![]() ![]() In July 1969, acting on orders from Charles Manson, Beausoleil killed his friend Gary Hinman, afterwards writing ‘Political Piggy’ on Hinman’s wall in his own blood. Kenneth Anger, Invocation of My Demon Brother, 1969, film still. Finally, Beausoleil appears partly cloaked in darkness, raising his arms victoriously, the rest of his body illuminated by a reticular red light. At the end of the film, an ambiguous creature descends from a staircase with a sign that reads: ‘ZAP / YOU’RE PREGNANT / THAT’S WITCHCRAFT’. In Invocation, a cast of magnetic young occultists – including Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan – smoke weed out of a small skull, participate in a satanic ritual featuring a cat and march in an otherworldly procession dressed in extravagant garb. Most notably, he appears in Kenneth Anger’s 1969 11-minute film titled Invocation of My Demon Brother. He also had a small role in Robert Carl Cohen’s Mondo Hollywood (1967), the trippy exploitation documentary about counterculture Hollywood. Watching it reminded me of one of those historical characters who came to embody the age: Bobby Beausoleil, a flower-child who played in various bands, including some which would produce the members of the psychedelic rock outfit Love. Quentin Tarantino’s latest feature, Once Upon a Time In … Hollywood (2019), takes place in the grimy and glamorous underbelly of Hollywood in 1969, where Steve McQueen and Charles Manson occupy the same psychic – and physical – landscape. Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood, 2019. The arcs of these exemplary lives – Jesus, Napoleon and Sharon Tate, say – stand in for longer histories that are stranger and more difficult to comprehend. But more celebrated than their victories are their downfalls, which often illustrate the incendiary excesses of an era. The most compelling historical characters are the ones who embody the promise of their era their successes are the successes of a generation. ![]()
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