Kenneth Anger

I just received the following e-mail from a person calling himself Rex Coronatus:

"It's over with for Kenneth Anger. Tax problems... His age... his dreams are of Byzantine proportions, but in reality, he is a pitiful, spiteful old man, who would have given anything to have traded places with Victor Neuburg."

Perhaps, perhaps... but let's remember Kenneth Anger as what he once was: an innovative film-maker creating some of the most original works of avantgarde cinema. Too bad if he couldn't live up to it in his later years.

I met Mr. Anger personally in 1998 when he attended Tampere Short Film Festival, and my copy of Midnight Movies now wears his autograph. Instead of a demon in human disguise, in his pullover and wide American smile, he made me more an impression of a Hollywood senior citizen, albeit a slightly lecherous one.