In an opening voiceover, director and star Kenneth Anger describes Fireworks as “the explosive pyrotechnics of a dream.” That’s not hyperbole. In the 15 minutes or so that follow, we witness a tortured reverie involving bleary street lights, bloody noses, bare torsos, and United States Navy soldiers who offer both enticement and abuse. It all certainly proceeds like a dream, but these are also the explosive pyrotechnics of an id bravely laid bare, especially for 1947. Fireworks is a forerunner of gay cinema, then, while also fascinating for the ways it borrowed from contemporary influences (the reverie of Jean Cocteau; the body horror of Luis Buñuel) to pave the way for primal imaginists who were yet to come. (For all his originality, it’s hard to imagine the work of David Lynch without this.)
