Ken Russell on DVD

[Gordon]

Lair of the White Worm is great fun!

[ellipsis7]

From Film Guardian Blog (Ken's locked in Celebrity Big Bro House as we speak, TV cameras and other inmates watching his every move)... Lucky Ken!...

Vote Ken
Ryan Gilbey
January 4, 2007 02:39 PM

Ken arriving in the Big Brother house last night. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Fans of the erratic and mischievous 79-year-old director Ken Russell long ago stopped expressing surprise at anything he did. He's shooting a film about Charlotte Bronte that will be broadcast on YouTube? Of course he is. He has been commissioned by the Royal Parks Foundation to design a deckchair? Naturally. He's just become the oldest contestant to join Celebrity Big Brother? But of course. What did you expect?

Russell may have looked understandably short of puff as he rolled up crooning Singin' In The Rain - it would have been nice, you felt, if Channel 4 had secured sponsorship from Stannah, the stairlift manufacturers, to make Russell's entrance into the house a little less taxing. But for my money, he trumped the other contestants in every department.

More camp than the one from Steps who thought no one knew he was gay, more personality than the beauty queen who had sex with someone she shouldn't have, more punk than the dim kid with a peroxide scare-cut. How can he fail to win the hearts of voters? There is the small matter that many of those voters weren't born when the director could still get his films released in cinemas, but that's a mere trifle. As has so often been the case with Russell, the personality eclipses the pictures anyway.

It's unlikely that Russell will have been rattled by the blank faces or the "Have you done anything I might have seen?"-type questions from the housemates: that's the sort of response he must have encountered whenever he has tried to get a movie financed recently. (No wonder he has resorted to shooting low-rent productions such as The Fall of the Louse of Usher on video in the grounds of his estate.)

Not that I believe Russell is there for commercial reasons. He has settled into his position of Great Forgotten Director as snugly as he played at being an arch provocateur in his heyday. There's every chance that he's just there for a gas. As if to prove it, he'd already given his housemates something to gossip over, and giggle at, within a few hours of entering the house. The model Danielle Lloyd couldn't wait to tell the others that she'd seen Russell bending over naked, giving her an exclusive screening of what we might euphemistically call his special features. "It's gonna give me nightmares for the rest of my life!" she babbled, echoing the sentiments of anyone who saw his last theatrical release, Whore.

Russell's inclusion has the whiff of perversity typical of the programme makers, but he is also a natural choice. His reputation may be founded on the decadent cinema of excess peddled in films like The Devils, Tommy and Lisztomania. But Russell knows television, and its casual alchemy, better than most. He spent the first half of the 1960s making documentaries for the BBC arts programmes Monitor and Omnibus, while his work in the past 15 years has been largely confined to TV.

Anyone who doubts that there will be moments of controversy or antagonism during Russell's stay should think back to what remains one of the defining episodes in his career. Driven to distraction on a TV discussion show by the derogatory comments leveled at The Devils by the Evening Standard's Alexander Walker, Russell promptly set about the startled critic with a rolled-up copy of his own newspaper.

So it's clear that he knows how to play up to the camera, and to make a fracas work in his favour. Added to which, his movies are crammed with scenes that could have come from any one of the previous Big Brother series: the infamous naked wrestling between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Women In Love; Ann-Margret rolling around orgasmically in baked beans during Tommy; Anthony Perkins brandishing a dildo as a deadly weapon in Crimes Of Passion. I've got every faith that the Celebrity Big Brother house is going to feel like coming home for Ken.

[MichaelB]

I've long given up hope of finding an actual clip (and it may never have been recorded), but does anyone have concrete details on the legendary Russell-Walker newspaper assault?

Even the exact broadcast date would help immensely, since it would at least let me confirm whether or not it still exists.

[ellipsis7]

Director in a Caftan

A BBC current affairs show flickers onto British TV screens. The moderator introduces Ken Russell, director of The Devils, and Alexander Walker, film critic of the London Evening Standard. Crikey! another of those urbanely boring panel discussions. But wait. Russell and Walker are turning red in the face, shouting at each other. Walker attacks The Devils for "monstrous indecency . . . simplemindedness . . . gross harping on the physical. . ." Russell attacks Walker as "old-womanly . . . a carping critic ... hysterical . . ." Then Russell rolls up a copy of the newspaper containing Walker's review and swats him on the head with it.

A rather excessive way for a director to reply to his critics? Perhaps. But then everything about Ken Russell is excessive, from his appetite for food and music to the caftans, Mickey Mouse shirts, canes and monocles he sometimes affects. "This is not the age of manners," he says. "This is the age of kicking people in the crotch and telling them something and getting a reaction. I want to shock people into awareness. I don't believe there's any virtue in understatement."

that pic entering BB house,,,,

[nyasa]

I've long given up hope of finding an actual clip (and it may never have been recorded), but does anyone have concrete details on the legendary Russell-Walker newspaper assault?

Even the exact broadcast date would help immensely, since it would at least let me confirm whether or not it still exists.

Both protaganists discuss the incident in the Mark Kermode documentary about The Devils, available on You Tube. The discussion starts at around the 4:50 mark

Walker says that it happened on a BBC 'late night news programme'. The fact that no footage is included, and yet the same documentary managed to unearth the long-lost rape of Christ scene, would suggest that the prog has long since been taped over or buried under the M3.

[Lino]

Walker says that it happened on a BBC 'late night news programme'. The fact that no footage is included, and yet the same documentary managed to unearth the long-lost rape of Christ scene, would suggest that the prog has long since been taped over or buried under the M3.

Alongside the longer version of Wicker Man, one presumes.

I actually think I have seen clips or photos about that infamous newspaper incident. But seeing that I have such a vivid imagination, I might have pictured it all in my mind and then assumed having seen it. I even went back to my bootleg copy of The Devils to search for evidence but no dice.

Gonna have to dig deeper in my mind to see if I can remember when I (think) I first saw it.

[MichaelB]

Walker says that it happened on a BBC 'late night news programme'. The fact that no footage is included, and yet the same documentary managed to unearth the long-lost rape of Christ scene, would suggest that the prog has long since been taped over or buried under the M3.

Thanks, but that's the limit of my research too. Or rather, I've come up with loads of similar references (not least in books and articles by Russell and Walker themselves), very much including the Kermode documentary, but not one seems to identify the programe, let alone say when it was actually broadcast.

There's a pretty overwhelming probability that it was either taped over or never recorded in the first place, as it was almost certainly a live studio broadcast - a bit like Kenneth Tynan first saying "fuck" on television a few years earlier, which also went out live and unrecorded (except in print).

[Lino]

I've long given up hope of finding an actual clip (and it may never have been recorded), but does anyone have concrete details on the legendary Russell-Walker newspaper assault?

Even the exact broadcast date would help immensely, since it would at least let me confirm whether or not it still exists.

I went googling and found this old Time article, dated September 13 1971. The newspaper incident must have been close to that time period, I guess.

edit: scrap that! Found the exact date!

One of those detractors was British critic Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard who very nearly met his match on the night of July 22nd 1971 when he appeared with Russell on the BBC's Tonight programme to discuss the film. Walker's damning [and error-riddled] review had been published earlier that day in the Standard and from the off, Russell proved to be in no mood to simply accept Walker's critique. The meeting proved spectacular and is now the stuff of TV legend, with Russell immediately going on the offensive, reminding Walker that his films were made for paying cinemagoers and not for the critical establishment. Adding insult to injury, Walker noted that "The public doesn't appear all that grateful, especially in America," a reference to the film's poor box office performance in the States. Russell then exploded, hitting Walker across the head with his rolled up copy of the Standard and exhorting Walker to "go to America and write for the fucking Americans!"

The fallout was predictable enough - the BBC switchboards were jammed by indignant viewers calling to complain about Russell's language and the tabloid hacks had a field day. Walker was told by the BBC that should he ever appear on TV again with Russell he "must give an undertaking in advance not to provoke him" [Walker 1988, p.107] and Russell wrote an indignant letter to the Radio Times suggesting that Walker and Tonight frontman Ludovic Kennedy had conspired against him. A "diminuendo of accusations, libel threats and, eventual, qualified apologies" [ibid] followed, but Walker claims to bear no grudge against Russell: "In fact, I had rather more respect for Ken Russell for forcing his emotions so trenchantly on a critic. The manner of his doing so was, after all, the very embodiment of his filmmaking" [ibid]. Russell remains adamant that the furor surrounding the film was justified: "Was it worth it? To me, yes. The Devils was a political statement worth making" [Russell, 1989, p.193].

[MichaelB]

It would have been round about the time of the UK release of The Devils, which was summer 1971.

[Lino]

Michael, look again. I edited it.

[MichaelB]

Eureka! Thank you so much for this - I'll modify the Screenonline entry right away and start doing some serious digging.

[nyasa]

i]Tonight[/i] went off the air in June 1965. Can't have been Newsnight, either, which didn't start until 1980. My own cursory research had thrown up another possible prog as a likely venue for the contretemps: Late Night Line-Up on BBC2. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Night_Line-Up). The dates fit, and they had previous with Ken, having featured him in 66.

The Wikipedia article suggests a slight possibility for footage: "As with many shows of it's [sic] time, a lot of Late Night Line-Up doesn't exist any longer. This was due to not only tapes being wiped, but as the programme often went out live, they simply weren't recorded by the BBC in the first place. Luckily some records do survive containing many dates and details of these shows."

[MichaelB]

OK, I've done a bit of delving, and it's definitely not Tonight.

Assuming the date is correct, it wouldn't have been Late Night Line-Up either, as that wasn't broadcast then (though there was an edition on 21 July) - so the most likely candidate (assuming that it was the BBC) is a programme called 24 Hours presented by Ludovic Kennedy, about which I know little - though I get the impression it was a current affairs discussion programme.

But it went out on BBC1 that evening at a suitably late hour, so it ticks more boxes than any other candidate.

UPDATE: I've found evidence that 24 Hours covered arts subjects, so it's looking increasingly likely that this is the one. It's an utter pig of a title to research, though - why couldn't they have called it something distinctive?

[ellipsis7]

24 Hours was a Newsnight type late night weekdaily current affairs show, which would fit...

[nyasa]

Other than exposing his tackle, Ken's been a bit of a disappointment so far in the house and is probably favourite to leave next week (though - irony of ironies - he's probably the victim of selective editing; the producers do seem to have favoured shots of him sitting around looking befuddled).

Anyone wondering why, at 79, he's elected to put himself through this, it apparently has much to do with the fact that his Hampshire home burned down last year and he's still effectively homeless.

For those who missed reports of the blaze at the time (I live in Hampshire, so it was big news in these parts), the news report is well worth reading. Despite everything, Ken was on cracking form:

"There was a naked lady running round the garden; what a pity I was not there to film it," he said, recovering with Elize in the pub at East Boldre, Hampshire, while 80 firefighters tried unsuccessfully to save the £400,000, 16th-century building. "If it was one of my films I'd call it Hot Stuff."

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0 ... 39,00.html

[MichaelB]

One major spin-off to all this is the number of articles about Russell's past career in the mainstream press - the best one I've seen being this piece by Boyd Tonkin in yesterday's Independent, which ran over several heavily illustrated pages in the print version.

Also, as I said above, I'm due to give a talk on Russell in a few weeks' time. In fact, I'm giving two, as I was going to talk about something else on January 19 in a guest lecture slot at the school where my wife's cousin teaches. But first thing on Thursday morning, I sent an e-mail changing my plan and proposing Russell instead - which was enthusiastically accepted.

In fact, I wanted to do Russell all along, but originally decided not to when I realised that most of my prospective audience wouldn't have been born when his last film had a theatrical release, so I'd have to spend a huge chunk of my allotted time just explaining who he was.

How times change!

[BrianInAtlanta]

One major spin-off to all this is the number of articles about Russell's past career in the mainstream press - the best one I've seen being this piece by Boyd Tonkin in yesterday's Independent, which ran over several heavily illustrated pages in the print version.

Since The Independent pulls many of their articles offline after a short period, I had to share the Russell quotes that end the article:

Ken on Ken

* "You can be as violent as you want in America, but you talk about sex and everyone reaches for their chastity belts."

* "Films were my world. Every day. With my mother. In the dark. I never saw daylight till I was 10."

* "Unbankable film director Ken Russell seeks soulmate - mad about movies, music and Moët and Chandon champagne."

Internet ad Russell placed looking for a soulmate. The respondent, Lisi Tribble, became his fourth wife

* "All my films have been Catholic films - films about love, faith, sin, guilt, forgiveness, redemption. Films that could only have been made by a Catholic. Except for The Boyfriend."

* "There are so many bad films about. There's this cult of the Mafia, and all the critics seem to be taken in by it - they're all sentimental, they're all abysmal, they're all crap, and they all have the same actor in, what's his name? De Niro, yeah, they daren't make a film without him."

* "The director has his daughter in it. What's his name? Coppola, yeah. And she's the ugliest girl you've ever seen - not her fault, but she shouldn't be exposed in close-ups. And at the end there's this scene where they're watching Cavalleria Rusticana and everyone starts killing everyone else, and then the Godfather comes out with the director's boring daughter, who's bored everyone to death by not being able to act or even walk properly, and suddenly she's blown apart with a shotgun and everyone in the audience shouts 'Hooray!' Now that was good. I wouldn't have got that in my sitting room. That was worth turning out and paying good money to go to the cinema for."

Ken on The Godfather: Part III

* [Richard] Dreyfuss had the cheek to say, "I know you're very good on music, so I'll send the film back when I've cut it my way and you can supervise the music." That's a bit like someone asking you to hold your sister down and spray her with perfume while he rapes her!"

Ken on making The Prisoners of Honour

* "I suppose direction is 75 per cent choreography. You say to the actor, 'Come in through that door, walk up to the glass and drink.' 'Well I don't know, do I have to? What's my motivation?' asks the actor. 'Just fucking do it!'"

* "Reality is a dirty word for me, I know it isn't for most people, but I am not interested. There's too much of it about."

* "It is a pity when one, either through force of circumstance or because one is afraid of being ridiculed by others, won't produce and expose to everyone that little spark of something special which is unique to him alone."

[colinr0380]

This most deliriously gothic of directors must have spotted how perfectly the CBB format fits the tradition that he follows. After all, his 1986 movie Gothic (when the rot irreversibly set in, according to some buffs) takes place within a sinister house completely cut off from the outside world.

Inside, a collection of shrieking creative misfits swap insults, throw tantrums, germinate wacky ideas, put one another through ludicrous ordeals - and, of course, obsess about sex all the time. The maniac mansion in question is Villa Diodati, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where, in the wet summer of 1816, Lord Byron, Dr John Polidori (author of The Vampyre), Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin Shelley stayed and scrapped, and where the latter's novel Frankenstein took shape. Forget about merely appearing on Celebrity Big Brother. Ken Russell directed it, two decades ago

That was a very interesting comparison!

I thought I would mention the conversation going on at the moment between Dirk Benedict and Leo Sayer that might annoy Down By Law fans:

LS:It is a bit like that film with the three of them in the jail...what was it...by Jim Jarmusch...Night on Earth! Who was in it? Tom Waits, Steve Biscetti...

DB:Buscemi?

LS:...yes and the Italian guy, Benetti.

And then they go on to talk about the 'Ice Scream' sequence. So it isn't just the general public that has a problem remembering details about films! At least he liked the film though! (The other movie faux-pas was mis-titling the Bill Murray film as Lost In Temptation - but we should give him a break since it is late at night!)

I was wondering how much Russell's house fire contributed to his decision to appear on the show myself. At least it is giving him more exposure ( ) than he has had for a while. I think although he hasn't done much, he is probably doing the best thing and letting events swirl around him without being too aloof - I particularly like the way most of the younger characters seem very condescending towards him or are bitching about him (the usual stuff), which is only making them look bad. Although Shilpa, the Bollywood actress, did introduce him to Jade, the person famous for being on Big Brother three years ago, as a 'very famous film director', and mentioned Women In Love (why has nobody mentioned that he directed Whore yet? That would be certain to get a reaction!).

He has had a couple of good moments - visiting the diary room with his 'bitches', and comforting Shilpa after all the others left in his unique way: "It is alright Shilpa, we'll cook for you, and clean. Clean your undies...and your....stockings"

I also liked the end of that Independent article where it bemoans the money spent on terrible British films, while Russell seemed to be left to rot. His films might be wild and bizarre, but they are always unique and there is nothing worse than seeing someone not be able to get work. Hopefully the experience will not be too bad and maybe gets film offers coming his way It is never going to happen, but I wonder what a Ken Russell directed Harry Potter film would turn out like?(!) At the very least we need a season of his films on television and as Lino says, a few more brought out on DVD!

[MichaelB]

I was wondering how much Russell's house fire contributed to his decision to appear on the show myself.

Overwhelmingly, apparently.

(why has nobody mentioned that he directed Whore yet? That would be certain to get a reaction!).

He talked about Whore in some detail on the second night, but only in the live version broadcast on E4. Amusingly, he couldn't remember the first name of his lead actress - and I suspect he only remembered Theresa Russell's surname because it was the same as his!

(I only watched the live feed on that one night, but I get the impression you'll get more value out of Ken that way - most of his anecdotes don't tend to make it into the packaged version)

I also liked the end of that Independent article where it bemoans the money spent on terrible British films, while Russell seemed to be left to rot. His films might be wild and bizarre, but they are always unique and there is nothing worse than seeing someone not be able to get work. Hopefully the experience will not be too bad and maybe gets film offers coming his way.

I wouldn't hold your breath - he turns 80 in July, and insurers are none too keen on this sort of thing. What usually happens is that they insist on an understudy director being present on the set throughout, ready to take over in case of incapacity - Wim Wenders did this for Antonioni on Beyond the Clouds, as did Karel Reisz on John Huston's The Dead, and I believe Arthur Penn was going to understudy David Lean on Nostromo, but Lean's death during pre-production killed that off anyway.

But who the hell could convincingly take over from Ken Russell?

[Lino]

But who the hell could convincingly take over from Ken Russell?

Well, Baz Luhrman could do the trick. I'm not too keen on him, mind but at least he understands kitsch and he's not afraid of it. And if Moulin Rouge wasn't high camp, I just don't know what that is anymore.

I'm not saying that's all there is to Russell's oeuvre (and all the forum knows by now of my unashamed love for his films) but he did say once that he loathed good taste or something along those lines. Which is perfectly fine by me, believe me!

[colinr0380]

(I only watched the live feed on that one night, but I get the impression you'll get more value out of Ken that way - most of his anecdotes don't tend to make it into the packaged version)

That's a shame. I don't have digital so the parts of the live broadcasts I've watched only involve snoring! It still amazes me that a television channel can broadcast hours of people sleeping taking up huge amounts of time that otherwise would have to be filled with films or other expensive programmes! I think the whole reality thing was satirised best by the 'People on the toilet' sketch from the Monkey Dust animated series, a spoof on reality shows which showed the creation of a reality star (or a Jade!), called Elaine, who throughout the series appeared in the background of other sketches in ever more bizarre and high profile situations including resolving a humanitarian crisis, lighting the torch at the Olympics etc! ("and as the torch reaches the stadium it is finally passed to..Elaine, from TV's People on the toilet")

The Daily Mail, of all papers, did a piece by Suzanne Moore today all about Russell (praising The Devils very highly!), and describing him as 'one of England's great eccentrics'. How attitudes change, probably due to the comfortable length of time since his last film to forget the controversy and be able to hold him up as some sort of icon of a forgotten age.

But who the hell could convincingly take over from Ken Russell?

I can't think of anyone - as Lino said, there are people like Baz Luhrman who like the camp and kitsch, but I get the impression there is no real satire or use of the style to put across a message there, he just likes the pretty dresses and sets and people singing and dancing, or pushing together modern day and Shakespearean dialogue to introduce Romeo and Juliet to youngsters. That is nice, but it is never going to really piss people off and challenge them the way Russell's films seem to have done!

After all, who else would have the nerve to have begun Whore with the shockingly inappropriate (but strangely apt!) song with the repeated lyric: 'I want to bang her'! That, if not the title, must have driven a lot of people away before the film even properly got going!

[Gordon]

Am I right in saying that Whore was Ken's response to Pretty Woman?

[colinr0380]

Short and sweet. Ken Russell has left the house.

Celebrated film director Ken Russell has walked out of the Big Brother house. The news was confirmed by Dermot O'Leary on Celebrity Big Brother's Little Brother. Apparently, he went to the Diary Room and asked to leave. Big Brother agreed and the man best known for his risky pictures Women In Love, The Devils and The Who's rock opera Tommy has gone.

The show has now lost two celebrities in two days, and the fact that it coincides with the return of Jade Goody (with her family) cannot be overlooked. Speculation now starts as to possible replacements.

Apparently there was a big argument with Jade and her family earlier on:

"You just cost us the task because you couldn't wait for your hungry belly," Jade shouted accusingly.

"I think you're slightly demented, darling," replied Ken nonchalantly. "You should be put in a straight jacket."

"You've got no respect and consideration for these people," yelled a fuming Jade.

"They aren't people, they're Servants," he barked back, before launching into an astounding display of bourgeois repressive behaviour.

"Servants!" he bellowed, banging the table as stray bits of cracker flew out of his mouth. "Trash! Slaves!"

"That's just nasty, they helped you put your socks on," responded Jade.

"I should jolly well hope so," scoffed Ken.

"They won't be able to eat for a week," exclaimed Jade, shaking with anger and on the verge of tears.

"Darling, the starving people of China don't eat for months," said Ken.

He then went back to his grub as a sobbing Jade feared the housemates' task dreams were ruined.

At least MichaelB and the rest of us won't have to continue watching now!

EDIT: Months after the fact, I've come across this segment from Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe series on YouTube that succinctly describes the Celebrity Big Brother series - if only I'd posted this before Richard Gere made his faux pas with Shilpa a couple of weeks ago!

Am I right in saying that Whore was Ken's response to Pretty Woman?

Perhaps. It isn't the fairy tale that Pretty Woman was! From what I remember Theresa Russell's character is on the run from her violent pimp for most of the film, and spends a lot of the time talking directly to the camera about her various tricks.

[MichaelB]

At least MichaelB and the rest of us won't have to continue watching now!

Well, I'll have to watch it tonight, for obvious reasons, but you're right - I really wasn't looking forward to the prospect of weeks of this, so I'm not exactly devastated.

[Lino]

Well, at least he made his mark and it's always better to leave than to be thrown out. Maybe now people will start reappraising him and like I said above, more of his movies start coming out on DVD.

And please, give the man a house! And invite him for more interviews!