British iconoclast Ken Russell (1927-2011) directed some of the most audacious, controversial and stylish films ever. The visionary cineaste owes much to his attention to detail, his flamboyant style and his baroque photography. He began his career in the 60s, directing deliberately irreverent artist biographies for television. His great innovation was inserting sequences played by actors into the documentaries. In his later full-length features he would continue to make artist portraits which, due to their subjective nature, were considered highly contentious. In Russell’s non-biographical films he adroitly juggles different genres and styles, forever walking the lines between great art and popular culture, high camp and low trash, pure beauty and vulgar kitsch, and dreams (or nightmares) and reality. He left behind a filmography which sends us back to a past illuminated by the present, and vice-versa. With nearly 90 documentaries and films on his belt, Ken Russell made a name for himself as a rebel, remaining faithful to the sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll motto throughout his career.
Ken Russell
