Eaux d’artifice

EN

“I went to Italy and lived in Rome to make Eaux d’artifice, which was filmed in Tivoli, a town about thirty miles from Rome, in the Alban Hills. The gardens in the film are part of the estate of the d’Este family. In those days, the eldest son of a wealthy family would go into the military, and the next son would go into the church, whether he was suited for it or not. And that’s what happened to the fellow who became the cardinal d’Este when he was only sixteen. He supervised the design of that garden on that hill; it was his place to have a good time. The garden is an amazing use of water as an element of architecture; hydraulics, just natural gravity, makes all the fountains work. 

The most surprising thing was that I was given permission by the Department of Antiquities in Italy to make my film. Those gardens are a tourist attraction, and I couldn’t just go in there with a camera and start filming. I had to block off certain sections of the garden so that I wouldn’t have tour guides and groups of tourists coming into my picture. I don’t know if a young American would be given that privilege today. They told me with good humor, “Don’t break any old statuary,” which I didn’t; I was respectful of everything. Sometimes an American Express guide behind my barrier would be shouting, “Hurry up! We have to get in because we have to go on to see Hadrian’s Villa!” But I was able to get the film shot.”

Kenneth Anger1

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  Kenneth Anger, cited in Scott MacDonald, A Critical Cinema 5. Interviews with Independent Filmmakers (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 28-29.