Film

[Stolyar_Kushakov]

I've read in "Classic rock" about film "Lucifer rising".

Page had written music for this.

If someone have listened or watched this, pleasetell me what you think about this.

[SteveAJones]

I've read in "Classic rock" about film "Lucifer rising". Page had written music for this.

If someone have listened or watched this, please tell me what you think about this.

Well, for starters I hesitate to call it music, as such. It's more like a soundscape for

the visuals. The film itself is typical of Kenneth Anger's work. Very esoteric, symbolic

and occultic. Not horrible but not the coolest film I ever saw either. Anyway, he had

a falling out with Jimmy so the music was never finished but it was used regardless.

I dare say if Jimmy hadn't been involved with this film it would barely merit a mention

here or elsewhere.

[Stargroves Tangie]

Well, for starters I hesitate to call it music, as such. It's more like a soundscape for

the visuals. The film itself is typical of Kenneth Anger's work. Very esoteric, symbolic

and occultic. Not horrible but not the coolest film I ever saw either. Anyway, he had

a falling out with Jimmy so the music was never finished but it was used regardless.

I dare say if Jimmy hadn't been involved with this film it would barely merit a mention

here or elsewhere.

Interesting- I didn't know that Anger kept Jimmy's music in the film- I always thought that after the falling out Anger replaced him with Bobby Beausoleil and used only Bobby's music for the film.

[SteveAJones]

Interesting- I didn't know that Anger kept Jimmy's music in the film- I always thought that after the falling out Anger replaced him with Bobby Beausoleil and used only Bobby's music for the film.

Your correct, Stargroves, and Beausoleil was connected to the Manson family.

Jimmy's music was used for a "soundtrack album" released in 1987 by Christopher Dietler, an independent album producer based in Sacramento, California.

[Alessandra]

Speaking about Manson family, is it true that one of them attempted to kill Jimmy Page back then? I forgot her name.

[Gainsbarre]

If you're interested, this is from Marianne Faithfull's autobiography where she talks about Lucifer Rising and Kenneth Anger:

"I never believed Kenneth had any power at all. I was willing to believe he was a great filmmaker and I may have been wrong about that, too, because when i came to work with him it didn't seem as if he knew what he was doing either. He made one great film, Scorpio Rising, almost by accident in a gay/ early hippie way...fifteen minutes of fame. But beyond the fifteen minutes it all got a bit dodgy...

I went to Egypt with Kenneth and my brother Chris, who was cameraman on the shoot. Chris Jagger was cast as Lucifer. Kenneth's films are always about sexual politics...he's always had people he'd fucked or wanted to fuck in his films. Kenneth really wanted Mick [Jagger] for the lead in the film, but Mick wouldn't do it so Chris got the part...Chris is an incredible loudmouth and smart-arse bully...Everything Kenneth said, Chris would ridicule...Kenneth put up with it for a day then Chris Jagger was on a plane back to London, which I thought was wonderful...Kenneth took his place.

As inept as Kenneth was, I knew he was dangerous in a way and I knew that simply by being in the film I was involving myself in a magic act far more potent than Kenneth's hocus-pocus satanism. Smearing myself with Max Factor blood and crawling around an Arab graveyard at 5am as the sun rose over the pyramids was absolute insanity. To be that passive, to let someone like that make me perform a ritualistic act of such ghoulish proportions, was just mindless.

Kenneth liked the idea I was in a weakened state. If I'd been my normal self I would have just laughed, but by then i was a hopeless junkie. I used to feelt hat a lot of the bad luck in my life came from that film.

The Star Mountain sequence was the last to be shot, as no doubt it was meant to be. The Star Mountain is an ancient neolithic place of worship in Germany...We were filming on the morning of the winter solstice, the sun was coming up. There I was, dope-sick, climbing the star mountain. When I got to the top I remember seeing the sun shining through the aperature and hitting the rock, and then I blacked out completely...I think I lost consciousness for a second and when I came to I realised I was falling off the mountain. I came to as I was tumbling through the air and remembered in mid-fall that i had to do some somersaults and land on my feet. Which I did. They rushed me to hospital and did a million tests and I was fine...

Kenneth would've liked me to fall off the mountain and die. It would have been a magnificent climax for his film. Also a suitable end for me and for what I represented.

The reason I never tell this story is because it's unbelievable. I'd learnt, after the posthumous Brian [Jones] dialogues for which I got shit, that you don't tell people these things. People think you're raving.

Quite a few years after Lucifer Rising, Kenneth sent me a biography of Francis Farmer and a letter telling me I was exactly like Frances Farmer, and Eva [Marianne's mother] was just like Frances Farmer's mother. I realised then what he was - a witch out of a Hollywood tabloid. Kitsch occult"

[SteveAJones]

Speaking about Manson family, is it true that one of them attempted to kill Jimmy Page back then? I forgot her name.

Potentially. There was a scatter-brained girl in California who was adamant she had to see Jimmy Page. Naturally, she never got close. Several months later they were living in rented houses in Malibu and saw her on the television. She had just attempted to kill President Gerald Ford. Her name was Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme. She had a troubled childhood and has never renounced her loyalty to Charles Manson.

More from Wikipedia:

In March 1975, Fromme confronted Danny Goldberg, the publicist for English rock band Led Zeppelin, which was performing concerts in the United States as part of its North American concert tour. She said she had to see Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, because she had foreseen something evil in his future and thought it might happen that night during the band's concert at the Long Beach Arena. She swore that the last time this had happened, she had seen someone shot to death before her very eyes. Goldberg persuaded her to write a long note to Page, after which she left. The note was burned, unread.

On the morning of September 5, 1975, she went to Sacramento's Capitol Park (reportedly to plead with President Gerald Ford about the plight of the California redwoods) dressed in a nun-like red robe and armed with a .45 Colt semi-automatic, which she pointed at Ford. The weapon was loaded with four rounds, but none were in the firing chamber. She was immediately restrained by Secret Service agents, and while she was being further restrained and handcuffed, managed to say a few sentences to the on-scene cameras, emphasizing that the gun did not "go off". Fromme is reported to have subsequently told the Sacramento Bee that she had deliberately ejected the round in her weapon's chamber before leaving home that morning, and investigators later found a .45 ACP round in her bathroom.

After a lengthy trial in which she refused to cooperate with her own defense, she was convicted of the attempted assassination of the president and received a life sentence under a 1965 law (prompted by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy) which specified a maximum sentence of life in prison for attempted presidential assassinations. When U.S. Attorney Duane Keyes recommended severe punishment because she was "full of hate and violence," Fromme threw an apple at him, hitting him between the eyes.

In 1979, she was transferred out of the women's prison in Dublin, California, for attacking a fellow inmate, Julienne Busic, with the claw end of a hammer. On December 23, 1987, she escaped from the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia, attempting to meet up with Manson, who she had heard had testicular cancer. She was captured again two days later and is now serving time in Texas at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell. Though she has been eligible for parole since 1985, Fromme has consistently waived her right to a hearing.

[SteveAJones]

I went to Egypt with Kenneth and my brother Chris, who was cameraman on the shoot. Chris Jagger was cast as Lucifer. Kenneth's films are always about sexual politics...he's always had people he'd fucked or wanted to fuck in his films. Kenneth really wanted Mick [Jagger] for the lead in the film, but Mick wouldn't do it

Mick Jagger did the soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's 'Invocation of My Demon Brother':

Invocation of My Demon Brother

Critical Essay on Kenneth Anger's Invocation of My Demon Brother

Invocation of My Demon Brother was Kenneth Anger's return to filmmaking after a brief two year retirement from the business. He always dealt with controversial, provocative, and even taboo subjects and this film follows suit. The first image is of three white dots arranged in a pyramid on a black background. A white haired man is then shown raising his head and opening his eyes, like he is waking up. The shots then go back and forth between his gaze around the room he is in and the things or people he sees in the room, such as a cross-legged figure with a dagger, two boys lounging on a couch, and a tattoo that looks to be on his forearm. After he sees this he raises a clear stick of glass to his forehead. A shot of soldiers being deployed from a helicopter is shown, followed by a superimposition of the man's face, the tattoo, and an Egyptian eye, an image which is repeated many times during the film. A shot of a band is flashed on the screen, and then the cross-legged figures is shown again with his hand on his knees.

The scene and focus seems to change here. Now we see two men and a woman sharing a marijuana joint and smoking it out of a skull. The band is flashed again, as is a cat and a dog. Someone is then shown peering through the leaves of a plant, probably watching the smokers.

A man known as the Magus is introduced dressed in a long, decorated robe. This shot has fire falling from the sky superimposed on it. The Magus is played by Kenneth Anger himself, and is shown in accelerated motion performing some kind of ritual on stage. Some of the ritual scenes are overlapped with others, so you see two events happening at the same time. Images with the top half of the screen reflected upside down on the bottom half are introduced, one of which shows a man's torso and arms but ends up looking like there are eight arms swaying about.

A door is opened and a horned devil in a cape walks in with a skull which he places on the floor. Scenes of Hell's Angels bikers are superimposed over more scenes of the devil, as well as of the ritual.

another devil with brown curly hair is shown. The shots jump between the Magus and this new devil, juxtaposing the two.

The next phase of the film shows many repeated images from earlier in the film. It seems to contrast all the images at once, as well as introducing new ones like scenes of fans at a rock concert. The Egyptian eye is seen in many shots, most of which are superimpositions or altered in some way. The smokers from earlier are shown again walking down a flight of stairs followed by the members of the band. Shots of men and woman raising their arms and reaching out are overlapped over on another. Shots of the Rolling Stones performing are briefly edited in at the same time a man's face with a moire pattern projected on it. The final message of the film comes with a shot of the staircase again. This time a smoking mummy comes down the stairs with a sign that reads,"Zap. You're Pregnant. That's Witchcraft." This is followed by that all seeing Egyptian eye. The film ends with the moire pattern being projected this time on the man' s whole torso. He slowly raises his arms up over his head until his hands meet, then reaches them up high in a triumphant looking pose. The final image is of the three white dots again, this time arranged in an inverted pyramid.

The film seems very much like a montage of images with some central theme interrelating them. The shots change on average about every four to six seconds. Invocation is eleven minutes long and was filmed on 16mm color film. The soundtrack was done by Mick Jagger and features an electronic sound loop done on a Moog Synthesizer. Anger uses many techniques in this film such as accelerated motion in the ritual scenes and the mummy coming down the staircase, projected and superimposed images, and other forms of cineplastics. It could be argued that Anger displays a sense of narcissism by appearing in the film himself as the Magus.

Invocation is definitely a non-narrative film. It can be classified as categorical because it takes a particular subject( the occult, magic) and explores it. Specifically what the subject is difficult to decipher. The film can also be described as abstract. there are many unrealistic images in the film, such as the superimposed and projected images and the devils. All these things are representations of other things, such as the idea of magic or evil or of the devil himself. Abstract films are a selection from one's world of experience. These images are not from my world of experience or anyone else's that I know, but they were apparently part of Kenneth Anger's.

There is a theme which becomes evident early on in the film. The theme seems to be evil and the occult. The images seem to get more abstract and symbolic as the film goes on. The symbolism used throughout of devils, spiders, and tattoos are all associated by that theme. Repetition of images adds to the abstractness of the film. The white haired man in the beginning is shown again later as well as his tattoo. The helicopter with the Marines is shown twice during the film. The Magus is shown repeatedly throughout the film.Toward the end of the film the band members, who were flashed on the screen briefly twice before, are shown again walking down the staircase. The Egyptian eye in probably the most repeated image throughout the film.

The film's inner meaning is evidenced by the shot of the mummy coming down the stairs with the sign around its neck. The sign reads, "Zap. You're Pregnant. That's Witchcraft." I interpreted this to mean that Anger wants to instill his ideas and his theme into the viewer. The film is supposed to do that, which he interprets as a form of magic or witchcraft. You become pregnant with the images and ideas that Anger presents to you. They become part of your experience. The very first image in Invocation is of the three dots arranged in a pyramid form. The very last image is the same three dots in an inverted pyramid form. This can be interpreted as a sign of evil (2 horns on top of a head). You begin the film innocent, not knowing what you will see. Then, after seeing the images of the film, they get put into your experience and/or consciousness and you are transformed. The dots are symbolic of the viewer before they watch the film and then after, further evidence that Anger's goal was to transform his audience and work his form of magic through film on us.

The description Anger himself gives for Invocation of My Demon Brother is as follows:

The shadowing forth of Our Lord Lucifer, as the Powers of Darkness gather at a midnight mass. The dance of the Magus widdershins around the Swirling Spiral Force, the solar swastika, until the Bringer of Light- Lucifer- breaks through.

From this it may mean that the ritual being performed is a sort of seance to "invoke" the devil. In that interpretation, Anger is saying that the devil must be his other side, his alter-ego, his "demon brother."

-- Chris Morrison

CTA 298 Film & Video Art

11-9-95

[Suz]

God, that is weird as hell.

[Suz]

God, that is weird as hell.

Sorry, I was talking about the Squeaky From thing.

[Suz]

Okay, that movie seems weird as hell, too.

[Suz]

I was thinking of producing a remake

Now I need to read that rewiew again

[Suz]

California, baby! The land of fruits and nuts...

eah, well I read it again and was wondering, is it bad that I laughed?

[Suz]

ZAP!! Your pregnant!

And I didn't even look at one of the Hot Pics threads! Wonders never cease.

[Alessandra]

And I didn't even look at one of the Hot Pics threads! Wonders never cease.

^ and thanks Mr.SAJ. Actually Wikipedia is my source. But I'm not quite so sure about it.

[Gainsbarre]

California, baby! The land of fruits and nuts...

Ha, do you remember that scene in Woody Allen's Annie Hall? His friend moved to L.A. and he's trying to convince Woody how much better it is than New York and he says "there's no crime, there's no mugging." and Woody replies "There's no economic crime, you know, but there's-there's ritual, religious-cult murders, you know, there's wheat-germ killers out here."

[SteveAJones]

^ and thanks Mr.SAJ. Actually Wikipedia is my source. But I'm not quite so sure about it.

The incident is mentioned in Stephen Davis' 'Hammer of the Gods' published in 1985.

It's plausible (her attempt to meet Page) but her motivation we cannot know.

[*I*LOVE*JIMMY!!]

The incident is mentioned in Stephen Davis' 'Hammer of the Gods' published in 1985.

It's plausible (her attempt to meet Page) but her motivation we cannot know.

Steve, Did I read somewhere that you are a writter in your on right? Also an Author? Do tell, I'm interested.

[SteveAJones]

Steve, Did I read somewhere that you are a writter in your on right? Also an Author? Do tell, I'm interested.

I have collaborated with other writers and contributed to various projects but have never published my own book. I'm not convinced a book is the best way to present

the information, but there are many excellent books on the band in publication.

One book I was involved with that I want to be sure to mention is Greg Russo's 'Yardbirds -The Ultimate Rave-Up!' (3rd edition). I contributed to the Jimmy Page

concert chronology provided at the end. Jimmy toured extensively with them from

1966-1968 in some very obscure places. You'll find them all there!

[FireOpal]

Cool. Has anyone here seen the film of Lucifer Rising? Are there any still photos of Jimmy's cameo?

I've heard Jimmy's music - it's very interesting. I imagine he's playing all the instruments -- the tabla drums and all that. Don't know who the chanting voices are...

[Gainsbarre]

Cool. Has anyone here seen the film of Lucifer Rising? Are there any still photos of Jimmy's cameo?

The film is available on Youtube, although I wasn't aware he made a cameo in that film. I know he made a cameo in Antonioni's 1966 film Blow-Up

[SteveAJones]

Cool. Has anyone here seen the film of Lucifer Rising? Are there any still photos of Jimmy's cameo?

I've heard Jimmy's music - it's very interesting. I imagine he's playing all the instruments -- the tabla drums and all that. Don't know who the chanting voices are...

If you do a simple yahoo image search on the words Jimmy Page Lucifer Rising you'll see the cover of a bootleg album for the soundtrack. It purportedly shows Jimmy holding the Stele of Revealing.

[FireOpal]

Lovely. Thank you.

[badgeholder]

I got a DVD from a friend that has Jimmy's music overdubbed onto the film, or the beginning at least. Excruciatingly boring movie. But Jimmy's music is pretty cool regardless...much like the intro to 'In the Evening' to me, tympani & droning sounds