Ken Russell 1927-2011

[Norfolk Born]

I had no idea, until this morning, about Monitor and his Elgar, but I think, (unless I misheard) I have just heard Sean Fafferty say it'll be repeated on BBC4 in the New Year?

I'll definitely keep an eye out for that! One of the most remarkable things about the programme is that it got made at all, considering the obstacles put in its,and the director's, way - that's a whole story in itself.....

[Lateralthinking1]

I liked him - life needs big characters of his kind - and I am sorry to hear this news.

Mark Kermode was saying earlier that Russell saw pictures in music and perhaps for this reason brought music up in a heightened way in film. Somehow it melded but very vividly. A bit of the synesthete there a la Kandinsky only with drama and movement? Fellini has been much mentioned but I guess William Blake and Malcolm McLaren could be other reference points.

[Stillhomewardbound]

I think I was about 11 when I saw his Delius film. Terrified the life out of me. Max Adrian bawling out notation to the young Fenby (was it Chrisstopher Buchan). I felt utterly the despair of the Fenby character but in one excellent cinematic lecture I learnt so much, about the nature of music, the nature of genius. His 'Women in Love' I also felt to be excellent and while his realisation of The Boyfriend was very effective
and dynamic, Sandy Wilson's pastiche will always be too twee for me.

He was punk before his time and it was wrong that the film industry did not take him more seriously.

Mind you, appalling actor!! His turn in The Russia House as a kind of MI6 'auntie' would have put the 'South Sudbury Downs Players' to shame.

[mercia]

young Fenby (was it Chrisstopher Buchan)

Gable

[aeolium]

I liked his Elgar and Delius films, too, and Women In Love (much better than the recent BBC remake), and quite a lot of The Boyfriend. Although the Mahler film was generally awful, wasn't there a memorable sequence of a night-ride set to the first movement of the 7th symphony or am I thinking of something else?

[Stillhomewardbound]

Gable

Thank you for the correction, Mercia. I think my mind-garble was down to Christopher Gable having once presented a drama-doc based on Jack Buchanan.

How's that for a body swerve?!!

[ardcarp]

Ken Russell

No doubt there will be strong opinions about his life, career and films; but one cannot deny his forays into composers' lives were gripping. Elgar, Tchaikovsky (screenplay by Melvyn Bragg?) Liszt and Mahler to name but a few that he managed to get funded and made.

[Norfolk Born]

There already are, on Anna's 'Ken Russell 1927-2011' thread.

[scottycelt]

Just to set the record straight Russell also made a 'biopic' ... sounds extremely painful .... about Anton Bruckner shown on that late-night BBC Melvyn Bragg programme, the South Bank Show, about twenty years ago.

It wasn't just extremely painful, it was downright excruciating, which is probably why those who saw it have probably long since preferred to forget it.

Anyway, humble apologies for this posthumous grumbling, and God rest his soul.

[Chris Newman]

Thank you for the correction, Mercia. I think my mind-garble was down to Christopher Gable having once presented a drama-doc based on Jack Buchanan.

How's that for a body swerve?!!

Christopher Gable was forced by illness from working fulltime as a ballet dancer and turned to acting at the same time as running ballet schools (He founded the Central School) and ran the Northern Ballet Theatre company until he died comparatively young from cancer.

As well as the Delius film Song of Summer, (1968) Russell re-used Gable in The Boyfriend, 1971, where we were all surprised that Richard Chamberlain could dance and that Twiggy could act, and in the awful The Dance of the Seven Veils (1970) and The Music Lovers (1970) and later Russell's return to D.H.Lawrence The Rainbow (1989).

[Ferretfancy]

I don't think that Ken Russell appreciated music on an intellectual level in terms of it's historical context or structure. He saw music in an entirely romantic light, as a resource to highlight the personal anxieties and flaws of the composers he chose to deal with in his films. I saw him on a few occasions at the Television Centre when one of my colleagues was dubbing the film on Richard Strauss, and was rather horrified by the utter insensitivity which he displayed towards the composer, and the disgusting historical distortions he put on celluloid.

It's easy to quote examples, for instance the addition of storm troopers to the 1920's silent film of Der Rosenkavalier, made several years before the Nazis came to power, or a naked Rita Webb dancing out of a wardrobe as Salome. It's perfectly acceptable to have misgivings about the elderly Strauss's relationship with the Hitler regime if it's examined in context, but this was just contemptible.

Film editors adored Ken Russell, they loved getting their hands on his material and doing all the technical tricks to follow his ideas. He was also given a very free hand by the BBC during his more excessive moments, with shooting ratios of 20 to 1 or more. Film is very expensive, especially if there are lots of complex laboratory procedures required. He would have loved today's professional digital film making, with all the opportunities it gives for visual gimmicks at relatively low cost. These visual effects now infest most documentaries, all the jump cuts, speeded up action etc. etc. which less capable directors than Ken Russell use in an attempt to make their work exciting for audiences with a mental age of about 15

A number of commentators have bewailed the manner in which Ken Russell was dropped by the BBC and others, saying that his style of programme making had gone out of fashion, but in my view it was exasperation at his urge to constant excess and disregard for budgets which did for him. Perhaps you could say that he was the Eric von Stroheim of TV documentary, who fell from grace in a similar fashion during the silent movie era, but then, perhaps that's not a bad way to be memorialised.

[Mandryka]

I don't think that Ken Russell appreciated music on an intellectual level in terms of it's historical context or structure. He saw music in an entirely romantic light, as a resource to highlight the personal anxieties and flaws of the composers he chose to deal with in his films. I saw him on a few occasions at the Television Centre when one of my colleagues was dubbing the film on Richard Strauss, and was rather horrified by the utter insensitivity which he displayed towards the composer, and the disgusting historical distortions he put on celluloid.

It's easy to quote examples, for instance the addition of storm troopers to the 1920's silent film of Der Rosenkavalier, made several years before the Nazis came to power, or a naked Rita Webb dancing out of a wardrobe as Salome. It's perfectly acceptable to have misgivings about the elderly Strauss's relationship with the Hitler regime if it's examined in context, but this was just contemptible.

Film editors adored Ken Russell, they loved getting their hands on his material and doing all the technical tricks to follow his ideas. He was also given a very free hand by the BBC during his more excessive moments, with shooting ratios of 20 to 1 or more. Film is very expensive, especially if there are lots of complex laboratory procedures required. He would have loved today's professional digital film making, with all the opportunities it gives for visual gimmicks at relatively low cost. These visual effects now infest most documentaries, all the jump cuts, speeded up action etc. etc. which less capable directors than Ken Russell use in an attempt to make their work exciting for audiences with a mental age of about 15

A number of commentators have bewailed the manner in which Ken Russell was dropped by the BBC and others, saying that his style of programme making had gone out of fashion, but in my view it was exasperation at his urge to constant excess and disregard for budgets which did for him. Perhaps you could say that he was the Eric von Stroheim of TV documentary, who fell from grace in a similar fashion during the silent movie era, but then, perhaps that's not a bad way to be memorialised.

Russell was an arch ANTI-intellectual and he would certainly have agreed - and been proud to agree - with your first sentence.

As to his films: they make no claim to historical veractiy. These are NOT biopics, and I'm very glad they are not: fantasias would be a better word, taking certain incidents from the lives of the artists in question and building from there.

I'm surprised to hear that Russell was seen as a spendthrift: for most of his career, he worked on exceptionally low budgets (even double-mortgaging his house to fund the making of Savage Messiah) and could usually make a virtue of the lack of funds.

Far rather films from Russell (even his apparently dreadful Bruckner film) than tooth-grinding biopics like Song Without End.

[scottycelt]

<These are NOT biopics>

Yes, I'm sure most viewers having watched any of these would agree.

However, Melvyn Bragg (or at least the BBC) advertised the Bruckner one on the South Bank Show as such. I vividly remember looking up the word in the dictionary to see what on earth it meant!

[VodkaDilc]

Just to set the record straight Russell also made a 'biopic' ... sounds extremely painful .... about Anton Bruckner shown on that late-night BBC Melvyn Bragg programme, the South Bank Show, about twenty years ago.

It wasn't just extremely painful, it was downright excruciating, which is probably why those who saw it have probably long since preferred to forget it.

Anyway, humble apologies for this posthumous grumbling, and God rest his soul.

Most of Ken Russell's early work was for the BBC and I know that Mr Bragg was involved in some of that, as well as some of his cinema work, such as the Tchaikovsky film. I don't remember the Bruckner programme, but, if it was on The South Bank Show, it would have been London Weekend Television, not the BBC.

[scottycelt]

Most of Ken Russell's early work was for the BBC and I know that Mr Bragg was involved in some of that, as well as some of his cinema work, such as the Tchaikovsky film. I don't remember the Bruckner programme, but, if it was on The South Bank Show, it would have been London Weekend Television, not the BBC.

Apologies for the inaccuracy ... it was actually LWT wot was to 'blame' then ... I did have a VHS copy of the Bruckner but it long ago got gnarled up in a recorder.. in fact I've just checked a website which states that 'Ken Russell made a 50 minute film about it for ITV's South Bank Show.- 'The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner'.

Thanks for the correction.