Fireworks (1947)
Director: Kenneth Anger; Assistant Camera Operator: Chester Kessler; Music: extracto from Trilogia Romana by Ottorino Respighi – Production: Kenneth Anger – Country: United States – Running Time: 14’
Cast: Kenneth Anger (Dreamer), Gordon Gray (First Sailor), Bill Seltzer (Second Sailor)
The film:
"I shot my first series of short haiku with a 16mm camera; it was my apprenticeship among the wonders that surrounded me, waiting to be discovered, ready to meet and live their magical essence through the selection. At the age of 17 I composed my first long poem, a succession of 15 minutes of images, my black tanka: Fireworks. I entirely watched this drama in the screen of my dreams. This vision could only be expressed in relationship with the instrument that conceived it. Fireworks was directed in 3 days, with 3 lights, a black dress as a décor, the greatest economy of the means and an enormous interior focus."
[Kenneth Anger, Il linguaggio semplice dell’arte del cinema in Paolo Bertetto (curated by), Il grande occhio della notte. Cinema d’Avanguardia Americano 1920-1990, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Torino; Lindau, 1993, p. 36]
The film restoration:
The preservation of Fireworks was realized by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino starting from a 16mm positive copy held by the Museum, part of Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle and acquired in 1992 by the director Kenneth Anger.
The preservation, aimed to print an internegative scene and sound with the successive synchronization of the image and sound, made possible the correction of the most evident signs of use of the original elements, the density of the image and, when necessary, of the color.
The work was conducted in 2010 by the laboratory Haghefilm Conservation B.V. Cineco in Amsterdam.
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