''Eaux d'artifice'' (1953) is a short

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927 – May 11, 2023) was an American Underground film, underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and writer. Working exclusively in short films, he produced almost 40 works beginning i ...

Summary

The film consists entirely of a woman dressed in eighteenth-century clothes who wanders amidst the garden fountains of the

Villa d'Este The Villa d'Este is a 16th-century villa in Tivoli, Lazio, Tivoli, near Rome. It is a masterpiece of Italian architecture and garden design, famous for its terraced hillside Italian Renaissance garden and the ingenuity of its architectural featu ...

("a Hide and Seek in a night-time labyrinth") to the sounds of Vivaldi's " Four Seasons", until she steps into a fountain and momentarily disappears.

Production

The film was shot in the

in Tivoli,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. The actress, Carmilla Salvatorelli (not "Carmello"), was "a little midget" Anger had met through

Federico Fellini Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and ...

. Anger used a short actress to suggest a different sense of scale, whereby the monuments seemed bigger (a technique he said was inspired by etchings of the gardens in the Villa d'Este by

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric " ...

Inspiration

The title, a play on words, is meant to suggest ''Feux d'artifice'' (''Fireworks''), in obvious reference to Anger's earlier 1947 work. Film critic Scott MacDonald has suggested that ''Fireworks'' was a film about the repression of (the film-maker's)

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

in the United States, whereas ''Eaux d'Artifice'' "suggests an explosion of pleasure and freedom."

Legacy

In 1993, this short film was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

References

External links