - but get too close and it'll burn your fingers off and make you disfigured.

Ah, Men.

'Fireworks' is a violent and disturbing manifesto, a short experimental dream-movie that throws in a couple of images that are real eye-openers, and enough homoerotic weirdness to keep those eyes open. What it 'means' of course is anyone's guess. Anger 'awakes' from troubled sleep, and wanders out to get a light for his cigarette, finding instead only torture at the hands of a bunch of muscle-bound sailors. The title refers, at least superficially, to a particularly jaw-dropping episode of sexual imagery, though as with much of what goes on in the film, there are probably any number of magical and sexual allusions that are tied in with it. Beyond a handful of frames that are burned into my memory, quite possibly until the end of time, I'm not sure what there is to take away from the film when you leave- possibly it has something to say about the all-consuming power of violence, but really that's just a shot in the dark. But of course one could argue that a handful of jaw-dropping frames is enough to justify any film. The fingers- in- nostrils scene is a real wow...

When you see it , it reminds a sort of Querelle by Fassbinder or touch of Tom of Finland. And not only for sailors or for vulnerable young man , for who the borders between dream and reality become fiction but for the state.

But Fireworks is a film of the year 1947. This historical context defines it and makes not easy to see it as cry, manifesto, protest or expression of eccenticity.

It is only a confession about an incident, crafted as a cold - bitter poem about violence, nightmares, terrible experiences and their transfiguration.

The basic gift to viewer - to imagine see it in 1947 atmosphere.

A simple story and a wise crafted portrait of dark reality in precise terms.