
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

The Devils (1971)
Director

Altered States (1980)
Director

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Director

Crimes of Passion (1984)
Director

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Director

Whore (1991)
Director

Tommy (1975)
Director

Women in Love (1969)
Director

Valentino (1977)
Director

Gothic (1987)
Director

Aria (1987)
Director

The Rainbow (1989)
Director

Trapped Ashes (2006)
Director

The Boy Friend (1971)
Director

Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Director

Mahler (1974)
Director

The Music Lovers (1971)
Director

Lisztomania (1975)
Director

Savage Messiah (1972)
Director

Treasure Island (1995)
Director

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990)
Director

Tales of Erotica (1996)
Director

Alice in Russialand (1995)
Director

Bela Bartók (1964)
Director

Mindbender (1996)
Director

Prisoner of Honor (1991)
Director

French Dressing (1964)
Director

London Moods (1961)
Director

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

Dogboys (1998)
Director

Song of Summer (1968)
Director

Faust (1985)
Director

Dance of the Seven Veils (1970)
Director

In Search of the English Folk Song (1997)
Director

Dante's Inferno (1967)
Director

Always on Sunday (1965)
Director

Pop Goes the Easel (1962)
Director

Antonio Gaudí (1961)
Director

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961)
Director

Elgar (1962)
Director

The Lonely Shore (1962)
Director

The Debussy Film (1965)
Director
Lion's Mouth (2000)
Director

The Diary of a Nobody (1964)
Director

The Light Fantastic (1960)
Director

Amelia and the Angel (1958)
Director

John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959)
Director
Journey Into a Lost World (1960)
Director

The Planets (1983)
Director

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch (1995)
Director

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

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

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992)
Director
The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1990)
Director
Road to Mandalay (1991)
Director

Il Mefistofele (1989)
Director

Prokofiev (1961)
Director

Portrait of a Goon (1959)
Director

The Preservation Man (1962)
Director

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

Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait (1984)
Director

Gordon Jacob (1959)
Director
Watch the Birdie (2007)
Director

From Spain to Streatham (1959)
Director

A Kitten for Hitler (2007)
Director
Revenge of the Elephant Man (2004)
Director

Don’t Shoot the Composer (1966)
Director
Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House (2006)
Director

A House in Bayswater (1960)
Director
Lourdes (1958)
Director
The Mystery of Dr Martinu (1992)
Director
Old Battersea House (1961)
Director

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)
Director

Variations on a Mechanical Theme (1959)
Director

Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines (1962)
Director
Boudica Bites Back (2009)
Director

Scottish Painters (1959)
Director

Shelagh Delaney's Salford (1960)
Director
The Miners' Picnic by Ken Russell (2005)
Director

A Bedlington Miners' Picnic (1960)
Director
Peepshow (1956)
Director
Knights on Bikes (1956)
Director





