Kenneth Anger's Explosive Creativity in Fireworks

Kenneth Anger is best remembered as a bold, envelope-pushing director, confident in the forms of occult imagery and taboo avant-garde. His film Fireworks is often cited as one of the first experimental gay films.

A young Kenneth Anger

Filmed in 1947, when the director was still just 20 years old, Fireworks is a strange, cacophonous mirage of homoerotic imagery, accompanied by men in naval outfits, grotesque explorations of the body, and a staggering encounter with a Christmas tree. Regardless of how incredibly ahead of its time the short film was, it is also incredibly creative and resourceful. The film was created in his family's basement over a weekend, and he used guerrilla methods to cast his fellow college-aged actors, sourcing them from UCLA film classes he was sitting in on. It's clear when watching this film, That Anger worked from a point of inspiration over necessity, prioritizing originality and a novel vision over being palatable.

A still from Fireworks (1947)

While the plot of Fireworks is difficult to follow, the artistic merit of the piece comes from its unabashed creative confidence. Even today, nearly 80 years after its release, people who I have shown this film to comment on how they have never seen anything like it. It feels like peering into someone's mind; a dark train of thought or a narcoleptic nightmare. Personally, I am a big fan, and I hope if you're reading this you'll give it a watch:

Fireworks – Kenneth Anger (~15 min)

In regards to the focus book I'm reading, The Code Breaker, I was reminded of Kenneth Anger when I read this guiding principle of one Dr. Jack W. Szostak: "Never do something that a thousand other people are doing". Above all other aspects of creativity that we have talked about in class, I find originality and novelty to be some of the most valuable. Both Jennifer Doudna and Kenneth Anger embody this by choosing to invest in fields of creation often overlooked, while simultaneously being important to their personal interests.

Once more, genuinely, I encourage you to give Fireworks a watch, and consider to what extent you weigh originality over other aspects of what makes art and creativity valuable.

Have a good one!