
Ken Russell
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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."
Known for
Credits

Savage Messiah (1972)
Director

The Devils (1971)
Director

Altered States (1980)
Director

Tommy (1975)
Director

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Director

Whore (1991)
Director

Crimes of Passion (1984)
Director

Women in Love (1969)
Director

Aria (1987)
Director

Trapped Ashes (2006)
Director

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Director

Valentino (1977)
Director

The Rainbow (1989)
Director

Gothic (1987)
Director

Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Director

Lisztomania (1975)
Director

Treasure Island (1995)
Director

Dance of the Seven Veils (1970)
Director

Prisoner of Honor (1991)
Director

The Boy Friend (1971)
Director

French Dressing (1964)
Director

Tales of Erotica (1996)
Director

Mahler (1974)
Director

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990)
Director

Alice in Russialand (1995)
Director

The Music Lovers (1971)
Director

Dante's Inferno (1967)
Director

Dogboys (1998)
Director

Song of Summer (1968)
Director

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch (1995)
Director

Faust (1985)
Director

The Diary of a Nobody (1964)
Director

The Debussy Film (1965)
Director

Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1966)
Director

Bela Bartók (1964)
Director

The Planets (1983)
Director

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)
Director

Mindbender (1996)
Director

Always on Sunday (1965)
Director
The Mystery of Dr Martinu (1992)
Director

From Spain to Streatham (1959)
Director

In Search of the English Folk Song (1997)
Director

Elgar (1962)
Director

Ken Russell's ABC of British Music (1988)
Director
The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1990)
Director

John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959)
Director

The Light Fantastic (1960)
Director

A House in Bayswater (1960)
Director

Antonio Gaudí (1961)
Director

Il Mefistofele (1989)
Director

Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait (1984)
Director

Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle (2002)
Director

Don’t Shoot the Composer (1966)
Director

A Kitten for Hitler (2007)
Director

A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible (1989)
Director
The Miners' Picnic by Ken Russell (2005)
Director
Old Battersea House (1961)
Director

London Moods (1961)
Director

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961)
Director

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992)
Director

Pop Goes the Easel (1962)
Director
Lion's Mouth (2000)
Director
Lourdes (1958)
Director
Revenge of the Elephant Man (2004)
Director
Watch the Birdie (2007)
Director

The Preservation Man (1962)
Director

Shelagh Delaney's Salford (1960)
Director
Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House (2006)
Director

Amelia and the Angel (1958)
Director

Portrait of a Goon (1959)
Director

Prokofiev (1961)
Director

A Bedlington Miners' Picnic (1960)
Director

Variations on a Mechanical Theme (1959)
Director

Gordon Jacob (1959)
Director
Journey Into a Lost World (1960)
Director
Boudica Bites Back (2009)
Director
Peepshow (1956)
Director

Scottish Painters (1959)
Director
Road to Mandalay (1991)
Director

The Lonely Shore (1962)
Director

Pandora's Box: It's All Coming Back to Me Now (1989)
Director

Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines (1962)
Director
Knights on Bikes (1956)
Director





