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Concept
Scorpio Rising (film)
Summary
Scorpio Rising is a 1963 American experimental short film shot, edited, co-written and directed by Kenneth Anger, and starring Bruce Byron as Scorpio. Loosely structured around a prominent soundtrack of 1960s pop music, it follows a group of bikers preparing for a night out.
Anger shot most of the film in New York City over the course of three months. His unique style makes extensive use of colorful non-diegetic lighting. Central themes include the occult, biker subculture, homosexuality, Christianity and Nazism. Scorpio Rising also explores the worship of rebel icons of the era, such as James Dean and Marlon Brando (referred to by Anger as Byron's "heroes").
The film premiered on October 29, 1963 at the Gramercy Arts Theater in New York City. It became the subject of protests and a lawsuit by the American Nazi Party, an obscenity prosecution overturned by the California Supreme Court, and a copyright lawsuit by the Lutheran Church. Scorpio Rising received praise from film critics and was credited with igniting leather gear and motorcycles as a fad in New York.
The film is recognized as a predecessor to the development of the modern music video and has influenced directors such as Martin Scorsese, John Waters, and Nicolas Winding Refn. In 2022, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Scorpio Rising is structured in four parts. In "Boys & Bolts" men work on their motorcycles. They dress themselves in leather and pose. "Image Maker" introduces the biker Scorpio. He gets ready to go out, and the film begins intercutting images of Jesus. "Walpurgis Party" shows a biker Sabbath. Their behavior escalates as they moon each other, simulate sodomy, and strip one man's clothes off and cover his genitals in mustard. In the final part "Rebel Rouser", Scorpio holds a destructive ceremony, intercut with images of Jesus, Adolf Hitler, and Nazi iconography.
Official source
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