Russell, Credit: Photofest
I.
I was in the lowest level of the "Lasdun Building" (New Court) at Christ's College, Cambridge with my head wedged between the dividers of a public phone booth. It was toward the beginning of July, 2004. As an American abroad, my avowed goals for my summer study program were slightly different from most of my peers. While I was quite committed to trying new and novel types of beer (for me, mainly "real ale"), I was also spending the summer hunting for material for what was to be an honor's thesis. That project, while well-meaning, was ill-conceived. I was able to accumulate, unearth, and connect a lot of submerged material on my subject, but the project had no form. It was only with the work I did in my later career that I was to make some sense of what I had amassed. It would later lead to conference invitations, an edited book of my own making, the beginnings of an academic reputation (thus far intact), endless avenues for (new and productive) research, and a last-minute email for an interview to be aired on BBC World Television. The interview never happened, but the punctuation mark, the kind of symbolic book-end, was nice.
I'm getting ahead of myself. I was about to call Ken Russell. I was wedged between those sterile public phone dividers because I was hoping that he'd be willing to answer some of my specific questions about his films, namely his seemingly forgotten pseudo-autobiographical biopic Savage Messiah (1972). Earlier that summer, I'd had a chance to meet, interview, and generally chat with one of Russell's defenders, the critic Ken Hanke. Hanke was encouraging, was happy that someone was still reading his book 20 years on (Ken Russell's Films, 1984), and gave me a great gift before I left: my favorite director's phone number. I'd wait until I was in England before calling.
Well, I finally was in England, and with nearly a month ahead of me. I had hopes of talking to Russell in-depth. Maybe I'd rent a bike and try to ride it to the New Forest, where he'd lived for many years. Maybe I'd run into him in a coffee shop. Who knew.
I dialed the number. Phone numbers in this country seemed to have too many digits. I must have done it correctly, because someone picked up the phone. I recognized the voice. It was Ken Russell. And he didn't sound too happy. I launched into my semi-prepared opening remark: "would/could it be possible to have a chat about your films I am an American student and am writing about your work wait I should have mentioned that I was given your number by one of your friends wait did he tell you I'd be calling?" I can't blame him, but Russell regarded my incomprehensible opening salvo as any of us would a telemarketer. He dismissed me readily. He didn't have time to talk about his films. Anyway, why did I want to talk about them? Any questions I might have can all be answered by the film itself. I must have not been watching his work carefully enough.
That introductory phone call doubled as a wake-up call. Who was I to call during the middle of the day? Besides, why talk to me? I was just a kid.
Dispirited but determined, I soon learned of my second chance for contact. My new friend Paul Sutton—editor of Camera Journal, a Cambridge-based film magazine that had recently done a large issue devoted to Russell and his work—had tipped me off to a public appearance. Ken was to be at the Clerkenwell Film and Video Festival as a guest. He'd show Revenge of the Elephant Man (2004) a new short film that he'd made at and around his house, with his friends, neighbors, and wife as the cast and crew.
I managed to convince a close friend of mine to come down to London with me. At best, it would be a cool event with good food. At worst, he could tell everyone about how much of an idiot I was. The event itself was in a strange indoor space that had access from the street, but then descended into a terraced room. There were seats and couches everywhere, with a bar conspicuously placed in the back. It didn't take long to find Ken and his wife. They were merrily talking to attendees, business associates (at this time, Russell was attached to a project called King's X, which if memory serves was to be about a serial killer on the loose in the seedy King's Cross area of London), collaborators (editor Michael Bradsell), and whoever else came by. I timidly introduced myself, and mumbled something about being an American student who had called. He remembered, apologized, and talked with me about the event. He briefly went over the idea behind his Gorsewood films—while Hollywood is an American phenomenon, the cottage he then called home was covered by Gorse and, since he made films from home, it was dubbed Gorsewood—and generally made me feel welcome. It was extremely gratifying to watch the film with Ken in attendance. As I recall, he gave away some awards and gave a short speech. I left with some signed books, pictures, and some confidence. Ken and Lisi would later answer my more academic and factual emails with great care. Things had very much worked out for the best.
In 2005, Ken Hanke told me that Ken Russell was to be honored at the Asheville Film Festival. I should come down, see the films (including a clandestine screening of Dance of the Seven Veils, one of the precious few that I know of outside of the Museum of the Moving Image retrospective some years ago), videotape Russell's appearance at the award's dinner, and general be a witness to his temporary ordination as the King of Western North Carolina. Even better, Lisi was originally from the Western North Carolina area. It was a chance to connect the wilds of Appalachia to the sublime beauty of Russell's beloved Lake District.
I made the drive and had a great time. Writer Barry Sandler was there (who'd written the screenplay for Ken's film Crimes of Passion, 1984), Ken Hanke served as the general master of ceremonies, and I finally had a chance to sit down and talk to Russell, face-to-face. Part of that interview even made it into John Kenneth Muir's book Horror Films of the 1980s (2007).
In my eyes, the most important thing I did was drive Ken and Lisi back from their hotel. Dance of the Seven Veils had screened, Ken did a Q&A, and as Mahler began (then, as now, my favorite film of all time), they wanted to head back to their hotel, as they were flying back home the next day. It was a real treat to have another conversation with the two of them. I learned that they were soon off to Vancouver to make a film for the horror anthology Trapped Ashes (finally released on DVD 2008). While Ken was never a part of the "Masters of Horror" series, he certainly qualified. The Devils, Altered States, Gothic, and Lair of the White Worm are inventively horrific films, whatever your definitional parameters for the genre. At least at that point in the night, neither Lisi nor Ken seemed especially excited about the job. It was to be Russell's last professionally funded film. Thankfully, the US DVD contains an extended cut of Ken's segment, "The Girl with the Golden Breasts." It contains some ideas, camera movements, and shock-cuts that suggest that he was still a master of the form.
As time went on, my professional work on Russell's films increased. With my undergraduate career behind me, it was time to get down to business. I had become involved in a book project that was originally set up by James M. Welsh and John C. Tibbetts, both of whom had been popular/academic champions of Russell's work long after it had gone out of fashion. I had gotten in touch with Tibbetts after the publication of his book Composers in the Movies: Studies in Musical Biography (2005), where he talks at length about Ken Russell's composer biopics. Moreover, he had written about Dance of the Seven Veils at a time when nobody seemed to have access to it. Welsh and Tibbetts their book project on Russell with Scarecrow Press (fittingly, the publisher of Ken Hanke's book, which at the time was the most recently published book on Russell and his films). Would I like to collaborate? This was my chance.
I gave my first professional talk on Russell at the 2007 Literature/Film Association conference a Kansas University. My talk, and one delivered by Tom Prasch, came before a screening of Amelia and the Angels (1957), a film that (at that time at least) remained unseen, especially in America. Here, I made contact with other scholars who were interested in Russell's films. It seemed that the tide was about to turn.
Drawing by John C. Tibbetts
For me, 2007 was the year of Russell's public comeback. There was an academic and "professional" side to this, for all parties involved. I was well into work on what had become my edited anthology Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist (eventually published 2009). Jim and John were swamped with other projects, so it became mine, though both were immensely helpful in making it a reality. I was now working on my M.A. in film under Joseph A. Gomez, whose 1976 book on Russell was of great interest to me. Joe became another source of information and readily shared his files and documents with me. Later in the year, Joseph Lanza released his Russell biography Phallic Frenzy, a book that Russell himself reviewed in the Times of London. The aging enfant terrible's take on the art world, his views on books, concerts, plays, and current events were circulating with great frequency thanks to this occasional column in The Times. He was featured in a big Sight and Sound retrospective by Linda Ruth Williams. Mark Kermode continued to champion Russell and his films (he had spearheaded the documentary Hell on Earth, 2004, which found the fabled lost footage once excised from The Devils, 1971). Friend Paul Sutton began his work on the most thoroughly researched Russell biography yet. Ken himself began lecturing and working with film students at universities in Wales and Britain. He championed D.I.Y. filmmaking, and imparted his years of on-the-job training to students who were even younger than myself. At this point, his long-hidden still photographs from the 1950s began to circulate in gallery shows.
But Russell's fame rose because of his on-camera return to the pop cultural purview. He was appearing in bit parts in films and TV shows with some regularity. Yet it was his stint on Big Brother UK that brought him squarely back into the public's viewfinder. He didn't stay on the show too long—a public row with Jane Goody saw to that—but his time there counted among the more surreal experiences in that show's history.
It was heartbreaking to hear of the increased difficulties in his life. His house burned down in 2006. With age came decreased mobility (he eventually walked with a cane). I'd heard of a series of strokes.
Over these last few years, he continued to make films, here and there, with his wife and friends, but no more big projects came. Compelling projects were announced, but complications with funding or timing or both always seemed to come soon after. Since knowing him, Pearl of the Orient, a film on Tesla, Moll Flanders, and more were tantalizingly close to being realized.
I continued with very occasional contact with Ken and Lisi since 2004. I tended to hear the bigger news through mutual friends. I have continued to write on Russell wherever relevant. I will miss him terribly.
II.
I have spent a good deal of time over the day reading obituaries, remembrances, and stories of Ken Russell and his fans. While the newspaper missives often seem slightly impersonal, I have delighted in the anecdotes, the tall tales, and even the well-worn stories. In my writing on Russell, I have tried to show how and why his films are important. My fear, then as now, is that it would not be until after he has passed that we (audiences, scholars, fans) would be able to truly take stock of why his films are important. I would like to throw a few preliminary thoughts into the mix. There is a tendency to memorialize for its own sake. Of course we should all go back and re-watch Russell's great works. But in order to do so with a refreshed sense of vision—to see them with new eyes—it is worth taking stock of what type of genius we lost on Sunday, November 27th.
In teaching a Freshman writing course last year, I harbored the illusion that exposure to John Berger's book Ways of Seeing would instantly change each of my student's lives. It had changed my life. I was always inclined toward the visual. I started up with art history in high school because visual art captivated me. When I read Berger's book, I had one of those rare moments where I began to see the world in a different way. Sadly, my students didn't seem to quite have the same revelation. Previous to reading Berger (who effortlessly imparts the meanings behind images and the politics hidden in emblems), the only other thinker/artist who was single-handedly able to change the way I looked at the world was Ken Russell. I probably should have showed my students Russell's films instead.
As a general rule, there is something astonishing to see in each of Russell's big feature films. His Technical Achievement award for Mahler, from Cannes in 1974, was not for nothing. He is able to handle studio-bound set pieces that are on a gigantic scale—think of the ice floe sequence from Billion Dollar Brain (1967), or any number of choreographed dance numbers from The Boy Friend (1971)—as well as studio-bound set pieces that contain smaller-scale ideas, yet nevertheless play out on a gigantic scale (think of some of the early bedroom scenes in Lisztomania, 1975). His camera moves in magnificent ways in most of his films. There are flawless zooms and dolly-shots in Mahler, frantically expressive hand-held sequences in Women in Love (1969) and The Music Lovers (1970), and some positively magical movement effects in The Devils (not the least of which is the apparent "trombone" effect that punctuates the climatic moment of the "Rape of Christ" sequence).
That last sequence gains as much from the fantastic score by Peter Maxwell Davies, which leads me to a second point: Ken Russell is one of the very best directors at matching music and the moving image. This is not my original idea, by any means—it is a fact on which he has built much of his reputation. Films of his that aren't even expressly about music use music to masterful effect: the twist sequence in Pop Goes the Easel (1962), the pianola score to Peep Show (1958, a harbinger of mood, more than anything else), Corigliano's music to Altered States (1980). This is most fruitfully borne out in his films about musicians. His composer biopics, especially Elgar (1962), The Debussy Film, and Song of Summer (on Fredrick Delius, 1968), are constantly lauded for their unique combination of psychological/guttural understanding of the emotional valences of music, and the inventive ways that one can connect the abstractions of composed music to the rocky realities of a life.
What tends to get left out of this consideration of why Russell is so good with musicians is the absolute centrality of Romanticism to Russell's varied body of creative work. Russell is one of the very few artists to make an almost career-long study of the Romantic temperament. I don't mean that Russell merely made films and wrote novels about musicians whose lives correspond to the historical period that we label as the "age of Romanticism." Rather, I'd like to suggest that Russell plunged into the melancholic, sublime, and emotionally tempestuous depths of the Romantic imagination, across historical periods. He is often discussed as a Romantic "genius," but is is worth reiterating that much of his best work is a sustained look at the flaws and functions of the Romantic mind. In these films on artists, we are given an intesive sense of their inner lives as artists. But, the greatest of Russell's biopics don't stop there. In The Debussy Film (1965), Savage Messiah, and The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1993), we are clued in to the wide social and cultural dimensions of their artistic struggle. Even on tight budgets and tight shooting schedules, these films offer a profound portrait of the artist in their contexts. In this sense, he is something like an outspoken heir to William Hazzlitt, with a touch of William Blake and William Cobbett thrown in for good measure.
I really hope that Russell begins to receive recognition as one of the handful of real innovators of English-language arts documentary. His only real peer in the British context is Tony Palmer, who worked with Russell on Isadora Duncan (1966) and can be said to owe quite a lot to his mentor. While commentators and scholars have been writing for years about the genre-smashing qualities of many of his fictionalized BBC arts biopics, I argued in my book that Russell can also be viewed as somebody who did important ideological and political things with his work, especially in relation to the foundational principles of British broadcasting culture. These films, made from 1959 until the late 1960s, for programmes like Monitor and Omnibus, are absolute landmarks of television history. Their experimental spirit was later repeated, albeit with incosistent and mixed success, with nearly two decades worth of work for Melvyn Bragg's South Bank Show. It is a shame that this almost unthinkably diverse range of film isn't readily remembered by the public.
Russell made memorable horror films. He challenged easy constructions of gender and sexuality. He made literary adaptations that far exceeded the bounds of staid heritage productions. He made some of the most audacious films of cinema's most audacious period (the 1970s). He made loyal friends. He pissed off all the right people. He was a true original.
