
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

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
Director

Crimes of Passion (1984)
Director

Altered States (1980)
Director

Tommy (1975)
Director

Whore (1991)
Director

Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Director

Women in Love (1969)
Director

Mahler (1974)
Director

Valentino (1977)
Director

The Boy Friend (1971)
Director

Treasure Island (1995)
Director

Aria (1987)
Director

Trapped Ashes (2006)
Director

Gothic (1987)
Director

Women and Men: Stories of Seduction (1990)
Director

Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Director

The Music Lovers (1971)
Director

Lisztomania (1975)
Director

The Rainbow (1989)
Director

Bela Bartók (1964)
Director

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

Savage Messiah (1972)
Director

Elgar (1962)
Director

The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002)
Director

Tales of Erotica (1996)
Director

The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch (1995)
Director

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

Dance of the Seven Veils (1970)
Director

London Moods (1961)
Director

Antonio Gaudí (1961)
Director

Amelia and the Angel (1958)
Director
The Mystery of Dr Martinu (1992)
Director

The Diary of a Nobody (1964)
Director

French Dressing (1964)
Director

Pop Goes the Easel (1962)
Director

Faust (1985)
Director

The Secret Life of Arnold Bax (1992)
Director

Prisoner of Honor (1991)
Director

Always on Sunday (1965)
Director

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

A House in Bayswater (1960)
Director

Shelagh Delaney's Salford (1960)
Director

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

The Debussy Film (1965)
Director

Dogboys (1998)
Director

Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill (1961)
Director

Alice in Russialand (1995)
Director

John Betjeman: A Poet in London (1959)
Director

The Planets (1983)
Director

A Kitten for Hitler (2007)
Director

Don’t Shoot the Composer (1966)
Director
Journey Into a Lost World (1960)
Director

The Light Fantastic (1960)
Director

Dante's Inferno (1967)
Director

Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait (1984)
Director

Portrait of a Goon (1959)
Director

Prokofiev (1961)
Director

Gordon Jacob (1959)
Director

In Search of the English Folk Song (1997)
Director

The Lonely Shore (1962)
Director

Variations on a Mechanical Theme (1959)
Director

From Spain to Streatham (1959)
Director
Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House (2006)
Director

Song of Summer (1968)
Director

The Preservation Man (1962)
Director

A Bedlington Miners' Picnic (1960)
Director

Mindbender (1996)
Director

Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines (1962)
Director
Watch the Birdie (2007)
Director
Old Battersea House (1961)
Director
Revenge of the Elephant Man (2004)
Director
Boudica Bites Back (2009)
Director
Road to Mandalay (1991)
Director

Il Mefistofele (1989)
Director
Lion's Mouth (2000)
Director
The Miners' Picnic by Ken Russell (2005)
Director

Scottish Painters (1959)
Director
Knights on Bikes (1956)
Director
Peepshow (1956)
Director
Lourdes (1958)
Director





