By Joseph Lanza
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ken Russell has made one of the most bold, hectic, and wonderfully photographed motion pictures of all time. Drawing from a wealth of ancient and literary references, Russell’s topics are fantastic: deranged Ursuline nuns in a 17th-century French province, the interior demons of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, the sexual angst of Tchaikovsky, the emotionally tired lifetime of Rudolph Valentino, the messianism of a pinball wizard, the fury of lesbian vampires, the introspections of prostitutes. Russell’s videos provide not only brazen sensationalism yet meals for suggestion; they horrify but motivate. and during all of it, Russell continues a concurrently impish and highbrow feel of humor.
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> the 1st complete biography of the director, Phallic Frenzy is faraway from a dry, film-by-film research. It exhibits how Russell’s actual existence has usually been as attractive and colourful as his movie eventualities. the following you’ll find out how Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in comparison their penis sizes for the nude wrestling scene in Women in Love; how Russell disfigured Paddy Chayevsky’s script for Altered States by having the actors holler out the traces as speedy as attainable, followed by way of spewed nutrients and streams of spittle; and the way Russell was once slated to direct Evita, starring Liza Minnelli, and the “creative differences” that ensued. A madcap story filled with wild rules, surreal events, and a cavalcade of colourful personalities, Phallic Frenzy is as exciting a journey as any Ken Russell film.
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Extra resources for Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films (Cappella Books)
Sample text
I couldn’t even keep up with the exercise at the barre, which lasted forty-five minutes . . ” But he could jump high, a talent that at least got him accepted. If the sea made him sick, the dance floor made him Judy to Strosigiev’s Punch: “He used to beat me mercifully with a very hard stick on the buttocks,” Russell later told music historian John C. Tibbetts, “shouting, ‘Shoemaker! ,’ which I gather is the worst Russian swear word you can possibly utter. ” The situation was almost on a par with the brutal relationship between Anton Walbrook’s tyrannical dance impresario and Moira Shearer’s ballerina in the Michael Powell-Emeric Press-burger film, The Red Shoes, which came out about this time.
With an unsteady camera and extreme close-ups of inmates playing in an orchestra, Russell exposes eyes that are slightly asymmetrical and expressions that are more than slightly maniacal. The technique is understated, for Russell at least, but he still shows a world askew. Russell also got a chance to splurge on some of his newfound Catholic mania. When the soundtrack plays one of Elgar’s favorite pieces, The Dream of Gerontius, the tip of Malvern Hills where he rode his pony in the beginning now converts into a makeshift Calvary, with Russell slowly zooming in on a crucified Christ looming over the English countryside.
Of the many Russell films during the early Monitor period, Elgar is often touted as the big breakthrough. Considered second to Henry Purcell as England’s greatest composer, Elgar fell out of favor through the years: he became a symbol of the nation’s now outmoded empire days, remembered for writing patriotic tunes that a more disillusioned generation deemed too chauvinistic. Russell contemplating his art with the BBC’s Huw Wheldon. (Courtesy of Ken Russell) But Russell felt a personal connection to the subject.