Ken Russell — Director (34)
Savage Messiah (1972) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Savage Messiah
director: Ken Russell actor: Dorothy Tutin / Scott Antony
other title: Messia selvaggio / Le Messie sauvage
In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.
Aria (1987) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Aria
director: Nicolas Roeg / Charles Sturridge actor: John Hurt / Theresa Russell
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, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
London Moods (1961) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
London Moods
director: Ken Russell
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.
Dante's Inferno (1967) [Movie] WikiData TMDB IMDb
Dante's Inferno
director: Ken Russell actor: Oliver Reed / Judith Paris
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.
The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
The Fall of the Louse of Usher
director: Ken Russell actor: James Johnston / Lisi Tribble
Rock star Roddy Usher is confined to an insane asylum after murdering his wife. There, he is given various shock treatments by Nurse Smith and Dr Calahari, resulting in a series of bizarre and nightmarish adventures.
The Debussy Film (1965) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
The Debussy Film
director: Ken Russell actor: Oliver Reed / Vladek Sheybal
An actor is playing Claude Debussy in a film about the composer's life, and finds himself identifying with his subject very closely.
Song of Summer (1968) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Song of Summer
director: Ken Russell actor: Max Adrian / Christopher Gable
An immensely moving story of sacrifice, idealism and musical genius which charts the last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
Alice in Russialand (1995) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Alice in Russialand
director: Ken Russell actor: Hetty Baynes / Amanda Ray-King
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.
Pop Goes the Easel (1962) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Pop Goes the Easel
director: Ken Russell actor: Peter Blake / Derek Boshier
Pop Goes the Easel was Ken Russell’s first full-length documentary for the BBC’s arts series Monitor. It focused on 4 British Pop Artists - Peter Blake, Peter Philips, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.
The Light Fantastic (1960) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
The Light Fantastic
director: Ken Russell actor: Ron Hitchins / Anneke Wills
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.
A Bedlington Miners' Picnic (1960) [Movie] TMDB
A Bedlington Miners' Picnic
director: Ken Russell
In 1960, Ken Russell visited Bedlington Colliery, Northumberland to make one of his first documentary films, following life in the mining community.
Il Mefistofele (1989) [Movie] WikiData TMDB IMDb
Il Mefistofele
director: Ken Russell actor: Paata Burchuladze / Ottavio Garaventa
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.
The Lonely Shore (1962) [Movie] TMDB IMDb
The Lonely Shore
director: Ken Russell actor: Tony Church
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.