Ken Russell

Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell (3 July 1927 – 27 November 2011) was an English film director. He is known for his pioneering work in television and film, and for his controversial style. He has been criticized as being over-obsessed with sexuality and the church. His subject matter is often about famous composers, or based on other works of art which he adapts loosely. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he did creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios.

He is best known for his Oscar-winning romantic drama Women in Love (1969), the notoriously controversial The Devils (1971), the rock musical Tommy (1975), and the science fiction film Altered States (1980).

One noted admirer, British film critic Mark Kermode, attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell; "somebody who proved that British cinema didn't have to be about kitchen-sink realism – it could be every bit as flamboyant as Fellini. He now makes very strange experimental films like Lion's Mouth and Revenge of the Elephant Man, and they are as edgy and out there as the work he made in the 1970s."

Altered States

6.7

The Devils

7.5

Tommy

6.5

The Lair of the White Worm

5.9

Crimes of Passion

6.3

Gothic

5.7

Women in Love

6.5

Billion Dollar Brain

5.6

Whore

5.3

The Music Lovers

6.5

Trapped Ashes

5.0

Valentino

5.9

Mahler

6.7

Aria

5.7

The Boy Friend

6.7

Lisztomania

5.9

Salome's Last Dance

6.3

The Rainbow

5.9

Lady Chatterley

6.4

Savage Messiah

6.1

Prisoner of Honor

6.2

Amelia and the Angel

6.4

French Dressing

5.5

Dante's Inferno

6.8

The Debussy Film

7.6

A Kitten for Hitler

4.7

Song of Summer

6.2

Elgar: Portrait of a Composer

7.0

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction

4.5

Dogboys

5.4

A British Picture

5.8

The South Bank Show

5.6

The Fall of the Louse of Usher

4.3

Tales of Erotica

4.1

Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World

5.5

The Mystery of Dr Martinu

5.8

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch

4.4

A House in Bayswater

6.0

Always on Sunday

6.0

The Planets

7.2

Mindbender

3.5

Knights on Bikes

4.8

London Moods

6.0

Peepshow

5.7

Dance of the Seven Veils

8.0

Pop Goes the Easel

5.5

Antonio Gaudí

6.5

Shelagh Delaney's Salford

5.5

The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner

4.0

Treasure Island

5.5

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax

6.0

Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle

7.5

Ken Russell: In Search of the English Folk Song

6.5

The Light Fantastic

3.0

Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait

6.0

From Spain to Streatham

6.0

Bartók

6.0

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill

4.0

Variations on a Mechanical Theme

6.0

Faust

6.0

Ken Russell's ABC of British Music

10.0

Prokofiev

6.0

Il Mefistofele

5.0

Clouds of Glory

5.0

Boudica Bites Back

0.0

The Diary of a Nobody

0.0

Revenge of the Elephant Man

0.0

Lion's Mouth

0.0

The Preservation Man

0.0

The Lonely Shore

0.0

Old Battersea House

0.0

Gordon Jacob

0.0

Don’t Shoot the Composer

0.0

Scottish Painters

0.0

Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines

0.0

Journey Into a Lost World

0.0

Monitor: Pop Goes the Easel

0.0

Alice in Russialand

0.0

The Miners' Picnic by Ken Russell

0.0

Pandora's Box: It's All Coming Back to Me Now

0.0

Watch the Birdie

0.0

Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House

0.0

John Betjeman: A Poet in London

0.0

A Bedlington Miners' Picnic

0.0

Portrait of a Goon

0.0

Lourdes

0.0

Six

0.0