Becoming Ken Russell!!!

All fans and advocates of Ken know the name Paul Sutton. In the fellowship he's one of the most committed people to preserving Ken's oeuvre for posterity particularly the first 35 shorter films that Ken did for the BBC. Just as Shade Rupe has worked tirelessly to keep Ken's major studio works before the public, and Ian Fisher keeps the online fires burning, Paul is assuring that the smaller films (films that the UK public paid for) are no longer buried and hard to see. As it stands now, there is only a region 1 release of a half dozen or so films. A region 2 release of some very rare later works is due in a year....makes no sense really. Is it really that challenging for the beeb to make Ken's work available? Work that TV licensing fees paid for?

So in an effort to continue the tradition of Ken Russell scholarship (Ken being the star scholar thus far ;) Paul has authored the first of what is apparently going to be a staggering five volumes of sorely needed "Russell indepth". Started in 2007, Becoming Ken Russell: The Authorised Biography of Ken Russell: Volume One (Volume 1) is now been made available and here is Paul's take on it:

"Ken Russell was thirty-two years old in 1959, having been rejected by the British Film Industry because he didn't have the right family connections or the right school tie. Without connections there was no chance of his having a career in film. Until the industry collapsed. The failing studios at Lime Grove, where Alfred Hitchcock made The 39 Steps, and at Ealing, where Alec Guinness closed a series of unprofitable comedies with The Ladykillers, were now in the control of the BBC. And the BBC were looking for new talent.

Hired as an independent filmmaker, Ken Russell made seven short 35mm films in his first year at Lime Grove and at Ealing. The films were about dance and painting, architecture, comedy, poetry and music. The seven films were all about England. And they were all about him.

The Seven Ken Russell Films of 1959 advanced the art of cinema, acted as a sort of `blueprint' for masters such as Stanley Kubrick, and redefined the meaning of `English Cinema'. The films stand with the best made anywhere in the world that year. The year Ken Russell `became' Ken Russell.

Using tens of thousands of pages of original documents, decades of letters, and hundreds of interviews with Ken Russell, his family and his colleagues, Paul Sutton's multi-volume biography of Russell is the most complete portrait of an English film artist"

Delius Redux Pt 1: That odd feeling you get....

(High on himself: Delius remembers and listens)

If our son decides not to nap then I usually put on dvd from the Ken Russell at the BBC box set; usually Elgar. He then gets to absorb some culture with me as I reach for a 2:00pm cup coffee. Reading more about the making of "Delius: Song of Summer" in Joesph Lanza's book, I re-watched it today and have thus far found my most uncomfortable moment in a Ken Russell film. Why it's effects eluded me previously I have no idea. I think as I digest and learn more about Ken Russell the artist I'm simply seeing and feeling more.

For me there are so far only two uncomfortable moments in Ken's work both of which I'll discuss here. Prior to this it was only the homage to Luchino Visconti's "Death in Venice" in Mahler that concerned me. An ailing Mahler (Robert Powell) looks out the window with a beautific and optimistic look on his face as an older man looks lovingly at a young boy preening around the platform. It just weirds the hell out of me. I think because I was so much older looking for my age when I was 9 to 12ish and had a great deal of adults checking me out that it hits some kind of note in my memory.  The tallest kid always is blamed first. Stared and accosted I was, sometimes with avarice and sometimes with longing and disgustingly with lust. Anonymous adults in public places were like the zombies of my childhood. Thus the platform scene in Mahler  is just simply too visceral.

The in scene Delius: Song of Summer which now eclipses it just smacks for how becoming an adult (and therefore leadened down with so much shit in one's psyche) dictates life. In the scene, Fenby (Christopher Gable) and Jelka all react in their own silent and stunned way as they play Delius' own music for him. It fills and then floods a beautiful sunny room with afternoon light and passionate energy. The composer, despite being paralysed and blind, acts like he's either going to have an orgasm or cry out that he is the Master God of the universe for all eternity as he he sits listening. Many film historians incorrectly state that apart from the trip to Norway sequence (when he is still with his sight) the only time we see Delius with open eyes is when he has finally died. Incorrect. In this scene his eyes are wide open like he's possessed, stunned and most of all incandescent within the knowledge, the UNDYING BELIEF that he is a great artist. It simply makes me uncomfortable that he's so high on himself.

I'm simply too uncomfortable with mortality to not look away.

Ken Russell at The BBC and Stendahl Syndrome in the Kitchen

 The Debussy film


We've really putting our nut down  (saving)  for many plans but my beautiful husband splurged anyway and bought me my long desired, "Ken Russell at The BBC". A logical segue from "Dance of The Seven Veils" which, alas, cannot be included in my new dvd set due to copyright issues from the poopy Struass family.
I want everyone to own this!  I want this shown in all UK schools and as many US schools as possible.

I watched Elgar today and was in for the shock of my life. I of course got the camera out, hoping our baby bumblebee would shyly pose with the box but he instead threw it to the floor and wanted "Barney Sing and Dance". He did warm up when he saw Elgar on the white pony though. Like I said, I was in for a shock. I finally experienced, what I believe to be a mild form of  Stendahl syndrome. I somehow thought the film would be a light 20 minute affair with kites and ponies, instead it was a very beautiful and profound film with archival footage of 19th and early 20th century Britain. It felt it was a tad over 75 minutes but I need to check. Each scene was textured, layered on so carefully and the music was beyond belief.
Elgar has his own throne in the pantheon.

Tears seeped out of my eyes for an hour afterwords (not sobbing but seeping). I can't  believe the way Elgar and his hopes and despairs just came to life. This was the first work of Ken's in which the WORK artists go through became clear to me. This seems to be the recurring theme of all seven films; Elgar, Duncan, Debussy, Rosetti, Delius, Rousseau and yes, even Reeck-hard Strauss worked, lived and were their art to extent that I don't think exists anywhere today. If it does it is isolated with a few people globally and we must find them. I could have easily named two dozen other artists within each film, connected to the seven, who were working as hard. Comparatively, Earth was once a world of artists. These films are STUNNING.

Once we were naked bodies dancing on a hill at midnight and now we are two eyes staring at Oliver Reed...

And I'm not complaining!

Ken  with Mark Kermode who narrated the  2002 Devils Channel 4 special.