1954, color, 38 minutes
Concept, direction and editing by Kenneth Anger. Camera assistant: Robert Straede.
Music by Jauacek. Filmed in Hollywood. Cast: Samson De Brier (Lord Shiva, Osiris,
The Great Beast), Cameron (The Scarlet Woman, Kali), Joan Whitney (Aphrodite), Katy
Kadell (Isis), Renata Loome (Lilith), Anais Nin (Astarte), Paul Mathison (Pan), Curtis
Harrington (Slave), Kenneth Anger (Hectate), Peter Loome (Ganymede).
A hallucinatory Dionysic and Eucharistic ritual with multi-layered imagry in which
magicians appear as figures from mythology and engage in an Orgia orchestrated
by Lord Shiva.
Inauguration has gone through several incarnations - at least four according to P.
Adams Sitney in Visionary Film. Sitney says the first had a soundtrack by Harry
Parch: the second, in distribution up to 1966, used Janacek?s ?Glagolithic Mass? for a
soundtrack. In 1958, Anger made a version of the film in shich the screen grew wings for
a synchronous projection at its climax. In 1966, this version, with additional
super-imposition, consisting of most of Puce Woman and Harry Laonman?s
Dante?s Inferno. In the last third of the film and an opening reading of Coleridge?s
Kubla Khan accompanied by stills of Crowley and talismanic symbols, became
known as the Sacred Mushroom edition. In 1965, Anger added the present soundtrack.
Perhaps in future years, the film will again change.
Lord Shiva, the Magician, awakes a convocation of --eurgists in the guise of figures
from mythology bearing gifts. The Scarlet Woman, Whore of Heaven, smokes a big fat
joint: Astarte of the Moon brings the wings of snow: Pan bestows the bunch of Bacchus:
Hecate offers the Sacred Mushroom Yage, Wormwood Brew. The vitage of Hecate is
poured: Pan?s cup is poisoned by Lord Shiva. The Orgia ensues: a Magick
masquerade party at which Pan is the prize. Lady kali blesses the rites of the Children of
the Light as Lord Shiva invokes the Godhead with the formula, ?Force and Fire.?
Dedicated to the Few and to Aleister Crowley: and to the Crowned and Conquering Child.
(Kenneth Anger)
The film is derived from one of Crowley?s dramatic rituals where people in the cult assume
the identity of a god or a goddess. In other words, it?s the equivalent of a masquerade
party - they plan this for a whole year and on All Sabbath?s Eve, they come as gods and
goddesses that they have identified with and the whole thing is like an imporvised
happening.
This is the actual thing the film is based on. In which the gods and goddesses interact and
in The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome it?s the legend of Bacchus that?s the
pivotal thing and it ends with the God being torn to pieces by the Bacchantes. This is the
underlying thing. But rather than using a specific ritual which would entail quite a lot of
the spoken word as ritual does, I wanted to create a feeling of being carried into a world
of wonder. And the use of color and phantasy is progressive: in other words, it expands,
it becomes completely subjective - like when people take communion and one sees it
through their eyes. (Kenneth Anger)
