Scorpio Rising (film)  

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"Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising was an inverted musical of sorts and a camp commentary on Hollywood mythology."--Sholem Stein


"When Scorpio Rising was — we've forgotten, in a sense, that it was a groundbreaker, legally. Because there are only a few flashes of nudity, genitalia, whatever in the film, I mean, they're very, very short and, if you blink, you won't even see them. At any rate, when it was shown, at the Cinema — it was called the Cinema on Western Avenue in Hollywood — the premiere run, someone denounced it to the Hollywood vice squad and they raided the theater and took the print. And the case had to go to the California Supreme Court to be freed and then it became, like, a landmark case of redeeming social merit. That was the phrase that was used to justify that it wasn't pornography. And, indeed, there's nothing pornographic about it. Somebody had to break the ice and have that kind of case at that time to establish the freedom, because, before then, the police could seize anything they wanted to. What I was doing on the West Coast, Jack Smith was doing on the East Coast with Flaming Creatures. The two films happened at about the same time." --Kenneth Anger


"For Anger's protagonists, he said, “death alone is ennobling—not life, not art, not culture.” Both Scorpio Rising and The Wild Angels reference The Wild One (1953), and the latter's debt to the Brando picture was noted in responses to ..."--Hoodlum Movies (2018) by Peter Stanfield


"In Scorpio Rising the implied homoerotic charge of The Wild One becomes overt. Brimming with the semiotics of moral and sexual transgression, Scorpio Rising gives full play to the mythologies that formulate the biker as a symbol of ..."--Underground U.S.A.: Filmmaking Beyond the Hollywood Canon (2003) by Xavier Mendik and ‎Steven Jay Schneider


"... screen as Johnny in The Wild One and also scenes from Family Films' “The Living Bible: Last Journey to Jerusalem. ... Scorpio Rising is not so much a display of masculinity as a conscious exhibition of the signs of masculinity."--Male Beauty: Postwar Masculinity (2014) by Kenneth Krauss

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Scorpio Rising (1963) is a short film by Kenneth Anger, starring Bruce Byron (whom Anger asserts was "half-crazy") as Scorpio. Themes central to the film include homosexual erotica, the occult, biker subculture, Catholicism, and Nazism; the film also explores the worship of rebel icons of the era, namely James Dean and Marlon Brando (referred to by Anger as Byron's "heroes"). As with many of Anger's films, the film does not contain any dialogue; it instead features a prominent soundtrack consisting of 60s pop, including songs by Ricky Nelson, The Angels, The Crystals, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, and Ray Charles.

Soundtrack

Scorpio Rising is considered by some to be the first drama film to feature a rock & roll soundtrack. Another of Anger's films which utilizes a rock & roll soundtrack (Rabbit's Moon), though filmed fourteen years before Scorpio Rising, was not completed until 1972.

  1. Ricky Nelson – "Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)"
  2. Little Peggy March – "Wind-Up Doll"
  3. The Angels – "My Boyfriend's Back"
  4. Bobby Vinton – "Blue Velvet"
  5. Elvis Presley – "(You're the) Devil in Disguise"
  6. Ray Charles – "Hit the Road Jack"
  7. Martha and the Vandellas – "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave"
  8. The Crystals – "He's a Rebel"
  9. Claudine Clark – "Party Lights"
  10. Kris Jensen – "Torture"
  11. Gene McDaniels – "Point of No Return"
  12. Little Peggy March – "I Will Follow Him"
  13. Surfaris – "Wipe Out"


See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Scorpio Rising (film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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