Scorpio Rising (1963)
★ — Scorpio Rising (1963)
Kenneth Anger had already made a name for himself in underground cinema with Fireworks (1947) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954) before completing Scorpio Rising on a budget of around $16,000, most of it self-financed over a shoot that stretched across several years in Brooklyn. The film belongs firmly to the American underground cinema movement of the early 1960s, a loose, prolific scene that included Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, and which operated entirely outside the Hollywood studio system. Anger's use of pre-existing pop songs on the soundtrack was legally contentious at the time and is now widely credited as a direct precursor to the modern music video format. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964 and subsequently seized by Los Angeles police on obscenity grounds, a prosecution that was eventually thrown out.
Scorpio Rising (1963) is 28 minutes of leather-clad bikers meticulously polishing boots, adjusting zippers, and posing in front of mirrors, all set to a jukebox soundtrack of 1960s pop hits. Kenneth Anger's experimental short may have been groundbreaking for its time (pioneering the music-video format and layering homoerotic subtext over rebel iconography) but as a viewing experience today, it's glacially dull. There's no narrative, no tension, no evolution, just repetitive tableaus of narcissistic posturing stretched far beyond their conceptual expiration date. The soundtrack is great. The editing occasionally winks with irony. But these flashes of style can't sustain interest when the content itself is so inert. What might have felt transgressive in 1963 now reads as a fetishistic mood board with delusions of depth. A historically notable curio, but a slog to actually watch. Influence doesn't equal entertainment. Sometimes a film's importance is best appreciated in a textbook, not on screen.
Rating: ★ | Year: 1963 | Watched: 2026-03-13
Related on Movies With Macca
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More music: Style Wars (1983) · 8 Mile (2002) · Chicken for Linda! (2023) · Tender Mercies (1983)
