Ken Russell Films
Ken Russell changed films and television forever. Along with Ken Loach he brought a sophistication and artistry to the medium, while keeping a mass audience. His Elgar and Song of Summer (about Delius) were the best loved television programmes of their era. His film about Shostakovich can still take your breath away, and his technique of using music rather than talking heads in documentaries about musicians still defeats many documentary makers today.
When he moved to cinema his influence was as great. Women in Love brought homo-erotic imagery to a mainstream blockbuster, at the same time as establishing Glenda Jackson, gaining her an Oscar. The Devils took Aldous Huxley's rambling book and turned it into a film of political necessity so vivid that some reviewers described scenes that were in their minds but not in the film. And one scene, of subtle balletic beauty, is so controversial that despite a promised DVD release in the UK (the USA was out of the question) it has still to appear. The corporate executives obviously still believe in the power of Russell's imagery.
His range of classic films Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, The Devils, Mahler and Savage Messiah have a much power as Kubrick and Lean. But unlike them he worked non-stop, having more than eighty television and cinema films to his name. When Lean made Ryan's Daughter and it failed, Lean gave up for 15 years. When Powell's Peeping Tom forced him out of the business, a great loss occurred. But when Russell's Savage Messiah failed, taking with it Russell's own money, Russell kept going.
Kubrick took **** years between Full Metal Jacket and Eyes Wide Shut. Russell took **** years to realize The Fall of the Louse of Usher. But unlike Kubrick Russell also did **** films in the ***** years.
In his television film on Bruckner, with Russell's script, states that the vast output of Bruckner put reviewers off, they could not handle such a vast range. Russell was surely talking about himself.
Kubrick always had a critical following, Lean regained his, Powell is recognized sadly in retrospect. Russell now has difficulty getting a budget for his films. He calls himself unbankable but that is not the case. If Russell wanted to do Free Willy 7 he would get a budget. But he is not prepared for the compromises that come with it. He has always rejected the easy route: the success of Altered States could have led to a career doing sci-fi.
This book covers the films and television of Ken Russell. It is not a biography. However in the first chapter I cover his life. Russell himself is a shy man, who hides himself behind an act of extroversion. Someone who as a child never read books, and had never read D.H. Lawrence when he was given Women in Love to film, but came out with a highly intellectual and literate filming of the book.
I look at his work in television and film. The influence of television on his films (the highly dramatic start to his films, to ensure the television audience do not go and do something else recurs in his cinema. His influence in cinema, still not recognized. The Cell by Tarsem Singh is a film which owes a large debt to Russell. Derek Jarman learnt his craft with Russell.
Mahler
Intro
Credits (film)
Imagecacoon
Journey: D in Venice, steps of G Hale, reporter
Staircase
Journey
Silence
Journey: welcome
Childhood
Pan: baptize, divine spark
Journey: rival
Rival
Journey: rival, negro, move. death
Divinity, mucis of spheres, children,
Journey, ill
Death
Journey
Rival, Dana Gillespie, Hugo Wolf, bury creativity
Journey
Sunset, young
Cosima
Church
Journey and arrival
Death of children
Journey: doctor, love, stop loving music start loving me
Coda: death
We provide a professional essay writing service that thousands of our customers use as an effective way of improving their grades, improving their research and saving them lots of time.
