Psychedelic Cinema | "Lucifer Rising" / "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome"
Date and Time
Location
PSYCHEDELICS IN SOCIETY & CULTURE
PSYCHEDELIC CINEMA AT THE HARVARD FILM ARCHIVE
About the Films
Lucifer Rising: Filmed in a London studio and at sacred sites in Egypt, France, Germany and England, Lucifer Rising was one of Anger’s most elaborate productions. Its assorted cast includes Scottish director Donald Cammell; Marianne Faithfull; and, briefly, Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger’s brother Chris as ancient gods engaged in occult ritual. Based on the teachings of Aleister Crowley, including his interpretation of Lucifer as a bringer of light, Anger’s film remains starkly beautiful and mesmerizing with startling edits, featuring an otherworldly score composed in prison by Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil. – Haden Guest / Brittany Gravely
Directed by Kenneth Anger | US, 1972/1981, 16mm, color, 30 min.
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome: Steeped in the mythology of Aleister Crowley, art nouveau–era decadence and Hollywood artifice, Anger’s astonishing masterpiece unleashes a constellation of imagined gods choreographed by the filmmaker and inspired by one of the bohemian “Come as Your Madness” costume galas hosted by surrealist painter Renate Druks. Inauguration was filmed in the luxurious abode of silent film actor and reclusive impresario Samson De Brier, who plays many of the self-fashioned deities and demons alongside fellow artists Anaïs Nin, Curtis Harrington, Marjorie Cameron and Druks, among others. The film was reworked several times by Anger, once as a dazzling three-screen version which he then condensed to the “Sacred Mushroom Edition” (seen here) by brilliantly using superimposition to create complex mandala-like images in an ecstatic Babylonian descent. – Haden Guest / Brittany Gravely
Directed by Kenneth Anger | US, 1954/1966, 16mm, color, 38 min.
Visit the screening page on the HFA Website to learn more and buy tickets
About Psychedelic Cinema
Psychedelic Cinema is cosponsored and hosted by the Harvard Film Archive. Rather than solely focusing on LSD films that more directly depict or allude to drug use and psychedelic culture, this series aims to expand the notion of psychedelic cinema through the hallucinogenic lens. Through sounds and visuals, the films seek to bring viewers to an altered state of mind in which the impossible becomes possible and the unexpected becomes reality.
The series runs from September 6 through November 7. For the full screening schedule and to buy tickets, visit the series page HFA website:
About the Study of Psychedelics in Society & Culture
The Study of Psychedelics in Society and Culture, an interdisciplinary effort across the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Divinity School, seeks to transform the psychedelics research landscape by producing cutting-edge scholarship and convening faculty, students, and experts to engage in discussion around their far-reaching implications.