Eaux d'Artifice

Eaux d'artifice (1953) is a short experimental film by Kenneth Anger.

Eaux d'artifice
Directed byKenneth Anger
Produced byKenneth Anger
StarringCarmilla Salvatorelli
CinematographyKenneth Anger
Edited byKenneth Anger
Release date
  • 1953 (1953)
Running time
12 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

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
  1. "Interview with Kenneth Anger". Electric Sheep. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
  2. Haller, Robert A. (1990). "Kenneth Anger". The Equinox. 3 (10): 239–60. ISBN 9780877287193. Retrieved 23 August 2010.
  3. MacDonald, Scott (2006). A critical cinema: interviews with independent filmmakers. UCLA UP. pp. 27–30. ISBN 978-0-520-24595-2.
  4. "Librarian Announces National Film Registry Selections (March 7, 1994) - Library of Congress Information Bulletin". www.loc.gov. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  5. "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
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