RIP Ken Russell, You Magnificent Maniac

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We here at MNPP were very sad to hear this morning of the passing of the gloriously psychotic filmmaker Ken Russell over the weekend - he's an MNPP hero, one of our absolute faves, and the world of movies is a little bit duller and a whole lot less tawdry without him. His movies didn't so much skirt the line between good and bad taste as they did squat on the line and use it to get off with. They were literate, and surreal, and sexy, and bonkers. They were simultaneously brilliant and sleazy and terrible and mind-blowing. In all the best ways.There's nobody making movies like he did anymore - Tarsem might ape the visuals but doesn't reach 1/10th of the brain or soul.

I have many still to see and I am happy about that, especially now that there's a definite finite number of his movies to see, and I've got plenty weirdness left to discover. Coincidentally I actually just watched his 1988 film Salome's Last Dance this past Friday when I saw it's available on Netflix Instant. So is The Music Lovers, another one I haven't seen. Salome's Last Dance works a trick I've seen him do a few times now - it incorporates the original artist (in this case Oscar Wilde) into his own work, and mutates that work into an operatic fever dream around him. It has Glenda Jackson dressed like the wicked queen in Snow White swatting away farts. It is something I watched that I will never forget, and that was Russell's trademark, really. He made images that are impossible to forget. They were all very much his own and they were a joy to discover, time and again.

Oh and let us not forget to thank him as he managed to sneak male full frontal nudity through the ratings board with Women in Love in 1969, in the infamous and super crazy hot wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed (a scene given its due in this week's banner up top).

I'm so thankful I got to see him with Vanessa Redgrave back in August of this year at a screening of what I think is safe to say his masterpiece (or one of them) The Devils - you can read my write-up of that movie and the Q&A here. (As a sidenote, The Devils is finally getting a way way past overdue DVD release in March.) He was pretty frail then, but still you could hear the dynamo as he talked. Bless him and all who loved him. Like I said there are still several I have to see (Man I'd give anything to see Whore), but for now here are five personal favorites of his.

The Devils

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Gothic

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Altered States

Women In Love

Crimes of Passion

The fact that I don't have room for Tommy or The Lair of the White Worm here only means five is too small a number. To see all we've written on his films, click here. And now, a note of grace...

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