Last year I woke up on the morning of my birthday only to hear the sad news that Leslie Nielsen, one of the greatest comic actors of his age, had died. This morning I once again woke on my birthday to tragic news; this time it was the death of Ken Russell. Losing a deadpan talent like Nielsen was one thing, but losing one of the most daring, original, brave and talented directors of all time was a tragedy. It wasn't just his death that was so sad (after all, he was 84 and had suffered multiple strokes), but that his extraordinary career seems to have been all but forgotten. The news report announcing his death that I later heard on the radio was shockingly brief, mentioning Women In Love but then tailing off as if Russell had simply retired after the success of that film.
But it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Russell has faded from the consciousness of mainstream popular culture. After the underrated spy thriller The Billion Dollar Brain and the acclaimed Women In Love, his work became far less mainstream and awards friendly. He was always too provocative, too contemptuous of Hollywood, too unwilling to compromise to ever be thought of as anything other than an outsider. He ignored the whims of Hollywood, and as such they ignored him back and refused to recognise such a prodigious talent. His major breakthrough, Women In Love, caused shock and outrage, but even the normally prudish people behind the Academy Awards, who even decades later would rather reward the tepid Crash than Brokeback Mountain, felt compelled to shower it with nominations. After that however, his films became ever more divisive. The Devils, one of his most notorious works, was a shrieking, hysterical nightmare of violence, sex and religion based on a factual book by Aldous Huxley. While many derided it, with esteemed American critic Roger Ebert giving it a rare zero star rating, many other's felt it to be Russell's incendiary masterpiece. Most notable of it's defenders is Mark Kermode, who has long been among those arguing for a DVD release of the film's full X rated cut; calls that have recently been answered, with a DVD release planned for next March.
This barely begins to scratch the surface of the career, talent and appeal of Ken Russell, and I do not want to get into a detailed obituary. There are people who have written far better accounts of his life, and I do not have the time to mention every film he ever directed. Following The Devils, his work was often mired in controversy and usually far too idiosyncratic to ever be accepted by mainstream audiences. His last two commercial peaks came with 1975's gloriously overblown rock opera Tommy and 1980's haunting, psychedelic sci-fi Altered States, the only Hollywod film he ever made, and ironically one of his best works. Then there are the composer biopics, the horror films, the small TV works; Russell was nothing if not prolific. But his backing dried up and the scale of his films became smaller and smaller. His later films may have been pale shadows of his masterpieces, but the world was a better place for their existence.
Despite being abandoned by critics and audiences, Russell never broke his cardinal rule by making a dull film. His philosophy of “Wake 'em up” meant that even if his later films were horrifically flawed, they were always made even more fascinating for it. He proved that British cinema did not have to just be about kitchen sink dramas and Alfred Hitchcock; it could be flamboyant, provocative, daring and innovative. His drive to be different from everyone else meant that today he is mostly remembered as a director whose once promising talent deserted him after only a few films. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than going mainstream, Russell demanded that the mainstream go to him. Most people refused, and for them Russell is a distant memory. For those who rose to the challenge, and threw themselves head first into his work, he will always be remembered as a visionary, and one who would rather have given up completely than make a boring film. He will be deeply missed by many, including myself. If you haven't seen any of his films, you could a lot worse than treating yourself to them. You might love them, or you might hate them. But whatever your opinion, I'm sure he'd have been happy with it.
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