Ken Russell: S/D

excellent, have not seen any of those. coincidentally, watched (most of) lisztomania yesterday for the first time in a loooong time & guess i was much more receptive to the over-the-topness of it all in my teens. the mahler biopic is more my speed these days.

just watched the devils for the first time. p amazing, loved the look of the town and the convent. vanessa redgrave hilarious.

Gonna rematch WIL for the first time in twenty years – since reading the novel in college.

Got both the Great Composers and Great Passions blurays which contain what was previously in the Ken Russell At The BBC dvd set but with lots of new extras. Would have been better if they had just kept it all in one box rather than splitting it into two releases.

I've always dragged my heels about getting this stuff (although I did see Dance Of Seven Veils on youtube years ago since it was omitted from these sets for legal reasons) because people who don't like Russell's more over the top films (which I like a lot) tend to prefer these BBC films, I thought they might be a bit boring and lacking character, but they're all great, most of them are as good as his most famous films.

Elgar is the most like a documentary, all the actors are viewed from a distance and there is no dialogue from them, just a documentary voiceover, easily the most quiet and restrained of the bunch.

The Debussy Film is an almost schizoprhrenic mixture of drama, making of and documentary and works very well.

Song Of Summer (about Delius) is probably the best film of the lot and I can understand why some people think it's one of the best films Russell ever made. All the characters are beautifully portrayed and it comes to life as a story more than the other BBC films)

Always On A Sunday (about Henri Rousseau) Lovely little film that focuses on Rousseau's supposed naivety. I had been wondering about this painting style recently (particularly the tropical paintings) and I'm glad I found out who originated it.

Isadora (about Isadora Duncan) Most of the artists/musicians in Ken Russell's films are kind of manic and irrepressible, laughing and jumping around a lot and I wonder how often it's true to the people. Along with Savage Messiah, Isadora probably epitomizes this and it seems credible given the events of Isadora Duncan's life.

Dante's Inferno (about Dante Gabriel Rossetti) I think perhaps Russell might have sacrificed the flow of the story a bit too much in favour of the morbidly sensational parts but I still had a great time with this Gala Mitchell has a really incredible face, no surprise that she was a fashion model but not many of her shoots survive online and only appeared in 3 films sadly.
http://randomramblingsthoughtsandfiction.blogspot.com/2012/02/pre-raphaelites-on-screen-desperate.html

Oliver Reed stars in two of the films. Surprised to find out about the writers who figured so importantly in some of the lives of these people (Rousseau/Alfred Jarry, Debussy/Pierre Louys/Maurice Maeterlinck, Isadora Duncan/Sergei Yesenin)

I'm left wondering about all the other BBC films, are they lost or something? Really want to see more and should see The Boyfriend, Valentino and Whore sometime.

A shame Izabella Telezynska didn't have bigger roles. She's in a lot of these early Ken Russell films and I thought she was quite memorable in The Music Lovers. Kind of a quietly powerful actress.

Valentino has quite a bit of iffy acting and accents, but its very watchable and quite fun sometimes, especially the dancing and design.

BFI disc has some good interviews, including Ken Russell talking about various films that died in development hell, film studio bosses willing to lose huge amounts of money over petty grudges and a funny bit about a woman in an opera house scolding him for wearing a t-shirt.

Got the Warner Archive disc of The Boyfriend (the only disc with the whole film? I've heard the others are butcher jobs). It's wonderful, up among Russell's best films.
Kind of similar to the Debussy film in that it has a few layers it switches between: it's a musical in which a stage musical is taking place and there are several sequences that are the fantasies of the people in the theatre.
It's very detailed and a lot of fun to see how the members of the cast try to undermine each other. Liked the costumes that exaggerated the tallness of the American tap dancer, how the director dances in front of the actors before the curtain falls and how the makeup makes some of the actresses' eyes look huge. It's stuffed with goodness.

Now that I've exhausted all his really big studio films (wish there was 20 more of them), I guess Whore is my next stop. I cant be arsed with Billion Dollar Brain and people say it doesn't feel like one of his films for most of the time.

There are really Russelly sequences in BDB iirc

I might get round to it eventually but it really doesn't look like something I'd enjoy. Looks too much like James Bond.

I really like Christopher Gable, he's got such a likeable face.

Whore - It's based on a play by David Hines (based on his time as a cab driver talking to prostitutes). Was supposed to be set in britain but he couldn't get anyone in britain interested (not shocked) so it had to be an american film. Had a very hard time getting an actress. Apparently Russell wanted this to be a mocking response to Pretty Woman.

Seen people saying Theresa Russell (who talks to the audience for much of the film) is either great or awful. I think she's a bit iffy but better in the quieter moments. Antonio Fargas was my favorite. Jack Nance and Danny Trejo make brief appearances. I'm wondering if it was deliberate or coincidence that Nance has a Twin Peaks-ish moment of discovering Theresa Russell.

It's pretty gutsy, even for Ken Russell and might have been great with a slightly better script, slightly bigger budget and better star (perhaps lucky he could get anyone). A lot better than I had expected.

Couldn't get the uncut version.

I guess now I'm left to youtube hunting his remaining tv films, but I'm still reluctant to see anything where he was said to be merely a hired hand (Prisoner Of Honor, Lady Chatterley, Dogboys). Can I find his stupid Uri Geller film?

I somehow forgotten to list Salome's Last Dance in my rankings, the film is mostly good because of the star, who sadly never continued acting because of her health. If I had the means or knowledge I've always wanted to make a gif of her wriggling her fingers in anticipation. She was great.

Secret Life Of Arnold Bax (90s tv movie on youtube). Ken Russell plays Bax; it's about his affairs with various women, Glenda Jackson is his longterm pianist girlfriend. Film seems to suggest that John Ireland was into really young boys. It's fairly enjoyable.

In Search Of The English Folk Song - This is pretty silly at times but that's hardly a surprise. Ken sings to his dog and an Edward II performance is shown alongside clips of a parade that has lots of blackface dancers (some sort of event representing different cultures). The big names start appearing a bit later, I was really impressed by Chris While singing for Albion Band (I'll need to track down Albion Band - Demi Paradise). I didn't expect Osibisa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt6HUzs9RzQ

Peepshow - short silent film from the 50s, I couldn't really follow it well but it featured beggars, robbers, a magician and a woman dressed like a doll-ish clown.

Antonio Gaudi - early 60s simple short documentary. It's perfectly fine but doesn't have any real film-like qualities.

These next two TV films from the 90s...

The Strange Affliction Of Anton Bruckner - Bruckner goes to a sanatorium and I'm fairly sure he has OCD and none of the treatments seem very helpful. He's a very gentle character and he develops a close relationship with a nurse. I doubt it stuck very closely to what really happened but it's nice.

The Mystery Of Dr Martinu - In the first half, Bohuslav Martinu wanders through strange obstacles and memories; these are later on revealed to be dreams that are decoded by Martinu, his friend and his wife for the remainder. It works much better than you might imagine and it might be the oddest of Russell's TV films?
I'm not familiar with Patrick Ryecart, apparently he's done loads of british television I've somehow never seen but I thought his voice was very impressive.

S:

In the mid-1980s film director Ken Russell and pornographer Bob Guccione fell out over a failed attempt to film the novel Moll Flanders. A lawsuit ensued, in which the relatively impecunious Ken Russell found himself facing the vast might of the Penthouse corporation. Russell however managed to reach an arrangement with celebrity lawyer Aaron Richard Golub. Golub was interested in launching a musical career, so Russell agreed to direct a music video for him in lieu of paying legal fees.

The lawyer had previously directed his own video as Golub Rap Cinema, for the song He Is My Lawyer by his band Power Of Attorney, which included Jerry Orbach. Here is Russell's vmic followup, shot at Sing Sing, for Golub's Dancing For Justice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJTspEgxdto

(Amazingly, the lawyer's rapping seems to have gotten considerably worse between the first and second song.)

Thanks, that was fun. Probably the best music video I've seen by him but his others are curiously underwhelming because you'd think he'd excel at them.

yeah, I got to it by reading that he'd done videos including Nikita by Elton John, then watching that and being far from whelmed.

oh my god, thank you for this revive

Wow kudos to the digital artist who was able to sneak one of the nuns from Ken Russell's The Devils into a background shot of Space Jam 2 pic.twitter.com/nY3bjbWaah

— Mike Sampson (@mjsamps) June 9, 2021

Ken Russell did a masterclass thing when I was at film school and it was a disaster.

https://michael-gothard.livejournal.com/?utm_medium=endless_scroll

Always thought he looked like Simon Amstell and was pretty funny in The Devils. Kind of pleased but not surprised he has some serious fans, he was very good looking.