Eaux d'Artifice
1953 film by Kenneth Anger
- 1953 (1953)
Running time
Eaux d'artifice (1953) is a short experimental film by Kenneth Anger.
Summary
The film consists entirely of a woman dressed in eighteenth-century clothes who wanders amidst the garden fountains of the Villa d'Este[1] ("a Hide and Seek in a night-time labyrinth"[2]) to the sounds of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", until she steps into a fountain and momentarily disappears.
Production
The film was shot in the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy. The actress, Carmilla Salvatorelli (not "Carmello"), was "a little midget" Anger had met through Federico Fellini.[3] Anger used a short actress to suggest a different sense of scale, whereby the monuments seemed bigger (a technique he said was inspired by etchings of the gardens in the Villa d'Este by Giovanni Battista Piranesi).[3]
Inspiration
The title, a play on words, is meant to suggest Feux d'artifice (Fireworks), in obvious reference to Anger's earlier 1947 work. Film critic Scott MacDonald has suggested that Fireworks was a film about the repression of (the film-maker's) homosexuality in the United States, whereas Eaux d'Artifice "suggests an explosion of pleasure and freedom."[3]
Legacy
In 1993, this short film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5]
See also
References
- ^ "Interview with Kenneth Anger". Electric Sheep. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
- ^ Haller, Robert A. (1990). "Kenneth Anger". The Equinox. 3 (10): 239–60. ISBN 9780877287193. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
- ^ a b c MacDonald, Scott (2006). A critical cinema: interviews with independent filmmakers. UCLA UP. pp. 27–30. ISBN 978-0-520-24595-2.
- ^ "Librarian Announces National Film Registry Selections (March 7, 1994) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
External links
- Eaux d'artifice at IMDb
- The entire film on Library of Congress official YouTube channel
- Eaux d’artifice essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 481-482
- Eaux d'Artifice at AllMovie
- v
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Kenneth Anger
- Fireworks
- Puce Moment
- Eaux d'artifice
- Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
- Scorpio Rising
- Kustom Kar Kommandos
- Invocation of My Demon Brother
- Lucifer Rising
- Rabbit's Moon
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