Ken Russell
Also Known As: Alfred Russell, Alf Russell
Biography: 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."
Department: Directing
Place of Birth: Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK
Birthday: July 03, 1927
Deathday: November 27, 2011
Adult: No
Gender: Male
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Known For:
Whore
Overview: This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1991-06-21
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Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait
Overview: South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-01-01
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Gothic
Overview: Living on an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, it becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-11-30
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The Real Blue Nuns
Overview: An investigation into nunsploitation, and why men find images of nuns involved in sexual situations erotic. The programme also controversially covers the Muslim hibab and burka.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-10-16
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Tommy
Overview: After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.
Genres: Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1975-03-19
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Trapped Ashes
Overview: Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
Genres: Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-09-12
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Valentino
Overview: In 1926 the tragic and untimely death of a silent screen actor caused female moviegoers to riot in the streets and in some cases to commit suicide...
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1977-09-07
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Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World
Overview: The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as "part genius and part charlatan".
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-01-02
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Salome's Last Dance
Overview: London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-05-06
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The Real Oliver Reed
Overview: A documentary portrait about the life and times of the infamous hellraiser, who died in May 1999, having starred in more than 100 films.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-01-13
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The Fall of the Louse of Usher
Overview: Rock star Roddy Usher is confined to an insane asylum after murdering his wife. There, he is given various shock treatments by Nurse Smith and Dr Calahari, resulting in a series of bizarre and nightmarish adventures.
Genres: Fantasy Horror Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-02-02
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A Kitten for Hitler
Overview: The result of a challenge from Melvyn Bragg to write a film that Ken Russell himself would be eager to see banned, was A Kitten For Hitler – a 10-minute short in which a plucky young Jewish boy traverses the globe on a quest to warm the Führer's heart with the gift of a cuddly feline.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-06-01
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Hell on Earth: The Desecration & Resurrection of The Devils
Overview: Hell on Earth is a documentary about Ken Russell's 1971 film, The Devils. Film critic Mark Kermode chats to Russell as well as two of the film’s stars, Georgina Hale and Murray Melvin. Also included are scenes that were cut from the released film for being too controversial.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-11-24
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Music for the Movies: Georges Delerue
Overview: Documentary covering the career of French composer Georges Delerue, famous for film scores for such films as Platoon, Contempt, Shoot the Piano Player, and Jules and Jim.
Genres: Music Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-04-04
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Tales of Erotica
Overview: A series of erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-01-01
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Boudica Bites Back
Overview: A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2009-08-06
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Savage Messiah
Overview: In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-06-27
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The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch
Overview: A writer taking a rest in a country hotel is obsessed with a strange woman in the same hotel. The woman seems to observe him in provocative ways, but he does not dare to approach her. One day he follows her to her room and listens to strange “erotic” sounds from inside, and begins to have erotic thoughts.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-01-01
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Revenge of the Elephant Man
Overview: A short directed by Ken Russell.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2004-07-14
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Mr. Nice
Overview: Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.
Genres: Comedy Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-10-07
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Lion's Mouth
Overview: A short musical directed by Ken Russell.
Genres: Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2000-01-01
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The Who: One Band's Explosive Story
Overview: The story of Roger Daltrey (vocals), Pete Townshend (guitar), John Entwistle (bass) and Keith Moon (drums): The Who, one of the most original, creative and relevant British bands of the sixties and of the entire history of pop music.
Genres: Documentary History Music TV Movie
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2022-08-26
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In Search of Dracula
Overview: A look at "Dracula" in the arts and his supposed real-life inspiration Vlad Tepes.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1996-10-02
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Your Honour, I Object! Guccione V Russell
Overview: A courtroom 'drama' featuring Bob Guccione versus Ken Russell in a breach of contract case regarding disagreements over a script for a film version of Daniel De foe's "Moll Flanders" which Guccione hired Russell to direct.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1987-11-27
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Don’t Shoot the Composer
Overview: DON’T SHOOT THE COMPOSER is far from an ordinary profile of Georges Delerue. It also serves as a calling card for Ken Russell, whose work would define the 1970s as Delerue’s did in the 1960s. It begins with a sly work of pastiche, parodying the conventions of French noir. It goes onto encompass slapstick, verité scenes of the Delerue family and a harrowing montage of the Vietnam War. This eclectic approach gives us a sense of the different facets of Delerue’s life- his love of cinema, his home life, his work ethic. It also prefigures Russell’s feature length biopics of Mahler and Liszt, though in a more modest- and lucid- fashion.
Genres: Documentary TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-01-09
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Brothers of the Head
Overview: In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.
Genres: Music Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2006-07-28
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Ken Russell's ABC of British Music
Overview: An irreverent survey of British Music.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-02-04
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Director of Devils
Overview: Behind the scenes of the making of Ken Russell's 1971 film 'The Devils. Shown are the construction of the sets, filming of the courtroom scene, the performance of the musical score for the execution scene.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-03-19
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A Turnip Head’s Guide To The British Cinema
Overview: Documentary presenting Alan Parker’s view of British cinema with comments from Richard Lester and others and location report from King’s Lynn on the making of Hugh Hudson’s Revolution, starring Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, and Nastassja Kinski.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1986-01-01
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10 Best Elgar
Overview: A line up of star performers celebrate the very best of Edward Elgar's music in the 150th anniversary year of his birth.
Genres: Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2007-04-27
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The Russia House
Overview: Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.
Genres: Drama Thriller Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1990-12-21
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Empire of the Censors
Overview: The history of film and video censorship in Great Britain.
Genres: TV Movie Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1995-05-28
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Ken Russell: A Bit of a Devil
Overview: Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-01-14
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Song of Summer
Overview: The last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
Genres: TV Movie Music Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1968-09-15
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Colour Me Kubrick
Overview: The true story of a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during the production of Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, despite knowing very little about his work and looking nothing like him.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2005-10-06
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The Lair of the White Worm
Overview: On a farm owned by Eve Trent and her sister Mary, young archaeologist Angus Flint discovers a large and inexplicable skull, which he soon deduces belonged to the D'Ampton Worm, a mythical beast supposedly slain generations ago by the ancestor of the current Lord D'Ampton. The predatory Lady Sylvia Marsh soon takes an interest in both Flint and the virginal Eve, hinting that the vicious D'Ampton Worm may still live.
Genres: Horror Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-09-21
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Walk With The Damned
Overview: Gangsters run rampant until they encounter a gutsy minister.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1961-06-02
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Russell at Work
Overview: Documentary shows Ken Russell at work on various BBC TV documentaries, with clips from Diary of a Nobody, The Debussy Film, Always on Sunday, Don't Shoot the Composer, Elgar and behind the scenes directing of Isadora Duncan. He discusses his working methods and filmmaking philosophy and is also shown at home entertaining his daughter Victoria.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1966-01-01
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The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
Overview: A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1992-11-22
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The Aristofrogs
Overview: A short promotional film for the 2010 Oldenburg Film Festival consisting of various actors and film personalities telling a joke about an exceptionally talented frog.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2010-08-19
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A British Picture
Overview: The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1989-03-20
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The Devils Original on-set footage
Overview: On-set footage of the film The Devils (1971) with commentary by editor Mike Bradsell
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2012-01-01
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PuzzleFace
Overview: PUZZLEFACE - 18min short film (CAN) Episode #7 from Spookey Ruben's Dizzy Playground TV series starring: Denis 'SNAKE' Belanger & VOIVOD, Ken Russell (RIP), Lisi Tribble, Maylee Todd, Rodrigo Gudiño (Rue Morgue), Rae Matthews, Jef Farquharson, O.T. Biggs and Spookey Ruben.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date:
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Ken Russell: In Search of the English Folk Song
Overview: This documentary begins with Ken Russell posing the question: "What is a true English folk song, if there is such a thing?" After recieving an indifferent response from his dog, Ken journeys around the countryside of England searching for an answer. He bumps into and interviews such famous artists as; Donovan, Fairport Convention, Osibisa, Eliza Carthy, So What, Edward II and The Albion Band among others.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1997-11-14
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The Kids Are Alright
Overview: Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us a comprehensive look at the British pioneer rock group, The Who. It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group in 1964 to 1978. It notably features the band's last performance with long-term drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death.
Genres: Documentary Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1979-06-15
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Twiggy
Overview: Twiggy takes a comprehensive look at the life story of UK model and cultural icon Twiggy, real name Lesley Lawson, whose career kickstarted in the 1960s. It features interviews with Twiggy and her husband Leigh Lawson, as well as commentary from Erin O’Connor, Paul McCartney, Lulu, Poppy Delavigne, Brooke Shields, Pattie Boyd and Zandra Rhodes.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2025-03-07
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Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle
Overview: Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.
Genres: Documentary Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 2002-09-22
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