Kenneth Anger - Hollywood Babylon
I chose the book Kenneth Anger - Hollywood Babylon, being a great fan of gossip and the yellow press as a means of distraction and reflection on society and being curious about the history of the entertainment machine. It is a certain thrill to gain knowledge and dive deeper into networks of the glittering elite to see the slick, smooth shells slither of, and something else emerges.
While reading many presumptions were somehow enforced or completely destroyed: Thinking about the #MeToo Movement, and reflecting on the elite and people in charge, like Harvey Weinstein, who created horrible power and corruption systems, whether it is politics linked to corruption and spiced up with drugs, might lead you to think the present is the most morally degraded time and you may forget that this chaos has existed since more than hundred years or even thousands of years quoting Terence: „Nothing human is foreign to me“.
Kenneth Anger was a filmmaker and a visionary, as-well as a provocateur whose work challenged cinema and culture. Despite the controversies that surrounded him, Anger’s contributions to avant-garde cinema and American queer art remain foundational and influential. He wrote books and movies in the 1970s about the beginning of Hollywood and the swamp and lure of crime. By the 1910s, Hollywood’s (sic! Hollywood Land) orange groves gave way to movie studios as the film industry boomed. Once an agricultural hub, the region swiftly transformed into a cinematic powerhouse with companies like Paramount, and Warner Bros. leading the charge.
Cocaine was the drug of daily use, as well as morphine to work full time on set after a nights out. The stars and extras did not drink during the week but forgot who they were on the weekend. With booze off the market, Hollywood relied on bootleggers. Smuggled liquor was distributed via Canada and Mexico, fueling frequented speakeasies with gangsters like Bugsy Siegel turning Prohibition into a golden age of illicit glamour and crimes committed by prominent figures. Charly Chaplin married an underage girl and had to pay in the divorce as her family was suing him for statuary rape, meaning sex with a minor. These horrific crimes were already well established at that time …
The actor Roscoe Arbuckle killed and raped the beautiful movie star Virginia Rappe during an orgy. Even though there were witnesses and evidence, everybody was afraid to rally. The famous publishing chef Hearst killed a man on his boat, but nobody spoke out about his crime because of his power and influence. Mae West, the beautiful actress, was too hot to handle: a catholic lay man created a codex for creating pure movies—new movie concepts had to get the seal before being realized.
Reading this book is like watching many movies and reels altogether, a thriller, a crime scene or a tabloid and yellow page magazine. The chapters have catchy titles and intriguing storylines. You are hinged and want to deep dive into Hollywood nostalgia. A glossy and luxurious society, sotted in liquor and „coked up“ created a turbulent joyride and thrill for the reader, with an unavoidable crashing. This creates a basis of understanding of the cultural and power structures in show business and in the culture industry lasting until today.
Kenneth Anger
Hollywood Babylon
New York 1975
Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
Elisa Mirbach-Eder
