The great British director has died, aged 84; his most notorious film 'The Devils' will be released by the BFI this coming March.
In May this year, Ken Russell came to the first UK screening of one of his most notorious films, The Devils, in a newly restored form. He was frail and unable to make it down the steep steps of the Barbican’s main cinema screen, so sat at the back, but managed to participate in the on-stage Q&A thanks to a roving mike. Precise recall wasn’t always within his power, but a lot of the old fire was undimmed, as he recounted his battles with Warner Brothers over the cuts they demanded, and his pride at getting to see something close to the original assembly – thanks to the detective work of Mark Kermode, among others – with a sold-out audience.
Having caught only the tail end of the film on late-night Channel 4 in my teens, it was pretty thrilling to experience it fully and for the first time in the company of Russell himself. It’ll come to be seen as the defining film of a great hellraising career: one in which hell was sometimes almost literally raised, as at the castle of Lord Byron in his 1986 literary fantasia, Gothic.
Russell’s reputation for outlandishness – he was certainly one of the maddest imagists British cinema has ever spawned – should never be taken as the whole story, though. He could work within the establishment as well as outside it, and it’s interesting how many of his films launched themselves into mania from the springboard of seemingly respectable genres, such as literary adaptation (he returned committedly to DH Lawrence) or biopics of classical composers. An Oscar nominee for his direction of 1969’s Women in Love, which won Best Actress for Glenda Jackson, he even dipped his toe into Hollywood waters with the inimitably bonkers one-two of Altered States (1980) and Crimes of Passion (1984): a bit like slapping your host on one cheek, then the other, and wondering if you’ll be asked back.
There was mischief, insult and daring in Russell’s vision, and a playfulness that made him unique – his favourite game was to exploit the starchy norms of British prestige cinema and then abruptly throw an orgy, or blow loud raspberries in the direction of the church. In this sense he followed the rudely provocative tradition of Fellini or Buñuel , but fused that with an antic spirit of thoroughly British eccentricity. His idea of a costume drama was pretty much the antithesis of what Merchant-Ivory said it should be: one where everyone ran around giggling, things exploded and wigs went flying. Only with Mahler’s 5th playing instead of the Benny Hill theme tune. (Daily Telegraph)
Rent Ken Russell at Video Dogs - Women In Love, Lady Chatterley, The Rainbow, The Lair of the White Worm, Gothic, Mahler, Elgar, Delius, Lisztomania, Tommy, Altered States, Whore, and Billion Dollar Brain. Plus, Ken Russell at the BBC. Coming soon, 'The Boyfriend' & 'Music Lovers'