Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising

Lucifer Rising can be understood as the culmination of Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle. The power of this film, in part, rests on the way in which Anger alludes to a range of esoteric myths and Gods, without contextualising them in the way a more traditional film would do. This article sets out to reveal the various allusions, and in turn elucidate Anger’s unique aproach to filmmaking.


Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising
Art. 2, page 3 of 51

Context of Lucifer Rising
Anger cites Georges Méliès and his films such films as The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906), as one of his key influences (Sitney, 2002: 108). Both filmmakers are magicians of sorts, "making transformations as well as reconstructions of reality," (Rowe, 1974: 26) with a mutual interest in the diabolical and the artificial. (Hutchinson, 2004: 186) Le Cain comments that Anger's wordless films "represent the resurgence and development of the uniquely cinematic qualities widely considered retarded or destroyed by the passing of the silent era, especially in the area of editing." (sensesofcinema.com, 2003) Anger emerged as a filmmaker in the 1940s while he was in his early 20s. In addition to being influenced by Méliès, he was shaped in spirit by the filmic poems of his artistic predecessors such as Jean Cocteau. Couched in Romanticism throughout his career, Anger's style may have been considered out of sync with the prevailing ideas in experimental film by the late 1960s when structuralist and materialist filmmaking was in vogue -movements which were in part intended to dispel the era of which Anger, Stan Brakhage and Maya Deren were figurehead exponents.
Yet to the current day, Anger remains one of the best known and widely written about avant-garde filmmakers, due in part to his pioneering work in breaking sexual taboos, and in his influence over counter cultural icons of the 1960s. Ed Lowry describes Anger as an artist defined by his dialectic relationship to the dominant ideological, industrial, cinematic and signifying practices. "Sexually, politically, aesthetically, cosmologically, Anger has cast himself and his work in a position not only outside the mainstream, but as its negative image." (Lowry, 1983: 41) Another explanation for his enduring appeal may lie in his unique, ritualised approach to cinema with its own peculiar representational systems. Deborah Allison has commented that while Anger's films are by no means the first works to fuse esoteric subject matter with artistic expression, "his choice of the cinema as a medium through which to offer his audience an experience structured by occult ritual endows his oeuvre with a startling originality." (sensesofcinema.com, 2004) Lucifer Rising was the final work in Anger's Magick Lantern Cycle. During the course of the film, we witness mortals invoking deities through ritual, and the gods invoke their power upon the natural elements. Sites of ancient solar religions are visited, and the alignment of the sun takes place during solstice. All of this is done in The soundtrack is by Bobby Beausoleil, an ex-member of the band Love, who was on death row at the time of the soundtrack's recording due to his association with the Manson family, and his part in the death of Gary Hinman (a hippie renaissance figure and drug dealer).
Describing the film's production as a 15-year struggle, (Anger, 2011) (Rayns, 1982) Anger edited an eight-minute version of the film entitled Lucifer Rising: Chapter One (1971), using the London-based footage. This centred on a Magus' ceremony around a magick circle in order to invoke Lucifer, and it ended like an episode of a serial. This initial version of the film was edited and toured, but the film wasn't completed until 1981 while Anger remained busy with other work in the 1970s. secured a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the film was completed and released in its final version in 1981 (Rayns, 1982).
The film was made with the support of film theorist Noël Burch, and the cameraman Michael Cooper (a still photographer best known for his cover photography on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the Rolling Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request). Robert Fraser, the noted London art dealer allowed Anger to film in his apartment for some of the scenes, and Wally Veevers -a special effects artist who worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), provided the title credits and the flying saucers at the end of the film. Anger was also assisted by the fellow Thelemite 1 Gerald J Yorke who served as a consultant.
Since the film was originally conceived in the late 1960s, the final product wasn't as timely as it would have been by the time it was released. Lucifer Rising was initially imagined as being about the 'holy war' between the outgoing Piscean Age and the incoming Aquarian Age, as manifest in the conflict between teenagers (specifically, hippies) and their parents. As it turned out, Anger came to think of the Haight-Ashbury movement and the summer of love as a "false dawn of optimism" (ratso. net, 2000) as it became poisoned by excessive drug taking and the Manson killings.
As such, while the film retains its distinct aesthetic appeal thanks to the striking use of symbolism and lack of traditional exposition, the holy war had all but lost its momentum by the time of Lucifer Rising's release.

Relation to Other Work
In a sense, Lucifer Rising could be considered the quintessential Kenneth Anger film.
Early in the film's development, he claimed that "Everything I've been saying so far has been leading up to this." (Anger, 1970: 16) This is true in reference to his previous allusions to esoteric religion, though it doesn't contain some of the tropes that he is best remembered for, such as the ironic music soundtrack of Scorpio Rising, or the overt homosexual references from Fireworks and Kustom Kar Kommandos.
1 Thelema is the esoteric religion from which Lucifer Rising draws most of its allusions. It can broadly be understood as a Pagan revival.

Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising
Art. 2, page 6 of 51 The film might also seem at odds with Anger's 1951 article for Cahiers du Cinema entitled 'Modesty and the Art of Film' -a call for small, personal movies instead of Hollywood spectacles. Lasting 28 minutes, it is lengthier than his previous works and the grand scale is also expressed by opening out the more self-contained worlds of his earlier films such as Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), Kustom Car Commandos (1965 or the claustrophobic Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969).

Carel Rowe comments:
In Lucifer, the camera at last liberates its subject matter from its usual medium-close-up iconography through a long-shot/long-take mise-enscène. A series of landscapes, seascapes, skyscapes gain mythical proportions through long-take montage; the long shots establish the vastness of the universe. (Rowe, 1974: 32)  In further reference to light, also consider the moonlit reverie of Rabbit's Moon, and the use of Claudine Clark's song "Party Lights" in Scorpio Rising. In Fireworks, The Dreamer goes out "seeking a light" (a colloquial term for seeking a homosexual encounter) (Anger, 1964: 31) and flames feature at several points in the film.
In Lucifer Rising, all of the divine characters are associated with different forms In Lucifer Rising, we are introduced to the Adept (Haydn Couts) when he awakens, suggesting that the preceding events may have been his dream. Lilith (Marianne Faithfull) also first appears awakening inside a stone sarcophagus.
Much has already been said to establish Scorpio Rising and Lucifer Rising as contrapuntal companion pieces (See: Hutchinson, Sitney). Their mutual use of the word Rising is immediately apparent. 'Rising' is an astrological term which also means ' ascendant'. Astrological belief prescribes that the celestial events which take place during a person's birth will bear an influence on their character. Scorpio is the sign of the zodiac that rules the sex organs and machinery -the two are connected

Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising
Art. 2, page 11 of 51 according to astrology, hence the fetishization of motorbikes in Scorpio. But while Scorpio is one of the zodiac signs, Lucifer isn't. In the case of Lucifer, the 'rise' refers to the rise of Lucifer's rule at the dawn of the Aquarian age.
Hutchinson comments on the dialectical relationship between both films by suggesting that "the thanatic death-wish of Scorpio is assuaged by the utopian mythopoeia of Lucifer Rising". (Hutchinson, 2004: 189) Scorpio Rising functions as a "death mirror held up to American culture" (Cott, 1970), inhabited by bikers who are inexorably magnetized towards their own demise -death is an ever-looming presence. In Scorpio Rising, the structure of the film is more easily discernible because each episode is edited to a different pop song. In Lucifer Rising, the extended score was written after the film was shot and assembled, and the end of each scene isn't always punctuated by a musical change.
A sign that Anger became more confident and sure-handed in the 20-year gap between Inauguration of the Pleasuredome and Lucifer Rising is that by the time he shot Lucifer, he was able to successfully transform the static and impassive statues depicting mythical icons into living flesh. Humans perform as deities in Inauguration, but in Lucifer the actors were taken to the original temples and monuments of the gods they were portraying, and the pairing feels congruous. Monuments which

Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising
Art. 2, page 13 of 51 would otherwise dwarf the human form now appear to be on equal terms. In a sense, Anger created his own 'mythic cinema' in an era when it may not have felt possible to do so, particularly since the sensual quality of film from Méliès' era, so evocative of a lost age, was long gone.

The Aesthetics of Ambiguity and Aleister Crowley
As stated in the introduction, traditional exposition is discarded in Lucifer Rising.
Le Cain comments that "In attempting to induce an altered state of consciousness in his viewers, Anger dispenses with traditional narrative devices" (sensesofcinema. com, 2003) Also, Rowe stated in 1974 that "To date, all of his films have been evocations or invocations, attempting to conjure primal forces which, once visually released, are designed to have the effect of ' casting a spell' on the audience. The magick in the film is related to the magick effect of the film on the audience." (Rowe, 1974: 26) Why would Anger's abandonment of traditional narrative devices serve to "cast a spell", or alter the consciousness of the viewers? Viewers of Lucifer Rising encounter a series of events, sacred symbols and allusions to esoteric religion, whose significance are obscure to most, but appear loaded with meaning. Those familiar with Anger's given viewing strategy, to think of the film as an invocation rather than a story, do not need to be acquainted with the relevant mythology.
In order to understand Kenneth Anger's various allusions and creative goals, the principal point of reference is Aleister Crowley (born 1875Crowley (born -died 1947. 3 Crowley was an English occultist and an influential member of occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis. He is known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law -the central sacred text of his own belief system, Thelema. Based on the dictum, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law", Thelema fused Egyptian, Judaic, Babylonian and Hindu mythology, and they all became one cosmic background for Crowley's 'religion of the will', which Anger has described as a Pagan revival, motivated by a love of the earth, rather than Christian guilt. (Anger, 2011) Crowley gained notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as "The wickedest man in the world." Despite the frequent assumption that "Do what thou Wilt" is solely an appeal to hedonism and promiscuity, Thelema as it was developed by Crowley was intended as a path of spiritual development based on seeking and putting into practice one's True Will, rather than the ego's desires (which was considered to be a separate aspect of the self). In her discussion of Anger and Crowley, Deborah Allison comments: For the Crowleyite, to invoke the force and power of a particular god does not necessarily presuppose a belief in his/her metaphysical or historical existence, nor the religious dogma surrounding that figure. It is simply a way of referencing a particular psychic force. (sensesofcinema.com, 2004) As such, rituals are to be understood as self-development techniques which could be employed to access aspects of one's inner self. Crowley himself has commented: It is immaterial whether [the gods] exist or not. By doing certain things certain results follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them. (Crowley quoted in Cavedish, 1984: 83) This isn't often explained when Crowley's lifework is contextualised. But it repositions his ethos from a curious, and to some, absurd way of operating into a radical but more pragmatic religious system.
One of Aleister Crowley's self portraits titled "The Sun" (painted in 1920) is homaged in Lucifer Rising: Anger has stated that his lifework isn't filmmaking, but magick, 4 with the cinematograph as his 'magical weapon.' As such, spectatorship of films from the Magick Lantern Cycle are intended to operate as Thelemic rituals, which cast a spell on viewers as they experience each film. But the reality of the spell is manifest through the feelings that are evoked by the film, rather than anything more ethereal. years, is skinning off the shell that's left over from the last era (Anger, 1966: 70) The final version of Lucifer Rising was also about this shift of eras. Crowley foresaw a cultural shift taking place and drew together two different sets of lore: the astrological age of Aquarius, and the Egyptian Aeon of Horus -both of which were due to begin at about the same time. 4 Crowley defines magick as "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with the will", including both mundane acts of will as well as ritual magic. The 'k' was added to distinguish it from stage magic.

Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising
Art. 2, page 17 of 51 In astrology, each age is approximately 2150 years long, depending on the technique used to calculate the cycles. Astrologers believe the ages correlate to the rise and fall of civilizations and cultural tendencies. Recent cultural changes are considered by some to indicate that we are shifting from the Piscean Age of Christian rule into the Aquarian Age, which is characterised by electricity, computers, flight, democracy, and (most notably for our purposes) nonconformity and rebellion, amongst other things. (Bills, 1993: 362) In addition to the technological developments of the last two centuries, members of the love generation (as non-conformists) took themselves as being indicative of this change -the 1967 musical Hair brought the idea of the Aquarian Age to the attention of a wide audience with its opening song, which announces "This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius".
In Egyptian lore, history is divided into a series of Aeons. According to Aleister

Character Roll Call
One of the unique renegotiations Anger makes with cinematic storytelling is the way in which he presents his characters. In Lucifer Rising, we are not granted explicit access to the characters' intentions, their inner thoughts or their moral character (as is conventional in cinematic storytelling). Anger relies on allusion to characterise the protagonists in Lucifer Rising, since we learn little about who they are through their actions. If you have a prior familiarity with the mythological figures, the protagonists are "pre-characterised." Otherwise, they are characterised via references which uninformed spectators won't detect. Some of these allusions will be explained. Anger adopted a technique pioneered by Sergei Eisenstein in which he refrained from naming his characters so that they could become paradigmatic types, rather than individuals. In the case of Scorpio Rising for instance, it's not ' a biker', but The Biker. (Lai, 2009) In Lucifer Rising, Anger frames his characters as both deities and forces of nature, rather than individual agents: I am trying to get away from identifying with actor or actress as a person. I want to move through nature, and the people are elements of nature also. (Anger quoted in Mekas, 1973: 16) Within Thelema, each deity embodies a different type of force that humans experience and embody (e.g. Isis is life, Osiris is death, Lilith is discontent, Lucifer is youth and disobedience). Powell suggests that by removing audience identification with psychologically rounded characters, Anger "draws us more directly into the forces they represent". (Powell, 2002: 92) There is a degree of convergence between the ideas of Eisenstein and Crowley which Anger was able to exploit. Eisenstein coined the concept of "typage," in which non actors are cast in roles that correspond to their actual lives, e.g. a factory labourer is played by a real factory labourer. As such, they give the film a natural integrity by token of embodying their true-to-life personas (Goodwin, 1993: 70). Similarly, Crowley coined the concept of the "dramatic ritual," in which you meditate on a god -for example the god of war (Mars), you then become war. You feel the god force coming through you, control it and manifest. In Lucifer Rising, Anger's non actors "manifest" and embody their roles by token of their real-life personalities. Osiris, the lord of death for example was portrayed by Donald Cammell who was obsessed with death. Lilith, the broken-hearted would-be bride of Lucifer was played by Marianne

Art. 2, page 19 of 51
Faithfull, who at the time was shattered following the dissolution of her relationship with Mick Jagger.
Some of the characters from Lucifer Rising will be contextualised in order to understand their place in the film more clearly, and their characterisation through allusion will also be explained.

Lucifer
Lucifer was originally the name of the 'morning star' given by the ancient Romans to the planet Venus. They noticed that it would rise before the sun, so they worshipped Venus as the star which heralds the sun -hence the Latin name Lucis Ferre (light bringer).
As a deity, Anger has commented that Lucifer is the love of his life (he has the name tattooed across his chest), and he spent the late 1960s and the 1970s trying to capture a succession of volatile non-actors in the role. His first Lucifer was a 5-year-old boy called Godot who killed himself while attempting to fly off a roof. The second, Bobby Beausoleil was convicted of murder. (Hutchinson, 2004: 185) Finally for Lucifer Rising, Anger found Lesley Huggins, a young Middlesbrough steel worker. He reportedly "had Lucifer in him", being stubborn by disposition, and like Lucifer, couldn't be persuaded or paid to dependably attend shooting sessions. (Anger, 2007) In spite of his capricious and rebellious nature, Lucifer is also the angel of light, who represents the spirit of love at the dawn of a new age. Anger commented that Lucifer is the "patron saint of the visual arts. Colour, form, all these are the works of Lucifer." (Anger quoted in Hutchinson, 2004: 174) Carel Rowe comments, "Lucifer's sin lies in out-doing God. He is seen not as a leader but as the totally independent original rebel; the Luciferian spirit manifests itself in the spirit of the artist, not as a Hell's Angel." (Rowe, 1974: 27) Anger referred to Lucifer as the original rebellious teenager during a screening of Lucifer Rising: Chapter 1: It all began with a child playing with a chemistry set that exploded. An innocent, pure child prodigy, creating for the joy of it, just as Lucifer created his Restoring Lucifer to his pre-Christian status as "the Bringer of Light" is an implicit part of Thelema. Crowley also imagined Lucifer as a precocious and rebellious teenager -his poem "Hymn to Lucifer" (written in 1919), closes with the line that Lucifer's message is "The Key of Joy is disobedience." 6 The rituals and invocations that take place in Lucifer Rising are in preparation for Lucifer's rule, and the coming of the Aquarian Age.
There are two other mythological figures with whom Lucifer has been conflated.
First of all, there is Puck, the spirit of mischief (and the name of Anger's production company). Also, the aforementioned Egyptian god Horus, who was represented as a falcon, or a falcon-headed man, that was subsumed into Lucifer by Thelemic doctrine.
Horus served a variety of functions in the Egyptian pantheon, most notably as being the god of the Sky, the god of War and the god of Protection. A falcon appears briefly in Lucifer Rising. 5 Quoted from Kenneth Anger at a presentation of an early version of Lucifer Rising, San Francisco Art Institute, April, 1974. 6 The complete poem is available at: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hymn-to-lucifer/.

Art. 2, page 21 of 51
Throughout the film Lucifer looks directly at the camera, as if he were privy to the audience. Sometimes he is neutral and expressionless, while at other times he smiles.
The first time we encounter Lucifer, his face is tinted green. In her colour analysis of Invocation of My Demon Brother, Deborah Allison states that of all the colours, green might have the most contradictory set of emotions. Quoting Eisenstein, she comments that green is "directly associated with the symbols of life -young leafshoots, foliage and 'greenery' itself -just as firmly with the symbols of death and decay -leaf-mould, slime, and the shadows on a dead face" (Allison, 2004). As such, perhaps the film is refraining from disclosing the nature of Lucifer at that point.
Later, adorned in black and white, Lucifer approaches the camera and looks directly at it, again without smiling. A clue to the use of colour symbology in this sequence might come from Hutchinson's comment that Horus didn't attempt to defeat evil, but rather he channelled it: "His mission was not to eliminate evil, the negative, but to master it according to the balance of the two polarities bringing harmony to the universe; reuniting disparate elements." (Hutchinson, 2004: 184) In turn, Horus-as-Lucifer draws opposites together (black and white), without fusing them (grey).
Allison has also commented that during the production of Invocation of my Demon Brother, Anger's conception of Lucifer was still closely tied to Mars (the planet and the god) (Allison, 2004). According to Crowley, forces have sets of correspondences, and Mars corresponds with fire, violence, destruction, iron, the basilisk, the oak, the nettle, the ruby, tobacco, the astrological sign of Scorpio and the colour red. (Crowley, 1991: 303) As such, Lucifer is painted red during his birthday scene. Note that Lucifer (or rather, Satan) is associated with the colour red in popular mythology as well.
While Lucifer is not solely to be understood as evil, he is not to be mistaken as benign either. He is, after all aligned with fire, violence and destruction. After encountering him for the first time, we see a threatening face that resembles a snake superimposed on top of the earth boiling.

Art. 2, page 23 of 51
In addition to Lucifer being aligned with the falcon (as Horus) he also appears as a snake. The Christian conception of Lucifer is otherwise avoided, but Satan is referred to as the "old serpent" in Revelations (12:9), and it is also a disobedient snake that tempts Eve with the fruit of knowledge from the garden of Eden -a figure that has been conflated with Lucifer. The closing image of Lucifer Rising features earth beneath the shadow of Lucifer as a cobra.

Isis
Isis is a part of the Ennead, a group of nine deities who were worshipped in Egyptian mythology. They consisted of the sun god and supreme deity Atum-Ra, his children Shu and Tefnut, their children Geb and Nut, and their children Set, Nephthys, Osiris and Isis.
Worshipped as the Goddess of motherhood, magic and fertility, the first records concerning Isis appear shortly after 2,500 B.C. Her worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, continuing until the suppression of Paganism in the Christian era.
Her name translates roughly as "She of the Throne". Accordingly, Isis' original headdress was shaped like a throne. After she assimilated many of the roles of Hathor (the goddess who personified the principles of love, motherhood and joy) (Allen, 2005: 432), her headdress was replaced with that of Hathor's: the horns of a cow on her head, with the solar disk between them (as seen in the film). In Lucifer Rising, Isis is dressed authentically to the original images and dons both headdresses.
Isis is portrayed in Lucifer Rising by Myriam Gibril, an Ethiopian Princess who was the real-life lover of Donald Cammell, who plays Osiris. 7

Osiris
Both husband and brother to Isis and father of Horus, Osiris was the god of death and resurrection. Despite being the lord of the dead, Osiris was considered a kindly and merciful judge in the afterlife.
His green skin symbolizes re-birth. Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the Atef crown and carrying a flail and crook, signposting him as a shepherd god. Just as Anger's Lucifers were mischievous and difficult to control in real life, Cammell was obsessed with death -notably, his own. He openly contemplated suicide numerous times and eventually did so in 1996. There is nothing within the film to tell us that Cammell was obsessed with death, so Anger's use of typage operates on the faith that Cammell's obsession with death would be inscribed in his performance, even without spoken dialogue. His death-obsessed soul shines forth.

Lilith
Lucifer Rising has been described as a film about love -but the violence of love as well as the tenderness. (Anger, 1970: 16) As such, the joyful union of Isis and Osiris is counterbalanced by Lilith, the rejected and heartbroken would-be consort to Lucifer. Lilith wanted to take Lucifer's power, but facing repudiation, she spends eternity encircling the earth like a 'satellite of misfortune' (Anger, 2011 and Jewish folklore. She is the spirit of discontent in female form, powerful but unhappy.
Her name translates roughly into "female night demon," and she is a bearer of storms, disease, and death. In Lucifer Rising, Lilith's tragedy and catastrophic powers feature, she leaves a trail of destruction behind her when she is introduced, and her tears invoke a storm towards the end of the film.
Using typage again, Anger gave the role of Lilith to Marianne Faithfull. Marianne holds a scarf stained with her own blood following an attempted suicide after a painful breakup with Mick Jagger. 8 Using her state of mind at the time for the purposes of the film as a heartbroken spirit of discontent is dubious, but consistent with his method of using typage. Marianne's misery would have reminded Anger of Lilith.
She is seen in two different guises in Lucifer Rising. In some scenes, Lilith appears in ordinary clothes. In other scenes, she is dressed and powdered grey. According to Crowley's colour symbolism, grey is associated with night, fog and discontent (Anger, 2011

Conclusion
For some, the appeal of Lucifer Rising derives from abandoning the need to know all the information and contextualisation which transforms it into a narrative film.
For others, the absence of such information only serves to alienate. Commenting on audience ambivalence, Bill Landis says: The specifically Thelemic associations can make Lucifer Rising initially cold and inaccessible to viewers not versed in such matters, and, admittedly, the narrative is more internalized than any film Anger has made. Yet everyone can appreciate the film as a beautiful work of art in a purely visceral sense. (Landis, 1995: 235) Taberham: Style, Structure and Allusion in Lucifer Rising Art. 2, page 48 of 51 Although Lucifer Rising is intended to be interpreted as a religious film, it takes a different path to the grandiose approach of Cecil B DeMille, or the spartan and ascetic films of Carl Dreyer and Robert Bresson, all of whom can be considered to have made 'religious films.' This isn't necessarily a matter of Christianity evoking a different aesthetic to Thelema. Lucifer Rising, and the Magic Lantern Cycle more broadly need not be thought of as the most natural form or style to which Thelema should be treated. Rather, his style emerges from a combination of Thelemic imagery, the influence of other filmmakers, and Anger's own peculiar set of aesthetic values.
The length of time it took to make Lucifer Rising perhaps speaks of its density as well. For all the costumes, set designs, places visited, he was notably unscrupulous in his editing, using only 28 minutes from an alleged 17 hours of footage (Hutchinson, 2004: 185). Several costumes and props made for the film only appear very briefly.  (Rowe, 1974: 31). A detail from one of John Martin's illustrations for a 19 th century edition of Paradise Lost titled "Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council" is homaged in Lucifer Rising.

Art. 2, page 49 of 51
It should be understood that Lucifer Rising is still evocative and resonant without contextualising the various references therein. For some, explaining every allusion may drain away the film's poetic character while for others it will enrich one's experience. Appreciating Lucifer Rising without understanding the allusions makes it resonate in a broad and un-specific way, but getting to grips with the points of reference makes the film less fluid, more linear, and more cohesive. In turn, we may better understand the nature of Anger's unique contribution to cinematic language, and how others may follow the distinctive path he has forged.