Scorsese, Lynch and Franco: Kenneth Anger's hidden link
Scorsese, Lynch and Franco all share the influence of occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger and his film 'Lucifer Rising', with echoes of Jack Parsons and conspiracy theories.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Scorsese, Lynch and Franco: Kenneth Anger's hidden link
Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and James Franco share more than being film directors: all three have drawn from the same esoteric source, the experimental and occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger. The connection is not new, but it has resurfaced after a thread pointed to Anger as the missing link between auteur cinema and conspiracy theories about Jack Parsons and a magic date: the 13th.
Anger, who died in 2023, was the enfant terrible of underground cinema, whose short film Lucifer Rising (shot intermittently between 1966 and 1980) has become a cult object. The film, with a soundtrack by Bobby Beausoleil –a Manson Family member convicted of murder–, is steeped in Thelemic symbolism, the doctrine of Aleister Crowley. Scorsese, as he confessed in several interviews, considers Anger a fundamental influence; Lynch copied entire shots from him, especially the industrial, dreamlike atmosphere of Eraserhead; and Franco, in an attempt at academic image-laundering, directed the 2013 short Interior. Leather Bar., a recreation of the lost scenes from Cruising that was in fact a tribute to Anger.
The theory linking the three to the death of Jack Parsons –the scientist and occultist who died in an explosion in 1952, not at the bottom of the sea in 1961 as some claim– rests on a declassified CIA file (number 2721799) which, according to conspiracy theorists, would prove an alternative death. Scorsese had a documentary about Parsons on his list of projects, Lynch flirted with Thelema, and Franco has played dead these past years. The coincidence is too juicy for lovers of theories.
But the true common denominator, beyond dubious files, is the legacy of Kenneth Anger. His cinema, laden with phallus symbolism and drawing-room satanism, has permeated three generations of filmmakers. Does that miccionan Scorsese, Lynch and Franco are part of a hidden lodge? Probably not. What is certain is that Anger gave them a visual vocabulary none of them has managed to shake off entirely.
And the question left hanging: what will happen on the 13th? The same as on the 12th and the 14th, probably. But don't tell those who already have the calendar marked.
Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and James Franco share more than being film directors: all three have drawn from the same esoteric source, the experimental and occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger. The connection is not new, but it has resurfaced after a thread pointed to Anger as the missing link between auteur cinema and conspiracy theories about Jack Parsons and a magic date: the 13th.
Anger, who died in 2023, was the enfant terrible of underground cinema, whose short film Lucifer Rising (shot intermittently between 1966 and 1980) has become a cult object. The film, with a soundtrack by Bobby Beausoleil –a Manson Family member convicted of murder–, is steeped in Thelemic symbolism, the doctrine of Aleister Crowley. Scorsese, as he confessed in several interviews, considers Anger a fundamental influence; Lynch copied entire shots from him, especially the industrial, dreamlike atmosphere of Eraserhead; and Franco, in an attempt at academic image-laundering, directed the 2013 short Interior. Leather Bar., a recreation of the lost scenes from Cruising that was in fact a tribute to Anger.
The theory linking the three to the death of Jack Parsons –the scientist and occultist who died in an explosion in 1952, not at the bottom of the sea in 1961 as some claim– rests on a declassified CIA file (number 2721799) which, according to conspiracy theorists, would prove an alternative death. Scorsese had a documentary about Parsons on his list of projects, Lynch flirted with Thelema, and Franco has played dead these past years. The coincidence is too juicy for lovers of theories.
But the true common denominator, beyond dubious files, is the legacy of Kenneth Anger. His cinema, laden with phallus symbolism and drawing-room satanism, has permeated three generations of filmmakers. Does that miccionan Scorsese, Lynch and Franco are part of a hidden lodge? Probably not. What is certain is that Anger gave them a visual vocabulary none of them has managed to shake off entirely.
And the question left hanging: what will happen on the 13th? The same as on the 12th and the 14th, probably. But don't tell those who already have the calendar marked.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (10 replies).
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