
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. Among his best known works are the Oscar-winning romantic drama Women in Love (1969), the notoriously controversial psychological horror 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

The Devils (1971)
Director

Tommy (1975)
Director

Whore (1991)
Director

Women in Love (1969)
Director

Mahler (1974)
Director

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Director

Crimes of Passion (1984)
Director

Valentino (1977)
Director

Altered States (1980)
Director

Treasure Island (1995)
Director

The Boy Friend (1971)
Director

Gothic (1987)
Director

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch (1995)
Director

Alice in Russialand (1995)
Director

Aria (1987)
Director

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Director

Lisztomania (1975)
Director

Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Director

Trapped Ashes (2006)
Director

Song of Summer (1968)
Director

Elgar (1962)
Director

The Rainbow (1989)
Director

The Music Lovers (1971)
Director

Always on Sunday (1965)
Director

Antonio Gaudí (1961)
Director

Faust (1985)
Director

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961)
Director

Bela Bartók (1964)
Director

Portrait of a Goon (1959)
Director

Pop Goes the Easel (1962)
Director

Savage Messiah (1972)
Director

Don’t Shoot the Composer (1966)
Director

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

Dance of the Seven Veils (1970)
Director

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990)
Director

Dogboys (1998)
Director

Tales of Erotica (1996)
Director

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)
Director

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992)
Director

In Search of the English Folk Song (1997)
Director

Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines (1962)
Director

Ken Russell's ABC of British Music (1988)
Director

The Diary of a Nobody (1964)
Director

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

Prisoner of Honor (1991)
Director

Amelia and the Angel (1958)
Director

French Dressing (1964)
Director

John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959)
Director

Gordon Jacob (1959)
Director
The Miners' Picnic by Ken Russell (2005)
Director

The Preservation Man (1962)
Director

The Light Fantastic (1960)
Director
Watch the Birdie (2007)
Director

Variations on a Mechanical Theme (1959)
Director

Prokofiev (1961)
Director

A British Picture: Portrait of an Enfant Terrible (1989)
Director

The Debussy Film (1965)
Director

A Kitten for Hitler (2007)
Director

Shelagh Delaney's Salford (1960)
Director

Mindbender (1996)
Director
Journey Into a Lost World (1960)
Director

Dante's Inferno (1967)
Director

London Moods (1961)
Director
Lion's Mouth (2000)
Director

A House in Bayswater (1960)
Director

The Planets (1983)
Director
Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House (2006)
Director

Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait (1984)
Director

A Bedlington Miners' Picnic (1960)
Director

The Lonely Shore (1962)
Director
Old Battersea House (1961)
Director
The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1990)
Director

From Spain to Streatham (1959)
Director

Il Mefistofele (1989)
Director
Road to Mandalay (1991)
Director
The Mystery of Dr Martinu (1992)
Director
Revenge of the Elephant Man (2004)
Director
Boudica Bites Back (2009)
Director
Knights on Bikes (1956)
Director
Lourdes (1958)
Director

Scottish Painters (1959)
Director
Peepshow (1956)
Director





