He is best known for his Oscar-winning film Women in Love (1969), The Devils (1971), The Who's Tommy (1975), and the science fiction film Altered States (1980). Classical musicians and conductors held him in high regard for his story-driven biopics of various composers, most famously Elgar, Delius, Liszt, Mahler and Tchaikovsky.
British film critic Mark Kermode, attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell; "somebody who proved that British cinema didn't have to be about kitchen-sink realism—it could be every bit as flamboyant as Fellini. He now makes very strange experimental films like Lion's Mouth and Revenge of the Elephant Man, and they are as edgy and out there as the work he made in the 1970s".
Russell was born in Southampton, England, on 3 July 1927, the son of Ethel (née Smith) and Henry Russell, a shoeshop owner. His father was distant and took out his rage on his family, so Russell spent much of his time at the cinema with his mother. He cited Die Nibelungen and The Secret of the Loch as two early influences.
He was educated in Walthamstow and at Pangbourne College. He harboured a childhood ambition to be a ballet dancer but instead joined the Royal Air Force and the Merchant Navy as a teenager. On one occasion he was made to stand watch in the blazing sun for hours on end while crossing the Pacific. His lunatic captain feared an attack by Japanese midget submarines despite the war having ended. He moved into television work after short careers in dance and photography.
His series of documentary "Teddy Girl" photographs were published in Picture Post magazine in the summer of 1955, and he continued to work as a freelance documentary photographer until 1959. After 1959, Russell's amateur films (his documentaries for the Free Cinema movement, and his 1958 short Amelia and the Angel)[8] secured him a job at the BBC, where he worked regularly from 1959 to 1970 making arts documentaries for Monitor and Omnibus. Among his better-known works were: Elgar (1962), The Debussy Film (1965), Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), Song of Summer (about Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby) (1968) and Dance of the Seven Veils (1970), a film about Richard Strauss. He once said that the best film he ever made was Song of Summer, and that he wouldn't edit a single shot. The Elgar film proved to be ground-breaking because it was the first time that an arts programme (Monitor) had shown one long film about an artistic figure instead of short items, and also it was the first time that re-enactments were used. Russell fought with the BBC over using actors to portray different ages of the same character, instead of the traditional photograph stills and documentary footage.
His television films became increasingly flamboyant and outrageous. Dance of the Seven Veils sought to portray Richard Strauss as a Nazi: one scene in particular showed a Jew being tortured while a group of SS men look on in delight, to the tune of Strauss music. The Strauss family was so outraged they withdrew all music rights and imposed a worldwide ban on the film that continues to this day.[citation needed]
Russell's first feature film was French Dressing (1963), a comedy loosely based on Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman; its critical and commercial failure sent Russell back to the BBC. His second big-screen effort was part of author Len Deighton's Harry Palmer spy cycle, Billion Dollar Brain (1967), starring Michael Caine.
In 1969, Russell directed what is considered his "signature film", Women In Love, a rollicking adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's novel of the same name about two artist sisters living in post-World War I Britain. The film starred Glenda Jackson, Oliver Reed, Jennie Linden and Alan Bates. The film is notable for its nude wrestling scene, which broke the convention at the time that a mainstream movie could not show male genitalia.
Women in Love connected with the sexual revolution and bohemian politics of the late 1960s. It was nominated for several Oscars, and won one for Glenda Jackson for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Russell himself was nominated for an Oscar — that for Best Director (his only nomination)— as were his cinematographer and screenwriter.
The film is also notable for the BAFTA-nominated costume designs of Russell's wife, Shirley, the mother of his 5 children, with whom he would collaborate throughout the 1970s; the couple ultimately divorced. The colour schemes of Luciana Arrighi's art direction (also BAFTA-nominated) and Billy William's cinematography, which Russell used for metaphorical effect, are also often referred to by film textbooks. Russell enjoyed a short-lived prestige during this period, when he was praised as "Britain's Orson Welles.
In the 1990 film The Russia House, starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer, Russell made one of his first significant acting appearances, portraying Walter, an ambiguously gay British intelligence officer who discomfits his more strait-laced CIA counterparts. Russell has since occasionally acted.
The 1991 film Prisoner of Honor allowed Russell a further opportunity to explore his abiding interest in anti-Semitism through a factually-based account of the Dreyfus Affair in France. The movie featured Richard Dreyfuss in the central role of Colonel Georges Picquart, the French army investigator who exposed the army establishment's framing of the Jewish officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
In 1991, Russell directed his final film of any note, Whore. It was highly controversial and branded with an NC-17 rating for its sexual content. The MPAA and the theatre chains also refused to release posters or advertise a film called Whore, so for this purpose the film was re-titled "If You Can't Say It, Just See It". Russell protested his film being given such a rating when Pretty Woman got an R, on the grounds that his film showed the real hardships of being a prostitute, and the other glorified it.
By the early 1990s, Russell had become a celebrity: his notoriety and persona had attracted more attention than any of his recent work. He became largely reliant on his own finances to continue making films. Much of his work since 1990 has been commissioned for television, and he has contributed regularly to The South Bank Show. Prisoner of Honor (1991) was Russell's final work with Oliver Reed; his final film with Glenda Jackson before she gave up acting for politics, The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992) was also to be his last composer biographical drama.
In May 1995, he was honoured with a retrospective of his work presented in Hollywood by the American Cinematheque. Titled Shock Value, it included some of Russell's most successful and controversial films and also several of his early BBC productions. Russell attended the festival and engaged in lengthy post-screening discussions of each film with audiences and moderator Martin Lewis, who had instigated and curated the retrospective.
Russell had a cameo in the 2006 film adaptation of Brian Aldiss's novel Brothers of the Head by the directors of Lost in La Mancha. He also had a cameo in the 2006 Colour Me Kubrick. He directed a segment for the horror anthology Trapped Ashes (2007) which also includes segments directed by Sean S. Cunningham, Monte Hellman, and Joe Dante. Prior to his death in 2011 he was reputed to be in pre-production for two films: The Pearl of the Orient and Kings X.
Efforts such as The Lion's Mouth (2000) and The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002) have suffered from low production values (for example, being shot in video on Russell's estate often featuring Russell himself) and limited distribution.
From 2004, Russell was visiting professor at the University of Wales, Newport Film School. One of his many tasks was to advise students on the making of their graduate films. He also presented the Finest Film Awards (for graduate filmmakers of Newport) in June 2005.
Russell was appointed visiting fellow at the University of Southampton in April 2007, where he acted in a similar capacity to his role at the Newport Film School, until March 2008. His arrival was celebrated with a screening of the rare director's cut of The Devils hosted by Mark Kermode.
He began production of his first full length film in almost 5 years, Moll Flanders, an adaptation of Daniel Defoe's novel, starring Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty and Barry Humphries, but a finished film failed to materialise. Also in 2007 Russell produced A Kitten For Hitler, a short film hosted by the Comedybox.tv website. Russell commented that "Ten years ago, while working on The South Bank Show, Melvyn Bragg and I had a heated discussion on the pros and cons of film censorship. Broadly speaking, Melvyn was against it, while I, much to his surprise, was absolutely for it. He then dared me to write a script that I thought should be banned. I accepted the challenge and a month or so later sent him a short subject entitled A Kitten for Hitler. "Ken," he said, "if ever you make this film and it is shown, you will be lynched."Russell joined Celebrity Big Brother in January 2007, at the start of the series, but left voluntarily within a week after an altercation with Jade Goody.
In 2008, he made his New York directorial debut with the Off Broadway production of Mindgame at the SoHo Playhouse produced by Darren Lee Cole, a thriller by Anthony Horowitz and starring Keith Carradine, Lee Godart and Kathleen McNenny. "After reading Mindgame, I was convinced that I had to direct this play in New York ... Anthony Horowitz has written a fascinating thriller with a new surprise every five minutes", said Russell.
In March 2008, he was invited by the University of Wales to mark the start of the construction phase of a new £35m Newport City University Campus. "I think the City Centre Campus is a brilliant idea!", Russell was quoted as saying.
Besides books on film-making and the British film industry, Russell also wrote A British Picture: An Autobiography (1989; published in the US as Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell, 1991). He also published six novels, including four on the sex lives of composers – Beethoven Confidential, Brahms Gets Laid, Elgar: The Erotic Variations, and Delius: A Moment with Venus. Mike and Gaby's Space Gospel is a science-fiction rewriting of Genesis. His last novel, also science-fiction and published in 2006, is called Violation. It is a very violent future-shock tale of an England where football has become the national religion. At the time of his death, he had a column for The Times in the Film section of times 2.
At several stages of his career Ken Russell struggled to break into the film industry. Before 'making it', Russell enjoyed a brief fling with photography. An exhibition displaying some of Russell's work was on display during the summer of 2007 in central London's Proud Galleries in The Strand, London.
The exhibition, entitled Ken Russell's Lost London Rediscovered: 1951–1957, ran until 21 August 2007 and included over fifty limited edition prints from Russell's personal collection. As implied by the title, the prints displayed were all taken in and around London, with many of the pictures being taken in the Portobello Road area of London.
An exhibition Ken Russell: Filmmaker, Photographer taken from Ken Russell's archive at the TopFoto image library ran at the Lucy Bell Fine Art Gallery, St Leonards on Sea, from 17 March 2010 until 30 April 2010. It then transferred to the TopFotoGallery, Edenbridge, Kent until 19 June 2010.
Gomez, Joseph A. (1976). Ken Russell: The Adaptor as Creator. Muller. ISBN 0-584-10203-8.
Phillips, Gene D. (1979). Ken Russell. Twayne. ISBN 9780805792669.
Flanagan, Kevin M., ed (2009). Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-6954-3.
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