Kenneth Anger
Before getting in the discussion of the character of this week, In this week, the lecture introduced a really interesting experimental film pioneer in 1950s and ’60s, Kenneth Anger, who successfully inspired my ideas on expressing the aesthetics of video. In his characteristics of the video, sex, death, or all called “human desires” are always surrounding in the film theme. The idea of “totem” also reflects Jeans’s theory about “personality”. In Eaux d’artifice (1953), it is really impressive. Kenneth merely shot the artificial fountain and match the classical music but incredibly represent a moment like a ballet dancer was dancing. Especially, with his seamless cutting, the whole film seems taken in one-shot. Actually, experimental films sometimes could inspire a lot of ideas due to the limitation of funding. In this case, Kenneth proofed even not using a big-cast style, he could still create a full of aesthetical scenes.