Self (archive footage)
The story of Roger Daltrey (vocals), Pete Townshend (guitar), John Entwistle (bass) and Keith Moon (drums): The Who, one of the most original, creative and relevant British bands of the sixties and of the entire history of pop music.
Thanks
A man trapped in purgatory must come face to face with his own demons.
Himself
Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.
On-set footage of the film The Devils (1971) with commentary by editor Mike Bradsell
Russell Miegs
Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.
A short promotional film for the 2010 Oldenburg Film Festival consisting of various actors and film personalities telling a joke about an exceptionally talented frog.
Screenplay
A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.
Director
A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.
Roman Senator
A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.
Writer
The result of a challenge from Melvyn Bragg to write a film that Ken Russell himself would be eager to see banned, was A Kitten For Hitler – a 10-minute short in which a plucky young Jewish boy traverses the globe on a quest to warm the Führer's heart with the gift of a cuddly feline.
Santa
The result of a challenge from Melvyn Bragg to write a film that Ken Russell himself would be eager to see banned, was A Kitten For Hitler – a 10-minute short in which a plucky young Jewish boy traverses the globe on a quest to warm the Führer's heart with the gift of a cuddly feline.
Director
The result of a challenge from Melvyn Bragg to write a film that Ken Russell himself would be eager to see banned, was A Kitten For Hitler – a 10-minute short in which a plucky young Jewish boy traverses the globe on a quest to warm the Führer's heart with the gift of a cuddly feline.
Self (archive footage)
A line up of star performers celebrate the very best of Edward Elgar's music in the 150th anniversary year of his birth.
Director
The work of professional photographer David Hurn, shown tackling a wide range of subjects from fashion to photojournalism to candid paparazzo shots.
Self
An investigation into nunsploitation, and why men find images of nuns involved in sexual situations erotic. The programme also controversially covers the Muslim hibab and burka.
Director
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
Dr. Lucy
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
Rev. Caleb Dane Calthrop
Troubled war veteran Jerry Burton and his sister Joanna rent a cottage in a seemingly tranquil English village which is plagued by a spate of poison pen letters... and murder.
The Man In Nightgown
The true story of a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during the production of Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, despite knowing very little about his work and looking nothing like him.
Director
Ken Russell revisits the location of his 1960 documentary about coal mining in Northumberland and catches up with some of the people who appeared in the film. In 2005, the last of the deep mines was closed down. As the remnants of a once-proud industry was about to disappear, Ken returned to Northumberland to meet the men and women he filmed almost half a century earlier.
Himself
In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.
Producer
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Writer
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Director
A short directed by Ken Russell.
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Self
Hell on Earth is an hour-long documentary presented by Mark Kermode. It's about Ken Russell's 1971 film, The Devils which is one of the most controversial films ever made. Kermode chats to Russell as well as two of the films stars Georgina Hale and Murray Melvin. Also included are scenes that were cut from the released film for being too controversial.
Director
Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.
Dr. Calahari
Rock star Roddy Usher's wife is murdered and Rod is sent to a lunatic asylum in this gothic-comedy-horror-musical.
Director
Rock star Roddy Usher's wife is murdered and Rod is sent to a lunatic asylum in this gothic-comedy-horror-musical.
Ken
A short musical directed by Ken Russell.
Screenplay
A short musical directed by Ken Russell.
Director
A short musical directed by Ken Russell.
Producer
Corrupt officers track men for sport with dogs.
Director
Corrupt officers track men for sport with dogs.
Writer
This documentary begins with Ken Russell posing the question: "What is a true English folk song, if there is such a thing?" After recieving an indifferent response from his dog, Ken journeys around the countryside of England searching for an answer. He bumps into and interviews such famous artists as; Donovan, Fairport Convention, Osibisa, Eliza Carthy, So What, Edward II and The Albion Band among others.
Himself
This documentary begins with Ken Russell posing the question: "What is a true English folk song, if there is such a thing?" After recieving an indifferent response from his dog, Ken journeys around the countryside of England searching for an answer. He bumps into and interviews such famous artists as; Donovan, Fairport Convention, Osibisa, Eliza Carthy, So What, Edward II and The Albion Band among others.
Director
This documentary begins with Ken Russell posing the question: "What is a true English folk song, if there is such a thing?" After recieving an indifferent response from his dog, Ken journeys around the countryside of England searching for an answer. He bumps into and interviews such famous artists as; Donovan, Fairport Convention, Osibisa, Eliza Carthy, So What, Edward II and The Albion Band among others.
Self
A look at "Dracula" in the arts and his supposed real-life inspiration Vlad Tepes.
Writer
A biopic directed by Ken Russell.
Director
A biopic directed by Ken Russell.
Director
A series of erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings.
A series of erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings.
Director
Ken Russell's 1995 TV movie adaptation. This is a re-working of the Treasure Island theme with Long Jane Silver instead of Long John Silver. Hetty Baynes plays this role in the style of Marilyn Monroe.
Self
The history of film and video censorship in Great Britain.
Self
Documentary covering the career of French composer Georges Delerue, famous for film scores for such films as Platoon, Contempt, Shoot the Piano Player, and Jules and Jim.
Director
Documentary by Ken Russell that shows Alice traveling through a century of Russian's history, from the period of Tsarism, through Socialism and Glasnost. Alice's original characters embody ideological conflicts crossing politics, art and cultural movements.
Writer
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Director
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Mr. Kirsch
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Director
This biographical film of Czech composer Martinu is in two parts: the first part a recurring dream, the second a Freudian analysis of the dream.
Writer
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
Director
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
Sir Arnold Bax
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
Director
France, 1897. Colonel Georges Picquart challenges the French government when he discovers the obscure political maneuvers that led to the imprisonment of the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus after being convicted of espionage in 1894.
Camera Operator
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
Screenplay
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
Waiter (uncredited)
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
Director
This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
Walter
Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.
Director
This trio of tales, based on classic short stories, chronicles the complicated relations between the sexes.
Director
The life of Austrian composer Anton Bruckner and his numeromania.
Producer
Ken Russell's rather loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.
Screenplay
Ken Russell's rather loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.
Director
Ken Russell's rather loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence's "The Rainbow" sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England around the time of the Boer War. At school, she is introduced to lovemaking by a bisexual physical education instructress. While experiencing disillusionment in her first career attempt (teaching), she has an affair with a young Army officer, who wants to marry her. Unable to accept a future of domesticity, she breaks with him, and eventually leaves home in search of her destiny.
Writer
The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.
The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.
Director
The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.
Director
Arrigo Boito's Il Mefestefele was first performed in 1868 and his most known work. In Ken Russell's modern interpretation presented by the Genoese Opera, it has Faust as an ageing hippy. He smokes marijuana and is tormented by his lost youth. Mephisto makes a bet with God that he can turn anyone to pagan life, even someone as innocent as Faust. From then on it is a battle of good against evil in a flamboyant, surreal display of primary colours, PVC costumes, nurses with swastikas, rocket trips, love and even characters dressed as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Ken Russell said because the devil is always with us is his reason for the contemporary setting.
Police Radio (voice) (uncredited)
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.
Producer
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.
Screenplay
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.
Director
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.
Screenplay
London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.
Cappadocian
London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.
Director
London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.
A courtroom 'drama' featuring Bob Guccione versus Ken Russell in a breach of contract case regarding disagreements over a script for a film version of Daniel De foe's "Moll Flanders" which Guccione hired Russell to direct.
Writer
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 (Vivaldi, Bach, Wagner), and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
Director
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 (Vivaldi, Bach, Wagner), and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
Tourist
Living in 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.
Director
Living in 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.
Director
Video promo for Elton John: Cry to Heaven.
Director
Mexican tenor Francisco Araiza stars as Faust, and Erich Binder conducts the Vienna State Opera and Chorus in this 1985 production of Charles Gounod's five-act opera based on Goethe's poem. In an epic tale of good versus evil, Faust sells his soul to the devil (played by Italian bass Ruggero Raimondi) and tries to save Marguerite (Slovakian soprano Gabriela Benackova) from an eternity in hell. Walton Gronroos and Alfred Sramek co-star.
Director
Joanna Crane lives a double life. During the day she works as fashion designer but during the night she is the high class prostitute China Blue. As she is accused for industrial spying, Bobby Grady is hired to shadow her. However, they fall in love. Meanwhile a psychopathic preacher starts stalking her.
Director
Based on the famous Gustav Holst musical suite, this musical film takes watchers on a magnificent journey of the planets of the Solar System.
Writer
South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Producer
South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Director
South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Self
South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Director
鬼才ケン・ラッセルが人類進化の謎に迫ったSFスリラー。人間の肉体が変化していく特殊メイクアップが話題を呼んだ。細胞に眠る人類進化の起源を探ろうと、タンクに浸かりドラッグを試みる学者。実験は成功し、彼は太古のイメージを見るのだが、その効果は精神だけでなく肉体にも影響を及ぼし始めていた……。
Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us a comprehensive look at the British pioneer rock group, The Who. It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group in 1964 to 1978. It notably features the band's last performance with long-term drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death.
Rex Ingram
In 1926 the tragic and untimely death of a silent screen actor caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets and in some cases to commit suicide...
Screenplay
In 1926 the tragic and untimely death of a silent screen actor caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets and in some cases to commit suicide...
Director
In 1926 the tragic and untimely death of a silent screen actor caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets and in some cases to commit suicide...
Screenplay
Roger Daltrey of The Who stars as 19th century genius pianist Franz Liszt in this brash, loud and free-wheeling rock 'n' roll fantasia centered around an imagined rivalry between Liszt and composer Richard Wagner-- painted here as a vampiric harbinger of doom and destruction.
Director
Roger Daltrey of The Who stars as 19th century genius pianist Franz Liszt in this brash, loud and free-wheeling rock 'n' roll fantasia centered around an imagined rivalry between Liszt and composer Richard Wagner-- painted here as a vampiric harbinger of doom and destruction.
Cripple (uncredited)
“ザ・フー”の傑作ロック・オペラの映画化で、舞台での上演を想定して製作したレコードが大元。先の大戦で空軍パイロットの夫に先立たれ、ノーラは息子トミーと訪ねた夏のキャンプのガイド、フランクと再婚。が、ある夜、顔にひどい火傷を負い突如帰還した前夫に錯乱したフランクは彼を殴り倒し、それをトミーに見られてしまう……。
Producer
“ザ・フー”の傑作ロック・オペラの映画化で、舞台での上演を想定して製作したレコードが大元。先の大戦で空軍パイロットの夫に先立たれ、ノーラは息子トミーと訪ねた夏のキャンプのガイド、フランクと再婚。が、ある夜、顔にひどい火傷を負い突如帰還した前夫に錯乱したフランクは彼を殴り倒し、それをトミーに見られてしまう……。
Screenplay
“ザ・フー”の傑作ロック・オペラの映画化で、舞台での上演を想定して製作したレコードが大元。先の大戦で空軍パイロットの夫に先立たれ、ノーラは息子トミーと訪ねた夏のキャンプのガイド、フランクと再婚。が、ある夜、顔にひどい火傷を負い突如帰還した前夫に錯乱したフランクは彼を殴り倒し、それをトミーに見られてしまう……。
Director
“ザ・フー”の傑作ロック・オペラの映画化で、舞台での上演を想定して製作したレコードが大元。先の大戦で空軍パイロットの夫に先立たれ、ノーラは息子トミーと訪ねた夏のキャンプのガイド、フランクと再婚。が、ある夜、顔にひどい火傷を負い突如帰還した前夫に錯乱したフランクは彼を殴り倒し、それをトミーに見られてしまう……。
Writer
K・ラッセルによる、大作曲家マーラーの伝記映画。1911年、ウィーンに向かう列車の中、妻のアルマとコンパートメントに座るマーラー。その脳裏をよぎるさまざまな記憶……妻との甘い想い出、師であるワーグナー夫人の強烈な個性、ユダヤ人の彼が被った差別や中傷……。そして彼の悪夢はナチの台頭を予感するような激しいものになっていく。彼が妻と過ごす別荘付近の自然描写が美しいだけに、その恐ろしさが真に迫る。
Director
K・ラッセルによる、大作曲家マーラーの伝記映画。1911年、ウィーンに向かう列車の中、妻のアルマとコンパートメントに座るマーラー。その脳裏をよぎるさまざまな記憶……妻との甘い想い出、師であるワーグナー夫人の強烈な個性、ユダヤ人の彼が被った差別や中傷……。そして彼の悪夢はナチの台頭を予感するような激しいものになっていく。彼が妻と過ごす別荘付近の自然描写が美しいだけに、その恐ろしさが真に迫る。
Producer
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”
Passenger getting off train in station (uncredited)
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”
Director
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”
Producer
The assistant stage manager of a small-time theatrical company is forced to understudy for the leading lady at a matinée performance at which an illustrious Hollywood director is in the audience scouting for actors to be in his latest "all-talking, all-dancing, all-singing" extravaganza.
Screenplay
The assistant stage manager of a small-time theatrical company is forced to understudy for the leading lady at a matinée performance at which an illustrious Hollywood director is in the audience scouting for actors to be in his latest "all-talking, all-dancing, all-singing" extravaganza.
Director
The assistant stage manager of a small-time theatrical company is forced to understudy for the leading lady at a matinée performance at which an illustrious Hollywood director is in the audience scouting for actors to be in his latest "all-talking, all-dancing, all-singing" extravaganza.
Producer
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.
Screenplay
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.
Director
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.
Producer
Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky, nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy.
Director
Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky, nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy.
Director
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. (BFI Screenonline)
Director
Growing up in the sheltered confines of a 1920's 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.
Writer
The last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
Priest
The last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
Director
The last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
Director
The story of the influential 19th century British poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his troubled and somewhat morbid relationship with his wife and his art.
Director
A former British spy stumbles into in a plot to overthrow Communism with the help of a supercomputer. But who is working for whom?
Director
The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as "part genius and part charlatan".
Documentary shows Ken Russell at work on various BBC TV documentaries, with clips from Diary of a Nobody, The Debussy Film, Always on Sunday, Don't Shoot the Composer, Elgar and behind the scenes directing of Isadora Duncan. He discusses his working methods and filmmaking philosophy and is also shown at home entertaining his daughter Victoria.
Producer
Always On Sunday is a bio-pic on Le (Henri) Douanier Rousseau, a French naive painter.
Scenario Writer
Always On Sunday is a bio-pic on Le (Henri) Douanier Rousseau, a French naive painter.
Director
Always On Sunday is a bio-pic on Le (Henri) Douanier Rousseau, a French naive painter.
Scenario Writer
An actor is playing Claude Debussy in a film about the composer's life, and finds himself identifying with his subject very closely.
Director
An actor is playing Claude Debussy in a film about the composer's life, and finds himself identifying with his subject very closely.
Writer
Ken Russell's silent film treatment of the 19th century comic novel by the Brothers Grossmith - George and Weedon. Starring Bryan Pringle, Avril Elgar and Murray Melvin. Adapted by Ken Russell and John McGrath. First shown on BBC2 at 10.10pm on Saturday 12th December 1964 - as part of the 'Six' strand.
Director
Ken Russell's silent film treatment of the 19th century comic novel by the Brothers Grossmith - George and Weedon. Starring Bryan Pringle, Avril Elgar and Murray Melvin. Adapted by Ken Russell and John McGrath. First shown on BBC2 at 10.10pm on Saturday 12th December 1964 - as part of the 'Six' strand.
Screenplay
A portrait of the life and work of the great Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, exploring both his music and his passionate interest in his country's folklore.
Director
A portrait of the life and work of the great Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, exploring both his music and his passionate interest in his country's folklore.
Director
A deck-chair attendant at a British resort promotes a film festival featuring a French sexpot.
Director
A partly dramatised account of the life of classical composer Sir Edward Elgar. An episode of the BBC arts series Monitor.
Director
Explores the worldview of A.W. Chesher, who has a special interest in painting steam traction engines.
Director
Ken Russell's third Monitor documentary from 1962 is both a development from and inversion of the first, Lonely Shore. In that, an alien presence surveys a stretch of coastline strewn with assorted objects from early 1960s British lifestyles and tries (and mostly fails) to divine their meaning or purpose. The Preservation Man is also set in a series of object-strewn settings, but here they're part of the artist Bruce Lacey's collection of random junk, and their original function is irrelevant. Sensibly, Russell and commentator Huw Wheldon keep analysis to a minimum, preferring to use the film as an excuse to spend quarter of an hour in Lacey's amiable company.
Director
Peter Blake explores his passion for pop icons, Peter Phillips is featured with his cool companions, Derek Boshier voices his concerns with the American influence on British life and culture, and Pauline Boty, Britain's great female pop art painter who was to die only four years later, performs in a short dramatic dream piece.
Director
One of the most conceptually original of all the films that Ken Russell made for Monitor, this imagines an expedition of alien archaeologists (represented only by the soundtrack commentary) examining various artefacts strewn along a stretch of Britain's coastline and musing on their possible significance.
Director
Ken Russell is often cited as one of the fathers of the music video, with Tommy (1975) widely recognised as one of the pivotal works in the development of the form. However, as the far more obscure Monitor item London Moods from 1961 proves, he was experimenting with non-narrative illustrations of pre-recorded music fourteen years earlier.
Director
Mrs Wilhelmina Sterling shows her vast collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings, pottery and other artefacts at her home in Battersea.
Hood
Gangsters run rampant until they encounter a gutsy minister.
Director
Ken Russell directed a short document of German actress (and widow) of famed composer Kurt Weill performing many of his best known compositions for BBC TV series "Monitor"
Director
Prokofiev (BBC, tx. 18/6/1961), subtitled 'Portrait of a Soviet Composer', was the second of Ken Russell's composer biopics, though it takes a rather different approach from his first, Gordon Jacob (BBC, tx. 29/3/1959). Whereas in the earlier film Russell had access to the composer himself, Sergei Prokofiev had died eight years earlier (coincidentally, on the same day as Stalin), and there appeared to be no authentic moving-image footage of him in existence
Director
A study of Antoni Gaudí's architecture (especially the Church of the Holy Trinity in Barcelona), his sources of inspiration and his influence on Picasso. (BFI)
Director
While most of Ken Russell's documentaries for the BBC's Monitor arts strand focused on a single creative figure, he would also occasionally make more wide-ranging surveys of the state of a particular art. The Light Fantastic (BBC, tx. 18/12/1960) was written and presented by Ron Hitchins, a Cockney barrow boy who has long been interested in a great many dance forms, and who has recently taken up Spanish dancing. Hitchins participates in some of the dance sequences, but his main contribution is an enthusiastic commentary that helps personalise what could have been simply a disparate collection of dance footage. He's not shy about expressing likes and dislikes, being none too keen on ballroom dancing (too choreographed), rock'n'roll (too monotonous) and Morris dancing (just doesn't like it), though anything genuinely spontaneous gets a thumbs up, even if it's a room full of people dressed in black swaying to the sound of a gong.
Director
Short documentary about Shelagh Delaney and her hometown Salford.
Director
A personal and nostalgic film about an apartment building in Bayswater, where Russell once lived, and about the residents who inhabited it. The building is demolished to make way for an unattractive and bland office.
Director
In 1960, Ken Russell visited Bedlington Colliery, Northumberland to make one of his first documentary films, following life in the mining community.
Director
John Betjeman reminisces on Britain's great historical exhibitions since the 1870s: including Alexandra Palace, the Empire Exhibition at Wembley and the Festival of Britain. Also features a very special guest appearance by the National Film Theatre (today’s BFI Southbank).
Director
A double portrait of the painters Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun, seen at work in their Suffolk studio while discussing their paintings.
Director
Portrait of Spike Milligan, then part of The Goon Show examining his views on comedy,
Director
Also known as Guitar Craze and the more evocative Hound Dogs and Bach Addicts, this Monitor item (Ken Russell's third for the pioneering BBC arts strand) offers a whistle-stop tour of how Britons are enthusiastically taking up the guitar in all sorts of ways. The instrument's sudden popularity came about as a by-product of the skiffle revival, which led a wide range of people to form bands whose instrumentation was generally as cheap and cheerful as possible. Washboards and comb-and-paper combinations were common, and the only conventional musical instrument was often the humble acoustic guitar.
Director
Ken Russell directed short documentary for the BBC TV program me "Monitor"
Director
A portrait of the English composer Gordon Jacob.
Director
The film was Ken Russell's first for television and was commissioned by Huw Wheldon, the head of the BBC's Monitor arts programme. Betjeman is shown visiting locations including Vauxhall Park, Aldersgate Street station (now the Barbican), Camden Town and Hatfield. He recites his poems 'Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station', 'Business Girls', 'The Olympic Girl' and 'Hertfordshire'.
Cinematography
A young girl (Amelia) is distressed and feeling guilty about losing the wings she was to wear in her school play. Then she notices an angel and follows the angel into a dark building. Upstairs in the attic, bathed in heavenly light, is an artist's model - the ANGEL. The painter ascends a ladder until he is out of shot - supposedly to heaven-and reappears to restore Amelia's joy with a pair of wings.
Story
A young girl (Amelia) is distressed and feeling guilty about losing the wings she was to wear in her school play. Then she notices an angel and follows the angel into a dark building. Upstairs in the attic, bathed in heavenly light, is an artist's model - the ANGEL. The painter ascends a ladder until he is out of shot - supposedly to heaven-and reappears to restore Amelia's joy with a pair of wings.
Writer
A young girl (Amelia) is distressed and feeling guilty about losing the wings she was to wear in her school play. Then she notices an angel and follows the angel into a dark building. Upstairs in the attic, bathed in heavenly light, is an artist's model - the ANGEL. The painter ascends a ladder until he is out of shot - supposedly to heaven-and reappears to restore Amelia's joy with a pair of wings.
Director
A young girl (Amelia) is distressed and feeling guilty about losing the wings she was to wear in her school play. Then she notices an angel and follows the angel into a dark building. Upstairs in the attic, bathed in heavenly light, is an artist's model - the ANGEL. The painter ascends a ladder until he is out of shot - supposedly to heaven-and reappears to restore Amelia's joy with a pair of wings.
Director
A parable made in the manner of an old silent comedy about artistry and illusion.
Director
A romance between a clumsy knight and a damsel in distress.
god
PUZZLEFACE - 18min short film (CAN) Episode #7 from Spookey Ruben's Dizzy Playground TV series starring: Denis 'SNAKE' Belanger & VOIVOD, Ken Russell (RIP), Lisi Tribble, Maylee Todd, Rodrigo Gudiño (Rue Morgue), Rae Matthews, Jef Farquharson, O.T. Biggs and Spookey Ruben.
