Fireworks (1947 film)
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''Fireworks'' (1947) is a
homoerotic Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homose ...
experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...
by
Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...
. Filmed in his parents' home in Beverly Hills, California, over a long weekend while they were away, the film stars Anger and explicitly explores themes of
homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...
and sadomasochism. It is the earliest of his works to survive. ''Fireworks'' is known for being the first gay narrative film in the United States. Anger synopsizes the film thus: "A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a 'light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before." Adding later, "This flick is all I have to say about being seventeen, the United States Navy, American Christmas, and the Fourth of July."


Plot

The film opens with the image of a sailor holding a lifeless body. A sleeping man wakes up in bed and gets dressed. The dreamer walks through a door labeled "Gents", to find himself in a bar. He admires the body of a muscular sailor and offers his cigarette, only for the sailor to attack him. The sailor uses a flaming bundle of sticks to light the dreamer's cigarette. His smoking is interrupted by a group of sailors who chase the man and pin him to the ground. They beat the dreamer and reach into his chest to find a ticking meter inside him. White liquid pours down his body. A sailor unbuttons the crotch of his pants to reveal a Roman candle, which shoots sparks into the air. The dreamer appears with a Christmas tree as a headdress, moving toward a fireplace in which several photographs of the opening shot are burning. The dreamer then appears asleep in bed, next to a man whose head is radiating light.


Production


Development

During the
Zoot Suit Riots The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots that took place from June 3–8, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, United States, involving American servicemen stationed in Southern California and young Latino and Mexican American city residen ...
, Anger witnessed a group of sailors in white uniforms chase down Mexican men and attack them. He had a persistent dream of men in white uniforms attacking at night, which eventually became a dream about people chasing him. This dream became the premise for ''Fireworks''. Anger stars in ''Fireworks'' as the dreamer, and Gordon Gray plays the sailor from the opening scene. According to Anger's account, he found the cast of ''Fireworks'' while sitting in on film classes at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
. He convinced some classmates who were in the Navy to steal a few thousand feet of Navy film stock for him to use. They acted in his film, using their summer uniforms as costumes. Ed Earle, a friend of Anger's, has disputed this account, saying that the cast were not sailors, but "people dressed up…He talked everyone into doing it because it was almost as though he was going to make the ultimate porno film."


Principal photography

Anger upgraded from a spring-wound camera when his grandmother gave him a
Bell & Howell Bell and Howell LLC is a U.S.-based services organization and former manufacturer of cameras, lenses, and motion picture machinery, founded in 1907 by two projectionists, and originally headquartered in Wheeling, Illinois. The company is now ...
16 mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...
camera as a birthday gift, which allowed him to film at 24
frames per second A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...
. Anger placed the shoot at his parents' home in Beverly Hills over three days; however, his older brother Bob has stated that ''Fireworks'' was shot at a home in the
Hollywood Hills The Hollywood Hills are a residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Geography The Hollywood Hills straddle the Cahuenga Pass within the Santa Monica Mountains. The neighborhood touches Studio City, Univer ...
. One scene was shot in a public bathroom at a park in Olive Hill, California.


Post-production

When editing the film, Anger directly scratched the film stock for two scenes. Worried that he might get in trouble trying to sell prints of ''Fireworks'' by mail, he scratched out his genitals from one brief shot in a public urinal.Landis 1995, p. 46. In the film's ending, Anger etched in a corona of light around a man's face. He scored the film with Ottorino Respighi's ''
Pines of Rome ''Pines of Rome'' ( it, Pini di Roma, link=no), P 141, is a tone poem in four movements for orchestra completed in 1924 by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. It is the second of his three tone poems about Rome, following ''Fontane di Roma'' ...
''.


Themes

Anger was a disciple of occultist
Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...
, through whose teachings ''Fireworks'' can be read. The dreamer in the film follows a symbolic process of death, rebirth, and self-realization similar to the Liber Pyramidos, a ritual for self-initiation. In this sense, the "light" sought by the dreamer is a pun, playing off of
Lucifer Lucifer is one of various figures in folklore associated with the planet Venus. The entity's name was subsequently absorbed into Christianity as a name for the devil. Modern scholarship generally translates the term in the relevant Bible passa ...
. The opening scene in which a sailor carries the lifeless body of the dreamer closely follows the Christian image of the
pietà The Pietà (; meaning " pity", "compassion") is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his body was removed from the cross. It is most often found in sculpture. The Pietà is a specific form ...
, in which the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...
cradles the dead body of
Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
.Dyer 2002, p. 42. Anger's camp re-creation is emphasized with intense, expressionistic lighting of the subject against a dark background; thunder and lightning; and a
dolly shot A tracking shot is any shot where the camera follows backward, forward or moves alongside the subject being recorded. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly that is then placed on rails ...
that gradually reveals the scene. This scene and its reappearance as a photograph later in the film conflate masochistic desire with redemptive suffering. Anger has described the role of the sailor by saying that he "was a kind of sex symbol on one level, and on another level there was a great deal of ambivalence and hostility, and fear in the image."


Release

''Fireworks'' was screened privately several times before its public premiere. It first screened publicly in 1947 at the Coronet Theatre in
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. Anger sold the first print of ''Fireworks'' to
Alfred Kinsey Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Insti ...
.
Cinema 16 Cinema 16 was a New York City–based film society founded by Amos Vogel. From 1947-63, he and his wife, Marcia, ran the most successful and influential membership film society in North American history, at its height boasting 7000 members. Histo ...
acquired and distributed the film. Anger continued to make changes to the film after its original release. These edits included truncating a scene where the dreamer writhes on a bathroom floor before the sailors attack him and shortening the moment when Gordon Gray unbuttons his pants to reveal a firecracker. One version used
hand tinting Hand-colouring (or hand-coloring) refers to any method of manually adding colour to a Monochrome photography, monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as ...
for the candle atop the Christmas tree and the halo of light. The use of color bridged ''Fireworks'' with Anger's later film '' Eaux d'Artifice'', which similarly ends with a hand-tinted object.


Rohauer case

Raymond Rohauer Raymond Rohauer (1924, Buffalo, New York – November 10, 1987) was an American film collector and distributor. Early life and career Rohauer moved to California in 1942 and was educated at Los Angeles City College. Rohauer made a five-reel ...
of the Coronet Theatre obtained a copy of the film which Anger attempted to recover. After screening ''Fireworks'' on October 11, 1957, Rohauer was arrested on obscenity charges. William C. Doran served as prosecutor, with much of his case focusing on the Coronet and its homosexual patrons rather than the content of the film. Doran zeroed in on the sailor with a firecracker and, despite the lack of nudity in ''Fireworks'', persistently referred to it as "the penis scene". Rohauer was found guilty in February 1958 and received a sentence of three years probation with a $250 fine. Civil rights attorney
Stanley Fleishman Stanley Fleishman (1920–1999) was an American attorney best known for his expertise in the constitutional defense of the First Amendment in obscenity cases and for his advocacy on behalf of the disabled community. Early life Stanley Fleishman ...
appealed the decision to the
California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...
, which ruled in favor of Rohauer. The court ruled that homosexuality was a valid subject of artistic expression and that overt reference to it could not be considered obscenity. This ruling became a landmark decision for
freedom of speech in the United States In the United States, freedom of speech and expression is strongly protected from government restrictions by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, many state constitutions, and state and federal laws. Freedom of speech, also ca ...
. Fleishman successfully defended one of Anger's later films, '' Scorpio Rising'', in a similar obscenity trial.


Critical reception

Critic Lewis Jacobs of ''
The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...
'' wrote that the taboo subject matter was effectively conveyed through "the film's intensity of imagery, the strength and precision of its shots and continuity," making ''Fireworks'' a work of "rare individuality which no literal summary of its qualities can communicate."
Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...
called ''Fireworks'' "the most exciting use of cinema I have ever seen". Anger submitted ''Fireworks'' to the Festival du Film Maudit in 1949, where the jury awarded it the Poetic Film Prize.


Legacy

Anger's 1953 film ''Eaux d'Artifice'' takes its title from ''feux d'artifice'', the French translation of ''fireworks''. His 1969 film ''
Invocation of My Demon Brother ''Invocation of My Demon Brother'' (1969) is an 11-minute film directed, edited, and photographed by Kenneth Anger. The music was composed by Mick Jagger playing a Moog synthesizer. It was filmed in San Francisco at the Straight Theater on Haight S ...
'' is a remake of ''Fireworks''. Anthology Film Archives added ''Fireworks'' to its Essential Cinema Repertory collection. ''Fireworks'' was an influence on Robert Duncan's poetry. His poem "The Earth" explicitly mentions the film, and his poems "The Torso" and "An Illustration" both make reference to it.


Notes


References

* * * * * * *


External links

* *
Anger's films at Mystic Fire Video
{{Authority control 1940s avant-garde and experimental films 1940s LGBT-related films 1947 films American black-and-white films American independent films American LGBT-related films BDSM in films Films directed by Kenneth Anger Films without speech Obscenity controversies in film LGBT-related controversies in film American drama films 1947 drama films American avant-garde and experimental films 1940s independent films 1940s American films