Puce Moment

{{Short description|1949 short film by Kenneth Anger}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{Infobox film | name = Puce Moment | image = Puce Moment.jpg | alt = Film title card with "PUCE MOMENT" in tall pink letters with a glowing teal outline on a black background | caption = Title card | director = [[Kenneth Anger]] | producer = | writer = | starring = [[Yvonne Marquis]] | music = [[Jonathan Halper]] | cinematography = [[Curtis Harrington]] | editing = | distributor = | released = {{Film date|1949}} | runtime = 6 minutes | country = United States | language = | budget = }} '''''Puce Moment''''' is a 1949 6-minute [[short subject|short]] [[film]] by [[Kenneth Anger]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://mubi.com/en/us/films/puce-moment|title=Puce Moment|website=MUBI|access-date=September 6, 2025}}</ref>

==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 [[puce]] 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. [[Borzoi]]s appear and she prepares to take them for a walk.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.popmatters.com/kenneth-anger-puce-moment-camp|title=How Kenneth Anger Created Camp Cinema with His Short Film, 'Puce Moment'|website=PopMatters|date=August 7, 2019 |access-date=September 6, 2025}}</ref>

==Cast==

The only actor in the film is Yvonne Marquis, who was Anger's cousin.<ref>{{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=October 28, 2013|title=Movies: ''Puce Moment'' (1949)|last=Lewis|first=David|work=[[The New York Times]]|year=2013|access-date=July 27, 2014}}</ref> This was her last film, and shortly after the film was made she moved to Mexico.

==Production== 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.<ref>{{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|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=January 23, 2007|access-date=July 27, 2014}}</ref> 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]].{{citation needed|date=September 2025}} The house had been built by [[Wallace Beery]] in 1924 and was one of the first Hollywood Mansions in the [[Hollywood Dell, Los Angeles|Hollywood Dell]].{{citation needed|date=September 2025}}

Anger attempts to recreate silent era style by using alternating camera speeds. [[Curtis Harrington]] was a cinematographer on the film.

The sequence where Marquis travels by chaise longue was inspired by paintings of [[Florine Stettheimer]]. <ref>{{cite AV media |date=2007 |title= The Films of Kenneth Anger Volume 1. Puce Moment with commentary|type= DVD|publisher= Fantoma}}</ref>

[[File:Brooklyn Museum - Heat - Florine Stettheimer - overall.jpg|thumb|center|''Heat'', c. 1919, by Florine Stettheimer, oil on canvas. This is an example of the kind of painting that inspired the chaise longue scene.]]

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{IMDb title|0041771}}

[[Category:1949 films]] [[Category:Films directed by Kenneth Anger]] [[Category:1949 American films]] [[Category:1949 short films]] [[Category:American silent short films]]