Throughout his career, he has produced almost forty works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped together as the "Magick Lantern Cycle".
'Scorpio Rising' premiered in October 1963 at the Gramercy Arts Theater in New York City, New York.
When the film was screened at an art theater in Los Angeles California, it was protested by the American Nazi Party on the basis that it insulted their flag.
However, the police were ultimately called to the site and arrested the theater manager for public obscenity and canceled the film's run.
The case later went to the California Supreme Court, where the case was settled 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.”
Scorpio Rising is considered by some to be the first drama film to feature a rock & roll soundtrack.
Another of Anger's films which utilizes a rock & roll soundtrack ('Rabbit's Moon'), though filmed fourteen years before Scorpio Rising, was not completed until 1972.
2. Little Peggy March – "Wind-Up Doll"
3. The Angels – "My Boyfriend's Back"
4. Bobby Vinton – "Blue Velvet"
6. Ray Charles – "Hit the Road Jack"
8. The Crystals – "He's a Rebel"
9. Claudine Clark – "Party Lights"
10. Kris Jensen – "Torture"
11. Gene McDaniels – "Point of No Return"
12. Little Peggy March – "I Will Follow Him"
‘Scorpio Rising’ was praised by West Coast critics upon its initial release. When it was screened in New York City in 1964, ‘Scorpio Rising’ garnered additional positive reviews from The New Yorker, Variety, and Newsweek.
American film critic and essayist Nora Sayre of The New York Times reviewed the film in 1975 stating, "Oddly enough, the references to the nineteen-fifties, which seemed dated and rather ponderous in 1965, don't make the film appear old-fashioned now.
Admittedly, one then saw it in an unfortunate context – draped in the mystique of the underground, when a number of inferior films employed some similar imagery, such as the juxtaposition of Christ and hipsters, or close-ups of all-purpose skulls. But after a decade's education in put-ons, one can savor the impudent freshness of "Scorpio" today."
Following his failure to produce a sequel to 'Lucifer Rising' (1972), which Anger attempted through the mid-1980s, he retired from filmmaking, instead focusing on writing Hollywood Babylon II (1984).
In 1996, Anger was one of three recipients of whom received the Maya Deren Award. This was by the American Film Institute's (AFI) Award for Independent Film and Video Artists.
On October 30, 2005, Anger left his signature and handprints in front of the Vista Theatre. This is located on 4473 Sunset Drive in Los Angeles, California.
Martin Scorsese has even cited 'Scorpio Rising' a hepcat twenty-nine-minutes about masochistic bikers, as a major influence.
Says Anger, with typical modesty: "Martin Scorsese learned about soundtracks from me."
Directors Gaspar Noé ('Irreversible') and Nicolas Winding Refn ('Drive') have also cited the film as an influence on their filmmaking.
As with all of Anger's films, no dialogue is ever spoken throughout its runtime.
Offering a description of himself for the program of a 1966 screening, Anger stated his 'lifework' as being Magick and his 'magical weapon' the cinematograph.
A follower of English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountainee Aleister Crowley's teachings, Anger is a high-level practitioner of occult magic who regards the projection of his films as ceremonies capable of invoking spiritual forces.
Cinema, he claims, is an evil force. Its point is to exert control over people and events and his filmmaking is carried out with precisely that intention.
Since 'Lucifer Rising', Anger has spent his time pruning, maintaining and preserving his films, adding new soundtracks to several of them. He also travels widely to attend screenings of his work.
In rigorously pursuing a vision of the cinema that is as original as it is personal, Anger not only created one of the most consistently thrilling bodies of work in cinema but in so doing highlighted the poverty of imagination that governs so much 'normal' filmmaking and the unconscionable limitations still placed on the medium.
Like other geniuses of the American Underground such as Stan Brakhage ('Dog Star Man'), Andy Warhol ('Vinyl') and American experimental filmmaker Gregory J. Markopoulos he has had a certain amount of influence over succeeding generations of filmmakers.
But, like them, whatever he has taught others, he will always remain unique, one of the few filmmakers whose work is capable of returning meaning to that much overused word—'visionary'.
Anger has been active from 1937–present.
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