Decried as obscene upon its initial release, this short documentary style feature from avant garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger contains no dialogue and rapidly inter-cuts images against a score of slyly selected pop tunes, predating the advent of the music video by a decade and a half. Delving into the homoerotic world of bikers, Anger focuses his camera on Scorpio (Bruce Byron), a leather-wearing, crystal methamphetamine-snorting bad boy who is alternately compared to Jesus Christ, Adolf Hitler and the Devil, depending on his activities. Scorpio is seen strutting his stuff, racing his bike, vandalizing a church and attending a rowdy party where a fellow reveler is tortured and humiliated by the bikers. Through it all, Anger draws clear parallels between Scorpio's crowd, sadism and homosexuality, with alternately subtle and obvious montages depicting snippets of other films, comic strips, plenty of gleaming phallic chrome, and symbols like the Nazi swastika. Considered by many to be one of the first post-modern films, Scorpio Rising (1964) was a controversial hit only on the underground circuit, but its style greatly influenced a generation of popular filmmakers, most notably director Martin Scorsese. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
The film was censored for indecency, and the case went to the Supreme Court[citation needed], where it was decided in Anger's favor. Anger explained in an interview:
"When Scorpio Rising was — we've forgotten, in a sense, that it was a groundbreaker, legally. Because there are only a few flashes of nudity, genitalia, whatever in the film, I mean, they're very, very short and, if you blink, you won't even see them. At any rate, when it was shown, at the Cinema — it was called the Cinema on Western Avenue in Hollywood — the premiere run, someone denounced it to the Hollywood vice squad and they raided the theater and took the print. And the case had to go to the California Supreme Court to be freed and then it became, like, a landmark case of redeeming social merit. That was the phrase that was used to justify that it wasn't pornography. And, indeed, there's nothing pornographic about it. Somebody had to break the ice and have that kind of case at that time to establish the freedom, because, before then, the police could seize anything they wanted to. What I was doing on the West Coast, Jack Smith was doing on the East Coast with Flaming Creatures. The two films happened at about the same time."[1]
Don't Smoke That Cigarette (2000) • The Man We Want to Hang (1995-2002) •Anger Sees Red (2004) •Elliott's Suicide (2004) •Mouse Heaven (1986) •Ich Will! (2000-2007)
Lost and Unfinished Films directed
Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941) • Tinsel Tree (1941-1942) •Prisoner of Mars (1942) •The Nest (1943) •Escape Episode (1944-46) •Drastic Demise (1945) •The Love That Whirls (1949) •Maldoror (1951-1952) •Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (1953) •Thelema Abbey (1955) •Histoire d'O (1959-1961)•Senators in Bondage (1976)
