russellography

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

Russellography

I would list Ken Russell as directing 22 feature films worth noting. In fact, he was involved in so many different projects in so many different ways, it’s hard to put a number on his output. And I’m completely ignoring his substantial body of television work in this list as well. But of the 22 films I am noting, I’ve seen 15. As I’m not particularly a movie maniac, this is a pretty high rating for a single artist’s work from me.

I haven’t seen:

French Dressing (1964)

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

The Music Lovers (1970)

Savage Messiah (1972)

The Russia House (1990)

Prisoner of Honour (1991)

The Lion’s Mouth (2000)

The one I most regret not being able to track down is The Music Lovers, Russell’s biopic of Tchaikovsky with Richard Chamberlin as Tchaikovsky.

I have seen:

Women in Love (1969)

The Devils (1971)

The Boy Friend (1971)

Mahler (1974)

Tommy (1975)

Lisztomania (1975)

Valentino (1977)

Altered States (1980)

Crimes of Passion (1984)

Gothic (1986)

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Salome’s Last Dance (1988)

The Rainbow (1989)

Whore (1991)

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)

Some more than once.

From worst (and Ken can be pretty bad) to best (but he can also be incredible), I’d give Mr. Russell a personal pov report card like this. I don’t expect anyone in the world to agree with me. Ken Russell is not the sort of artist who fosters consensus of opinion.

Lisztomania (1975) — It would have been better without Roger Daltrey in the title role. I saw this movie both in the theatre and then later again on television. The sheer ridiculousness of it carried a certain weight in the theatre, but on TV it just appeared dull. An extended music video that got out of hand.

Tommy (1975) — trying to do too much with too many. I know it was a hit at the time, but again too much flash-bang, with too many disparate stars mugging it up competing against each other with Oliver Reed somehow stuck in the middle pretending he can sing.

That’s it for the bottom. Every other movie by Ken I’ve seen I at least liked. Some struck me more forcefully than others, however. On the next level up, we’ve got:

Whore (1991) — Theresa Russell turns in an heroic acting job. The strangest scenes stick with you. The film was more or less repressed in North America, at the same time Pretty Woman was making it big. Russell famously stated that at least his movie told the truth about a prostitute’s life. But very brightly, in typical Ken Russell overblown colour.

Mahler (1974) — starring Robert Powell as the composer and Georgina Hale as his muse. Oddly enough, I found this movie a bit dull, needing a little more flash-bang. (I may be joking -- you figure it out.) Again, I know I’m in the minority, as Mahler is generally considered one of Russell’s finer works. Maybe it’s just the composer that doesn’t grab me.

Gothic (1986) — the night Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley told each other their ghost stories and Mary Shelley was inspired to write Frankenstein. With Gabriel Byrne as Byron, Julian Sands as Shelley, and Natasha Richardson as Mary. A truly nightmarish party, with some powerful scenes again very difficult to get out of your head. The feeling of the inevitable devolution of the evening into terror is quite effective. Followed by a happy picnic the morning after.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) — One of Bram Stoker’s other novels getting a modernized Grand Guignol send up, with Amanda Donohoe as the worm woman and Hugh Grant being terribly English. Silly, really, but oddly entertaining. Especially the bagpipes snake charming scene.

Moving on one more layer upwards:

The Rainbow (1989) — the second of Russell’s two related D.H. Lawrence movies, this one actually a prequel to Women In Love, featuring some of the same characters. Especially the central character Ursula Brangwen, here portrayed by Sammi Davis in a wonderfully uninhibited characterization. Glenda Jackson gets to play the mother of the character she made famous in Women In Love. Also featuring Amanda Donohoe and Paul McGann, a restrained — for Russell — treatment of the novel, not quite as bohemianly grandiose as Women In Love. But you could say the same of Lawrence’s two novels.

Salome’s Last Dance (1988) — Russell making the excess work. Theoretically a performance by the inmates of a brothel of Oscar Wilde’s notorious play, Salome, put on for Wilde himself and his boyfriend, snuck into the cast as John the Baptist. Enjoyable in an odd sort of decadent manner it’s probably better not to admit to. Imogen Millais-Scott is compelling as Salome, an unusually elfin sort of transgender femme fatale.

Altered States (1980) — Russell takes on straight science fiction with Paddy Chayefski as scriptwriter. Unsurprisingly, the two egos clashed. William Hurt gives a solid performance as the scientist regressing himself back to a primeval form through drugs and a sensory deprivation chamber. Oddly enough, there’s an earlier, much scarier black and white obscurity starring Dirk Bogarde on more or less the same theme.

Crimes of Passion (1984) — definitely not a movie I’d watch with my wife. But very enjoyable on a variety of levels, nevertheless. Kathleen Turner does an even more engaging turn as Theresa Russell’s later Whore-role as China Blue, the prostitute with the double life, and the climactic scene in homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho reversing roles on Tony Perkins playing a depraved preacher is very effective. Throw in a brilliant little cameo by Annie Potts as a housewife psychologically incapable of being “funny”, and you’ve got a strange, X-rated little gem.

And at the very top of the list …

Valentino (1977), which I said enough about last week. Recently learned that even Ken considered it a flop, but what the hell. Works for me.

Women In Love (1969) — according to Wikipedia, Russell’s “signature film”, and the only one he ever received a Best Director nomination for at the Oscars. It struck a note for its time, with full frontal male nudity and an unrelenting approach to both the sterility and the passion of Lawrence’s characters. With stunning performances by Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, Glenda Jackson, Jennie Linden, and Eleanor Bron.

The Boy Friend (1971) — starring Twiggy and Tommy Tune. I saw this on the late movie on television one night back in the late seventies and was blown away. A totally nonsensical musical, that never seems to be mentioned anywhere anymore, but didn’t do that bad at the time. Twiggy won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical Comedy for it. Ken Russell using his powers of excess for good. Just plain delightful.

And the number one Ken Russell movie of all time, that no one has apparently ever seen in its entirety …

The Devils (1971) — Based on The Devils of Loudon, by Aldous Huxley, a nonfiction account of a major case of apparent demonic possession of a convent of nuns in 1632. Oliver Reed plays the priest chosen as the scapegoat by the religious authorities to be tortured and martyred to expiate the obvious high degree of sinning going on. Vanessa Redgrave plays the head of the convent. So … throw Ken Russell and a convent full of naked nuns acting out their wildest fantasies and you’ve got a mixture that you don’t end up surprised by reading the full uncensored version of the movie has never been shown. The North American release was apparently more heavily cut than the European version. I saw it on TV, so who knows how much I missed. Still powerful and so definitively Ken Russell. Especially when the well-muscled, hippy lead exorcist comes swaggering in in his John Lennon wire rim glasses wielding a mighty crucifix … One of Oliver Reed’s most stunningly realized roles. Just for the record, it’s a good book too.

I left one movie off this list. 2002’s The Fall of the Louse of Usher, which was actually the last new Ken Russell film I saw. The reason I don’t rate it against the others is because it’s really little more than a home movie Russell made fooling around on his estate with family and friends. Of course, in a Ken Russell home movie you do get scenes like the singing group The Medieval Baebes appearing as a particularly wanton witches’ coven, so it’s got its own weird appeal. Not a great movie by any means, but odd in its own right. And as certain of my own characters like to say, there’s a lot to be said for oddness.

But what really sticks out about this movie for me is a line in the credits. Not only does Ken Russell write, produce, direct, and star in this movie, he also does all the cooking. I have to admire that degree of auteurial thoroughness in an artist.

*****

REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

Fittingly, during a week I’m doing a Ken Russell retrospective, the Competitors tear each other apart as in no other Episode, as Poe-Ish, “The Usher Motel” concludes on Monday, May 11th. See who’s left standing on Friday, May 15th. Reality Fiction Three: The Interrupted Edition continues at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

And Pearl never did get her soup.

Episodes to Date:

Episode One: Dante-Ish — Mak’s Inferno

Episode Two: Chaucer-Ish — The Hermit’s Tale

Episode Three: Malory-Ish — Le Morte de Mak

Episode Four: Doyle-Ish — Mak the Kipper

Episode Five: Carroll-Ish — Madelyn in Wonderland

Episode Six: Stoker-Ish — The Down For The Count Shimmy

Episode Seven: Tolstoy-Ish — Anna Makerena

Episode Eight: Lem-Ish — So there is …

Episode Nine: Hoffman-Ish — Dr. Hoffman’s Happy Gene Machine

Episode Ten: Shakespeare-Ish — Hamlet the Barbarian

Episode Eleven: Poe-Ish — The Usher Motel

All with illustrations by the author. The complete roster of 34 Contestants have now appeared, so we move on to the supporting cast, the Judges, and the Guest Judges.