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Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell, known as '''Ken Russell''' (born July 3 1927 ), is an Iconoclastic English Film Director , particularly well-known for his films about famous Composer s and his controversial, often outrageous pioneering work in film. BIOGRAPHY Early career Russell was born in Southampton , and was educated in Walthamstow and at Pangbourne College . He served in both the Royal Air Force and the Merchant Navy , and moved into television work after short careers in Dance and Photography . His series of documentary Teddy Girl photographs were published in '', where he worked regularly from 1959 to 1970 making arts documentaries for '' ''Monitor'' '' and '' Omnibus ''. Amongst his best-known works from this period were '' Elgar '' (1962), '' The Debussy Film '' (1965), '' Isadora Duncan, The Biggest Dancer In The World '' (1967), and '' Song Of Summer (Delius)'' (1968). The Elgar film was ground-breaking because it was the first time that an arts programme (''Monitor'') showed one long film about an artistic figure instead of short items, and also it was the first time that re-enactments were used. Russell though, still met resistance from ''Monitor'' editor Huw Wheldon in allowing actors to play the subjects of his films. The Elgar film includes sequences of the young composer riding his bicycle on the Malvern Hills accompanied by Elgar's ''Introduction & Allegro for Strings''. Russell has said that he had a particular empathy with Elgar's music because, like the composer, he is a Catholic ."BBC Music Magazine June 2007" His television films became increasingly flamboyant and outrageous: '' The Debussy Film '' opens with a scene in which a woman is shot full of arrows (a reference to Debussy 's '' The Martyrdom Of St Sebastian ''); while ''Dance Of The Seven Veils'' (1970), a self-styled "comic strip in seven parts on the life of Richard Strauss ", caused such outrage that questions were asked in the Parliament Of The United Kingdom , and the Strauss family withdrew all music rights and imposed a world-wide ban on the film that continues to this day. In 2005 the Strauss family intervened to stop the film from being screened at a festival of Russell's film in Holland. Although the majority of his BBC films were about musical subjects, his most influential film of the era was the seminal film on British Pop Art ''Pop Goes the Easel'' (1962). Made in a style which reflected the art works of Peter Blake , Pauline Boty and others, and containing astonishing dream sequences which took the viewer into the mind of the artists, it influenced everyone who was anyone in British cinema in the 1960s, particularly Stanley Kubrick (who would later direct '' A Clockwork Orange '', which is artistically similar to some of Russells work, and was originally intended to be directed by Russell) and Lindsay Anderson . Russell's first feature film was '' French Dressing '' (1963), a comedy loosely based on Roger Vadim 's '' And God Created Woman ''; its critical and commercial failure sent Russell back to the BBC . His second big-screen effort was part of author Len Deighton 's Harry Palmer spy cycle, '' Billion-Dollar Brain '' (1967), a visually stunning widescreen masterwork, which has only recently began to attract the critical praise it deserves. The 60s were perhaps the director's artistically richest decade. 1970s and controversy Ken Russell's 1969 film, '' Women In Love '', based on the novel by D. H. Lawrence , had won an Oscar for Glenda Jackson and broke the cinema Taboo on full frontal male Nudity in the nude wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed . More importantly, it was the third biggest money-maker of the year in the UK, and it put Russell on a path of box-office success without equal in the British cinema. He followed ''Women in Love'' with a string of innovative adult-themed films which were often as controversial as they were successful. In the 1970s he had five No.1 hits at the British box office — more than any other film-maker — and he spent more weeks at No. 1 than any film-maker with the single exception of Guy Hamilton (who directed three James Bond films during the decade). Russell's first No.1 hit of the 1970s was '' The Music Lovers '' ( 1970 ), a biopic of Tchaikovsky , which was unusual in that it used the composer's music to tell the story of the musician's life. The score was conducted to great acclaim by André Previn . The following year, Russell released '' The Devils '', a film so controversial that its backers, the American company Warner Brothers , still refuse to release it uncut. Inspired by Aldous Huxley's book '' The Devils Of Loudun '' and using material from John Whiting 's play ''The Devils'', it starred Oliver Reed as a noble priest who stands in the way of a corrupt church and state. In America, the film, which had already been cut for distribution in Britain and where it topped the box-office for eight weeks, was further censored. It has never played in anything like its original state in America. British film critic Alexander Walker described the film as "monstrously indecent" in a television confrontation with Russell, leading the director to hit him with a rolled up copy of the ''Evening Standard'', the newspaper for which Walker worked. Russell followed ''The Devils'' with a spectacular reworking of the period musical '''', a biopic of the artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska , and he provided the producer David Puttnam with a rare box-office hit with '' Mahler '', a film which helped to make Robert Powell a household name. In 1975, Russell's star-studded film version of The Who 's rock opera '' Tommy '' starring Roger Daltrey , Ann-Margret , Oliver Reed, Elton John , Tina Turner , Eric Clapton and Jack Nicholson , spent a record fourteen weeks at the No.1 spot and played to full houses for over a year. Adapting the Rock Opera record for the screen, Russell had the composer, Pete Townshend , add some new numbers to fill out the story and changed a key detail in the traumatic murder that Tommy witnesses (leading to the child becoming deaf, dumb and blind). Two months before ''Tommy'' was released (in March 1975), Russell started work on '' Lisztomania '' (1975), another vehicle for Roger Daltrey , and for the film scoring of Prog-rock er Rick Wakeman . One of Russell's aims with this wild comic strip of a film was to explore the power of music for good (inspirational) and evil. In the film, the good music of Franz Liszt is stolen by Richard Wagner who, in his operas, puts forward the theme of the Superman , a philosophy and a music that brought forth Hitler (a similar theme was expressed in Russell's banned 1970 TV film, ''Dance of the Seven Veils''). In ''Lisztomania'', Daltrey (as Liszt) must oppose Wagner who has become a vampire, played by Paul Nicholas . The film's finale, Liszt returning from Heaven in a cartoon spaceship propelled by the energies of the dead women in his life, to vaporise the monstrous Wagner, is one of the strangest in all cinema. ''Tommy'' and ''Lisztomania'' were important in the rise of improved motion picture sound in the 1970s, as they were among the first films to be released with Dolby -encoded soundtracks. The involvement of these two Russell films in this pioneering work can be attributed in part to his special interest in music and to his location in the United Kingdom, where development work on Dolby film sound was centered. ''Lisztomania'' topped the British box-office for two weeks in November 1975, when ''Tommy'' was still in the list of the week's top five box-office hits. Russell's next film, the 1977 biopic '' Valentino '', also topped the British box-office for two weeks, but was not a hit in America. 1980s Russell's 1980 effort '' Altered States '' was a departure in both genre and tone, in that it is Russell's only foray into Science Fiction , and contains comparatively few elements of Satire and Caricature . Working from Paddy Chayefsky 's Screenplay (based upon his Novel ), Russell used his penchant for elaborate visual effects to translate Chayefsky's hallucinatory story to the cinema, and took the opportunity to add his trademark religious and sexual imagery. The film was also noteworthy for having one of the most inventive, complex, sonically polished, and powerful soundtracks created for a film up to that time, including an Oscar -nominated score by John Corigliano , best known as a Contemporary Classical composer. The film enjoyed moderate financial success, scored with critics who had otherwise dismissed Russell's work, and has come to be regarded as a classic "head film". Regrettably, one of the film's greatest detractors was Paddy Chayefsky himself, who dropped out of the project shortly after filming began, and requested prior to the film's release that his name be replaced by the name "Sidney Aaron" (actually his own birth name). Russell's last American film was '' Crimes Of Passion '' (1984); it returns to his major themes of sex and religion, contrasting the prostitute China Blue (played by Kathleen Turner ) with a spurious street preacher (played by Anthony Perkins ). Unable to comply with the artistic conservatism of Hollywood, Russell returned to Europe, finding financing mostly with various independent and fly-by-night companies. '' Gothic '' (1986) was a typically hysterical treatment of Lord Byron and the creation of the story that became '' Frankenstein ''. In spoof '' The Lair Of The White Worm '', and '' Salome's Last Dance '', the latter reuniting him with his '' Women In Love '' star Glenda Jackson . Russell then returned to D.H. Lawrence for what so far has been his last personal project for the cinema, an adaptation of '' The Rainbow '', released in 1989. In 1989, Russell directed the famous music video for Elton John 's worldwide hit, '' Nikita '', and videos for Cliff Richard , Sarah Brightman , and the band Pandora's Box 's song '' It's All Coming Back To Me Now ''. 1990s In the 1990 film '' The Russia House '', starring Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer , Russell made one of his first significant acting appearances, portraying Walter, an ambiguously gay British Intelligence Officer who discomfits his more strait-laced CIA counterparts. By the early 1990s , Russell's notoriety and persona had attracted so much media attention that he had come to be widely regarded as nearly unemployable in the cinema. He became largely reliant on his own finances to continue making films. Much of his work since 1990 has been commissioned for television, and he has contributed regularly to '' The South Bank Show ''. '' Prisoner Of Honor '' (1991) was Russell's final work with Oliver Reed; his final film with Glenda Jackson before she gave up acting for politics, '' The Secret Life Of Arnold Bax '' (1992) is also (to date) his last composer biographical drama. '' Mindbender '' (1996) was dismissed as propaganda for mentalist '' Uri Geller '' and '' Tracked '' (aka '' Dogboys '') (1998) was unrecognizable as a Russell film. 2000s Russell had a cameo in the 2006 film adaptation of Brian Aldiss 's novel '' Brothers Of The Head '' by the directors of '' Lost In La Mancha ''. He also had a cameo in the 2006 '' Colour Me Kubrick ''. He directed a segment for the horror anthology '' Trapped Ashes '' (2007) which also includes segments directed by Sean S. Cunningham , Monte Hellman , and Joe Dante . He is currently in pre-production for two films: ''The Pearl of the Orient'' and ''Kings X''. Efforts such as '' The Lion's Mouth '' (2000) and '' The Fall Of The Louse Of Usher '' (2002) have suffered from low production values (for example, being shot in video on Russell's estate, and often featuring Russell himself) and limited distribution. Since 2004 Russell has been visiting professor of the University Of Wales , Newport Film School . One of his many tasks is to advise students on the making of their graduate films. He also presented the Finest Film Awards (for graduate filmmakers of Newport) in June 2005. Russell was appointed visiting fellow at the University Of Southampton in April 2007, where he will act in a similar capacity to his role at the Newport Film School , until March 2008. His arrival was celebrated with a screening of the rare director's cut of ''The Devils'' hosted by Mark Kermode . Russell is currently (2007) in production of his first full length film in almost 5 years, ''Moll Flanders'', an adaption of Daniel Defoe 's Novel , starring Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty and Barry Humphries . WRITINGS Russell has written books on filmmaking and on the British film industry; a brilliant and witty 1989 , Brahms and Beethoven ; one a science-fiction rewriting of ''Genesis''. His latest novel, published in 2006 is called ''Violation''. It is a very violent future-shock tale of an England where football has become the national religion. ''CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER 5'' Russell joined '' Celebrity Big Brother '' on January 3 2007 , at the start of the series. He left voluntarily on the following Sunday ( 7 January ), after an altercation with Jade Goody , He had however earlier that day before his argument with Goody told Big Brother in the diary room not to be surprised if he asked to leave. As he entered the house, he sang "''] On the January 7 episode of ''Celebrity Big Brother's Little Brother '' it was revealed that Russell had made the decision to leave the house, citing difficulty dealing with the arrival of Jade Goody and her family. The cause of the argument between Goody and Russell was the servant task set by the show, in which eight celebrities were told they had to wait on Goody, her family, and three other contestants — including Russell. Ken Russell left the Big Brother house on the afternoon of January 7 , even after he and Jade had called a truce. In a statement he said: "I don't want to live in a society riddled with evil and hatred". {Link without Title} During his time in the ''Celebrity Big Brother'' house it emerged that Russell once had a cameo in an episode of the popular British soap '' EastEnders ''. PHOTOGRAPHY In the early stages of his career Ken Russell struggled to break into the film industry. Before 'making it', Russell enjoyed a brief fling with photography. An exhibition displaying some of Russells work is currently on display in central London's Proud Galleries in The Strand, London . The exhibition, entitled ''Ken Russell's Lost London Rediscovered: 1951-1957'', is set to run until August 21st 2007 and includes over fifty limited edition prints from Russell's personal collection. As implied by the title, the prints displayed are all taken in and around London, with many of the pictures being taken in the Portabello Road area of London. REFERENCES {Link without Title} --BBC Interview with Ken Russell and Tony Lane on '' Invasion Of The Not Quite Dead '' (2008) FILMOGRAPHY
The films produced for the BBC arts programme Monitor should also be noted - see above EXTERNAL LINKS
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