Puce Moment
{{Infobox film
| name = Puce Moment
| image =
| caption =
| director = Kenneth Anger
| producer =
| writer =
| starring = Yvonne Marquis
| music = Jonathan Halper
| cinematography =
| editing =
| distributor =
| released = {{Film date|1949}}
| runtime = 6 mins
| country = United States
| language =
| budget =
}}
Puce Moment is a 1949 short 6-minute film by Kenneth Anger.[https://mubi.com/en/us/films/puce-moment MUBI]
Summary
The film opens with a camera watching 1920s-style flapper gowns being taken off a dress rack. The dresses are removed and danced off the rack to music. A long-lashed woman, Yvonne Marquis, dresses in the dark green gown and walks to her vanity to apply perfume. She lies on a chaise longue which then begins to move around the room and eventually out to a patio. Borzois appear and she prepares to take them for a walk.[https://www.popmatters.com/kenneth-anger-puce-moment-camp How Kenneth Anger Created Camp Cinema with His Short Film, 'Puce Moment'|PopMatters]
Production
File:Kenneth Anger FFFM 3.jpg in 2019]]
Filmed in 1949, Puce Moment resulted from the unfinished short film Puce Women. The original soundtrack was Verdi opera music; in 1970, Anger re-released the film with a new psychedelic folk-rock soundtrack performed by Jonathan Halper.
The gowns used were owned by Anger's grandmother, who had been a costume designer in the silent film era.{{cite news|title=New DVDs: Films of Kenneth Anger and Samurai Classics|last=Kehr|first=Dave|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/movies/homevideo/23dvd.html?pagewanted=all|newspaper=New York Times|date=23 January 2007|accessdate=27 July 2014}} The interior shots were filmed in the house of Samson De Brier, who later appeared in Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954). The exterior shots of the patio were filmed at the house of Max Rapp, who was an orchestra contractor at Universal Pictures. The house had been built by Wallace Beery in 1924 and was one of the first Hollywood Mansions in the Hollywood Dell.
Anger attempts to recreate silent era style by using alternating camera speeds. Curtis Harrington was a cinematographer on the film.
Yvonne Marquis, who was Anger's cousin,{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/147406/Puce-Moment/overview|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131028021229/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/147406/Puce-Moment/overview|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 October 2013|title=Movies: Puce Moment (1949)|first=David|last=Lewis|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|publisher=Baseline & All Movie Guide|date=2013|accessdate=27 July 2014}} moved to Mexico shortly after the film was made.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb title|0041771}}
{{Kenneth Anger}}
{{Authority control}}