Chapter 4 “Underground Film: Leaping form the Grave” presents the stark contrast from Hollywood’s studio produced narrative features to the rise of underground film. Avant-Garde was embodied by two movements consisting of new filmic achievements of the movies themselves and the intertextual dialogue underground movies held with Hollywood. The unique ideology of underground cinema is derived from bohemian subcultures of New York and San Francisco. Hallucinogenic drugs and rock music became the focus of the counterculture for the new generation. The dialogue that arose between Hollywood and the underground was unintentional. Most experimental filmmakers had a desire to create an alternative to Hollywood rather than reform it. However, the intertextuality between independent and Hollywood film was inevitable because they faced similar material sphere production, distribution, and consumption. Therefore, contrasting Hollywood’s stylistic and cultural mode granted a form of identity to the underground.
    Kenneth Anger’s work largely falls into this category. The section of the chapter on Kenneth Anger takes a very interesting approach to his films in that they all make an attempt to capture Lucifer; however, Anger followed Aleister Crowley’s interpretation of the demon rather than the devil of Christianity. Anger’s Lucifer was indistinct and arbitrary compared to the distinctive evil of Satan ascribed by western culture. Thus, Anger’s films, most notably Scorpio Rising, reiterate the duality of Hollywood public and personal social lives Anger described in his book Hollywood Babylon. In doing so, Anger reiterates the importance of Hollywood, as Scorpio Rising uses footage of The Wild One and The Road to Jerusalem. The primary ambiguity of Scorpio Rising is sexual presenting both homosexual and female images. In this frame, cultural icons are challenged and subject to reinterpretation. The film even destabilizes images within itself. Scorpio’s character is elevated by comparison to Christ. However, Christ’s image is undermined by connecting it to Hitler. The ambiguity of Anger’s work provides a critique of the received values which dominate popular culture.
    Renewal for Hollywood industry could only come through independent film as Hollywood was strictly adhering to its traditional functions and resisting change, even as those function were being replaced by television and popular music. Experimental cinema of the 1960’s provided examples of ways Hollywood could connect with a shifting youth culture. Eventually, the Vietnam War ended the underground movement polarizing culture and creating atmosphere where frivolous detachment could not survive.

 
    Kate Haug’s 1996 interview with Kenneth Anger attempts to clarify the ambiguity of the unpredictable experimentation associated with his work, and to understand his techniques for confusing accepted Hollywood styles. Anger portrays himself as a pragmatist who is relatively normal in comparison to a filmmaker like Jack Smith who Anger considered a nut case. In his responses, Anger removes his own agency in crafting some of the bizarre elements that appear in his films. For example, the images of James Dean and Nazi symbols reflected the interests of the actor Bruce Byron who played Scorpio. Anger did take credit for the emphasis on death and morbidity, as it was his take on the inherent danger of riding motorcycles and motorcycle culture.
    In the interview, Anger expressed his desire to represent real life subjects in his films, which led him to relay his skeptical opinions on documentaries. His concepts seemed to align with those of Direct Cinema of the 1960’s including a distrust of voiceover narration, and the awareness that the presence of the camera changes peoples’ actions. Much of Scorpio Rising is composed of candid shots of the bikers behaving as they would normally, although he admits to having encouraged their exhibitionism, Anger contends it is not a documentary because the film expresses his distinct, artistic perspective of the subject.
    Anger also logically describes his musical selection as a gentle form of irony citing the scene with Blue Velvet in Scorpio Rising in which a young biker dresses himself with as much narcissism as the female character in the song. However, Anger distinguishes this from mockery or belittling people claiming a good deal, clearly not all, of the homoeroticism in Scorpio Rising was a result of the bikers wanting their girlfriends out of the shots.
    Although Anger presents himself as highly rational, he expresses distaste for life being “bland like Disneyland,” and several of his anecdotal digressions reveal his obsession with immersing himself in strange social circles. In this manner, he maintains a coherent approach to his art while receiving inspiration from sources on the fringe of customary society.