Wordless imagery, saturated colors, avant-garde, myth-ridden – a few of a handful of terms to describe Kenneth Anger’s short films. His work is dazzling, surreal, and certainly a hallmark that pioneered the very language of music videos.Prior to this UCLA Film Archive high definition digital transfer, these early films of Anger were difficult to view. This collection of work is only a part of his work; several others can be found in Volume II. Here, we have his early works, Fireworks, Puce Moment, Rabbit’s Moon, Eaux d’Artifice, and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, each savory in magical moments, imagination, rituals, and pop-song splendor.
In each short film we enter a world unique in their own ways. Fireworks is gay cinema’s first monumental work, where a dream lies within a dream. The dissatisfied dreamer, played by Anger, is seventeen, and he embarks on a sexual journey with American sailors and returns to bed “less empty than before.” The beautiful 16mm black and white imagery compliments the trance-like structure, and its homage to Jean Cocteau’s baroque style and themes of social repression of sexuality place the film in the radical post-war American avant-garde.
16 shorts, 16 stories, 16 tales that prove shorts can have as much power as feature films. What makes these shorts stand out from others is the attention to detail, since shorts tend to be more focused. The styles vary as each work holds its own, and while it is interesting to see famed directors' shorts (often their first or beginning works), the ones that are from lesser-known directors are most refreshing. Yet– watching the works of directors such as Christopher Nolan or Lars Von Trier gives viewers more insight into what their visions were in a more attentive short form. 
