Kenneth Anger, ‘Hollywood Babylon’ Author and Experimental Filmmaker, Dies at 96

Kenneth Anger has passed away.

Kenneth Anger, an experimental filmmaker, artist, and writer, has passed away. He was 96.

“Kenneth was a trailblazer," as stated on the website of the gallery he ran with Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers. "His cinematic genius and influence will live on and continue to transform all those who encounter his films, words and vision.”

In the statement announcing his death, Sprüth and Magers wrote, “Anger considered cinematographic projection a psychosocial ritual capable of unleashing physical and emotional energies. The artist saw film as nothing less than a spiritual medium, a conveyer of spectacular alchemy that transforms the viewer.”

Anger, who was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1927, produced around 30 short films between 1937 and 2013, his first one coming out when he was just 10 years old. Known as "one of America's first openly gay filmmakers," he built a reputation for delving into erotica and homosexuality decades before gay sex was accepted in America.

Anger won praise for his homoerotic 1947 movie "Fireworks," which led to his being sued for obscenity. "Fireworks" is regarded as the first gay narrative film made in the United States and was shot in the actor's childhood home in Beverly Hills when his parents were gone for the weekend.