VALE: KEN RUSSELL
November 28th 2011 18:33
DIRECTOR KEN RUSSELL
British director Ken Russell died November 27th, 2011. Another bright star, in the stellar vault of cinematic talent, has sadly faded.
Russell was loved and loathed almost in equal measure during his career and he could care less about his detractors. Russell's passions sometimes exploded on set, causing bruised egos and vehement enemies, one particularly vitriolic exchange ended with him leaving Hollywood's fragile set for a more robust European sensibility.
"Reality is a dirty word for me, I know it isn't for most people, but I am not interested. There's too much of it about."
Russell was an innovative and at times contentious biographer (BBC Television film); his preferred subjects were great composers; Elgar (1962), Dance of the Seven Veils (1970) about Richard Strauss being portrayed as a NAZI, and the bizarre Listomania (1975) which set the music of the good, List, against the evil Wagner.
The Dance of the Seven Veils is still banned to this very day, due to the Strauss family and their publishers removing the rights to use Richard Strauss's music in the film. It was shown once, telecast on the BBC in 1970.
Russell said of it;
"A good example of the sort of film that could never be made outside the BBC, because the lawyers would be on to it in two seconds. I would have had to submit a script to the Strauss family and his publishers Boosey and Hawkes would have come into it, and it would never have happened. The great thing about the BBC is that the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Before anyone can complain, the film is out. But the price you pay with a really controversial film is that it’s usually only shown once."
Banned, yet, there is a site that has it available, for free viewing;
Dance of the Seven Veils
So thanks must go to www.dangerousminds.net for putting it up.
The below green text is quoted from the Dangerous Minds site LINK and details the content and drama surrounding Russell's contentious work Dance of the Seven Veils.
Only someone with Ken Russell’s outrageous genius would have the balls to make a film like Dance of the Seven Veils. Sub-titled A Comic Strip in Seven Episodes on the life of Richard Strauss 1864-1949, the film depicted the German composer of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as a Nazi. As Michael Brooke describes it over at the BFI’s Screen on Line:
Russell’s composer biopics were usually labours of love. This was the opposite: he regarded Strauss’s music as “bombastic, sham and hollow”, and despised the composer for claiming to be apolitical while cosying up to the Nazi regime. The film depicts Strauss in a variety of grotesquely caricatured situations: attacked by nuns after adopting Nietzsche’s philosophy, he fights duels with jealous husbands, literally batters his critics into submission with his music and glorifies the women in his life and fantasies.
Later, his association with Hitler leads to a graphically-depicted willingness to turn a blind eye to Nazi excesses, responding to SS thugs carving a Star of David in an elderly Jewish man’s chest by urging his orchestra to play louder, drowning out the screams. Unexpectedly, Strauss is credited as co-writer, which was Russell’s way of indicating that every word he uttered on screen was sourced directly from real-life statements.
Though Russell used genuine statements from Strauss, the film is in no way a factual representation, as Joseph Gomez explained in his 1976 biography of Russell:
What we have is Russell’s vision of the man - a vision which uses many of Strauss’s own words as found in his letters and the man’s music to shape a “metaphorically true” portrait of the composer. There is no attempt to explain anything about Strauss’s behavior; he is reduced to a one-dimensional comic strip figure - as the subtitle of the film suggests. The subject matter, the role and responsibilities of the artist, is deadly serious, but the treatment is devastatingly comic.
Russell’s film caused outrage after its first and only transmission on the BBC in 1970. Questions were raised in the House of Parliament, where 6 M.P.s tabled a motion denouncing the Corporation for transmitting the program. Britain’s self-appointed arbiter of the country’s morals, Mrs Mary Whitehouse attempted to sue the General Post Office for transmitting the film “over its wires”. But the damage was done by the Strauss family, which placed an outright ban on the film, which is still in place today and will continue until 2019, when the copyright on Strauss’ music expires.
However, it is his cinematic work that most know him by, and among that oeuvre are some great works of creativity and cinematic storytelling;
Women in Love (1969) is considered his greatest work and like his creative biographies, it too stirred the social order of things, and broke new ground; that being the showing of male genitalia in a mainstream work.
Russell became known for his risqué work, not the least of which was his assault on the corruption within the hierarchy of Christianity and the State, The Devils (1971) which, to this day, Warner Brothers still refuses to release the uncut version of.
However, recently it has been rumoured that a home edition DVD will be released, but it remains to be seen whether they will honour the director’s work, or choose to duck away from potential controversy and release the edited version.
A tamer work, the musical The Boy Friend (1971), starring Twiggy, who gained two Golden Globe Awards for her efforts, Best Newcomer and Best Actress in a Musical, was a bland entertainment piece, compared to his other work.
The rock opera Tommy (1975), by rock group The Who, was a massive cult film which, as with Listomania, opened up new ground for cinema sound systems.
Altered States was Russell’s foray into mainstream science fiction.
Lair of the White Worm (1988) was another cult horror film, starring Hugh Grant.
Russell had a lusty taste for life and a healthy distaste for hypocrisy in religion and politics; his work challenged the prudish and visually delighted many.
Some wonderful quotes from Ken Russell;
“The Devils is a harsh film, but it's a harsh subject. I wish the people who were horrified and appalled by it had read the book, because the facts are more horrible than anything in the film.”
“It is a pity when one, either through force of circumstance or because one is afraid of being ridiculed by others, won't produce and expose to everyone that little spark of something special which is unique to him alone.”
“A critic's typical praise is "Beautifully understated." That means beautifully false . . . I'd rather go the other way - to gamble rather than play it safe. If I err it's by overstating, but I try to get it right.”
“I know my films upset people. I want to upset people.”
“This is not the age of manners. This is the age of kicking people in the crotch and telling them something and getting a reaction. I want to shock people into awareness. I don't believe there is any virtue in understatement.”
(Regarding screenwriter of Altered States, Paddy Chayefsky)” I don't think Paddy had ever been involved with a director who wasn't malleable. He would make suggestions and I would listen courteously, and then disagree.”
One of world cinema’s most fearless auteurs has gone.
Honour him by going to your DVD store and hiring out his films.
Lastly, for the sake of art, demand Warner Brothers release the uncut version of The Devils.
VALE KEN RUSSELL
Image Credits and Permissions:
Photo of Ken Russell taken by a member of the public at a public eent, who has placed this image into the Public Domain without reservation or conditions.
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Mountain Fog
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
I didn't include WHORE in the list, not having seen it, but, he was a hit and miss creative genius, and we are all the poorer without him.
cheers
fog