1953, color, 13 minutes
Concept, direction and editing by Kenneth Anger. Camera assistant: Thad Lovett. Music by Vivaldi. Filmed in Tivoli, Italy. Cast: Carmila Salvatorelli (Lady).
Tuned to Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," a Baroque lady flits in and out of Rome's Tivoli Fountain until she melts into the waters.
Eaux d'Artifice, featuring a circus dwarf Anger met in Italy, owes its costume design to Anger's grandmother in whose costumes he as a boy loved dressing up. Anger calls the Lady in the film "a Firbank heroine in pursuit of a night moth." To which allusion P. Adams Sitney traces to Ronald Firbank's novel Valmouth "where Niki-Esther, at the time of her marriage, went into the garden in pursuit of a butterfly, dressed in her wedding gown and carrying her bouquet."
The film was shot in black & white and printed through a blude filter and the Lady's "Fan of Exorcism" was hand-tinted by Anger. Of all his works, this is perhaps the most abstract: the rushing, flowing, trickling waters become interesting as shapes and rhythms.
Pour water on thyself: thus shalf thou be a Fountain to the universe. Find thou thyself in every Star! Achieve thou every possibility! Khaled Khan, The Heart of the Master, and Theorem V. Hide and seek in a night-time labyrinth of levels, cascades, balustrades, grottoes, and ever-gushing, leaping fountains, until the Water Witch and the Fountain become One. Dedicated to Pavel Tchlatchev. (Kenneth Anger)
Eaux d'Artifice retells Fireworks in opposite terms. The Lady enters the night-time labyrinth of cascades, balustrades, grottoes and fountains, and tries to lure out the monsters with her fan: she's trying to invoke the water gods. Anger's own happy analogy is a middle-aged queen cruising for rough trade. She fails, being weak and frivolous, and melts into the water (surrenders her identity) so that she can play on. (Tony Rayns)
