Ken Russell (1927-2011)

[MichaelB]

Ken Russell funeral banned by the BBFC.

[The Narrator Returns]

In honor of Russell, I watched Tommy for the first time.

Man, that has to be the most surreal film I've ever seen. It makes Head look normal.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I watched The Music Lovers - made the year before The Devils - last night and I fucking loved it. There were some great, energetic tracking shots in it; the editing was crazy and helped build the hysteria; and Richard Chamberlain was perfect. The 1812 Overture sequence was wonderful. Pure Russell and I loved it.

[stroszeck]

Ken Russell funeral banned by the BBFC.

Holy crap this is going to be the most epic thing EVER! I wish I was in England.

[MichaelB]

I suspect his actual funeral will indeed be pretty spectacular (he wants a full Viking one, apparently), but the Daily Mash is in fact the British equivalent of The Onion, and is to be taken just as seriously.

[jamie_atp]

Nice article: Working With Ken Russell: Actor & Musician James Johnston Remembers

[j99]

A nice tribute from Mark Kermode

[Calvin]

If you're in the UK and have Sky+, Living the Life: Sir Peter Blake Meets Ken Russell has just been put on Anytime.

[Perkins Cobb]

Ken Russell funeral banned by the BBFC.

... and in other news, it will also be censored on the upcoming DVD.

[colinr0380]

The 'bawdy Alice In Wonderland musical' could still be coming (from the same producer as the 1976 X-rated version of the tale), apparently with music composed by Simon Boswell (Hardware and Dust Devil, Santa Sangre, Shallow Grave, Perdita Durango, Stagefright: Aquarius and Phenomena)

[MichaelB]

I'm afraid every time I hear the word 'bawdy' now, I get a flashback to this.

[colinr0380]

Whenever I see that sketch I keep thinking that the poor junior doctor would have slid perfectly into the cast for the painful single-entendre comedy of Carry On Emmannuelle! (He was unfortunately a few years ahead of the times!)

[MichaelB]

A wonderfully impassioned defence of Lisztomania by one of the Independent's classical music critics:

Contrast Lisztomania with the BBC's current series, Symphony. Fronted by the reliable Simon Russell Beale, its episodes trace the development of classical music's grandest genre through the centuries. Terribly distinguished conductors and academics objectively discuss matters such as the revolutionary tendencies of Beethoven and Berlioz, and their music is nicely played on the proper period instruments.

It is all so decorous, so friendly, so awfully, awfully good. It won't upset anyone, except a handful of die-hard trolls who still think classical music should be no friendlier than the writings of Theodor Adorno, the literary equivalent of a Venus fly-trap.

We've become so terrified of taking risks that we're in danger of being hamstrung by timidity, going through life with a muzzle over our mouths and pens in case someone might choose to declare themselves "offended". We get intimidated – perniciously so.

Nobody can create great art without courage, and Russell had lakes of it. Liszt and Wagner, too, were never genteel artists; their art involved many human dilemmas, but it was never about being polite. That's why Lisztomania says more about the inner worlds of high romanticism than a month of prim, proper and sensible documentaries ever could.

[colinr0380]

This is the difference between literal truth and emotional truth. The same could be perhaps be said of Gothic being totally unrealistic, and likely nowhere near objectively capturing the real events, yet beautifully illustrating a fevered Mary Shelley mental state from which it is conceivable Frankenstein could have arisen from, as she screehes in a bipolar manner around the corridors of the Villa Diodati! Whatever could be said about Ken Russell, he never allowed his subject matter to become preserved in aspic (apart from in The Rainbow, if what MichaelB says is true! )

[antnield]

A heads-up for UK forumites:

Ken Russell tribute night next Saturday on BBC2. New documentary Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil at 9pm, followed by his two D.H. Lawrence adaptations, Women in Love and The Rainbow.

[colinr0380]

BBC4 is also showing Russell's Monitor film on Elgar from 1962 on Friday 20th January at 7.30 p.m.

[MichaelB]

A wonderful film if you've never seen it, but a huge letdown if you were hoping BBC4 would programme something more imaginative (i.e. rarer) as a tribute. Still, fingers crossed that it's the first of several screenings.

UPDATE: They're showing The Boy Friend on Sunday 22nd - I assume it's the Russell film, though it's part of their Musicals season.

[Duncan Hopper]

It is indeed the Russell film, the original play was covered in the first episode of BBC4's history of Musicals.

[Calvin]

I thought the documentary was pretty good. I wish the BBC would release his works over here in the UK or at least screen them more often.

[colinr0380]

UPDATE: They're showing The Boy Friend on Sunday 22nd - I assume it's the Russell film, though it's part of their Musicals season.

And a further update - Delius: A Song of Summer is showing on BBC4, Tuesday 24th January at 11 p.m. (i.e. the other Russell title that the BFI released on DVD a number of years ago)

[Mike_S]

I would rather like them to show his two films about Wordsworth and Coleridge "Clouds of Glory" partly because they are the first things I remember seeing by him and partly because they are rarely shown. Whatever you think about Russell's films about artists, they always have immensely satisfying energy and they don't feature Alan Yentob nodding every ten seconds.

[MichaelB]

That particular ball is in ITV's court.

[GaryC]

It is indeed the Russell film, the original play was covered in the first episode of BBC4's history of Musicals.

It is also (judging from the timeslot) the full-length version. It isn't on DVD in the UK and the VHS release judging by the BBFC site was a version shortened by some 25 minutes. And, being BBC Four, there's a good chance it'll be shown in 2.35:1.

Which is why I'll make sure to record it, as I've not seen the film before.

[Jonathan S]

Well, The Boy Friend wasn't even shown in 16:9, let alone 2.35:1, but in a panned and scanned 4:3 transfer that made nonsense of the compositions! I erased it without watching.

The BBC4 broadcasts of both the Elgar and Delius films were channel-logoed throughout (it's normally removed for anything considered a "film") and - as if all this wasn't insult enough - Song of Summer was shorn of its entire opening sequence (about 80 seconds) in which Fenby accompanies Laurel & Hardy on a cinema organ.

Although historical accuracy was never exactly Russell's top priority, it always struck me as odd that the dance from Way Out West - a 1937 sound film - was chosen for that sequence, but at the time Song of Summer was made the BBC had prints and long-term (or often renewed) UK TV rights to that film and most of the L&H talkies. The sequence was still included in the TV broadcast I recorded about 10 years ago - when I think the BBC had briefly relicensed the L&H films - and I assume it has been dropped now because they have lost them again. Was this opening sequence included in the deleted BFI DVD or the current US one?

[antnield]

Was this opening sequence included in the deleted BFI DVD or the current US one?

Neither, I've just checked both.