Ken Russell

Director

July 3, 1927 (84 years)

† November 27, 2011

Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK

Biography

Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was an English film director. He is known for his pioneering work in television and film, and for his controversial style. He has been criticized as being over-obsessed with sexuality and the church. His subject matter is often about famous composers, or based on other works of art which he adapts loosely. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he did creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. …

Filmography

6.3

Lady Chatterley

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

5.6

The South Bank Show

The South Bank Show is a television arts magazine show produced by ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new series began on Sky Arts from 27 May 2012. Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience.

7.4

The Devils

A charismatic 17th-century French priest becomes the target of a sexually obsessed nun’s witchcraft accusations, which corrupt church and state officials are all too happy to exploit.

6.3

Savage Messiah

In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.

6.4

Tommy

After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.

5.9

The Lair of the White Worm

When an archaeologist uncovers a strange skull in a foreign land, the residents of a nearby town begin to disappear, leading to further inexplicable occurrences.

6.7

Altered States

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of cognizance and finds that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.

5.3

Whore

This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.

6.3

Crimes of Passion

Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a murderous sex toy.

6.6

Women in Love

Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920s English coal-mining community, free-spirited sisters Gudrun and Ursula explore erotic love with a wealthy playboy and a philosophical educator, with cataclysmic results for all four.

5.6

Billion Dollar Brain

A former British spy stumbles into in a plot to overthrow Communism with the help of a supercomputer. But who is working for whom?

5.4

Aria

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

8.3

Dance of the Seven Veils

Russell's composer biopics were usually labours of love. However, this was the opposite: Russell regarded the music of Richard Strauss 'bombastic, sham and hollow', and despised the composer for claiming to be apolitical while cosying up to the Nazi regime. Strauss is depicted in a variety of grotesquely caricatured situations: attacked by nuns after adopting Nietzsche's philosophy, duels with jealous husbands, literally batters his critics into submission with his music, and glorifies the women in his life and fantasies.

5.7

Gothic

Living on an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, it becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality.

5.8

Valentino

The untimely death of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino prompts the many women in his past to reminisce about his troubled rise to superstardom.

5.6

The Rainbow

Born to a rich landowner in the waning days of the Victorian era, Ursula Brangwen grows into a beautiful young woman full of imagination and ambition. The free-spirited Ursula begins to feel trapped by her prim surroundings, but her life changes when she has an erotic experience with Winifred, a bisexual teacher. From then on, Ursula puts all of her passion and creativity into the pursuit of sexual fulfillment. But her insatiable quest becomes a source of anguish.

5.1

Trapped Ashes

Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.

5.8

Lisztomania

In the 19th century, Romantic composer/pianist Franz Liszt tries to end his hedonistic ways but keeps getting sucked back in by his seductive fellow composer Richard Wagner.

6.5

The Boy Friend

When the leading lady of a low-budget musical revue sprains her ankle, the assistant stage manager is forced to understudy and perform in her place.

5.5

Treasure Island

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey and young Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including the deviously vivacious Long Jane Silver.