| Author | Message | ||
     Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
I couldn't bring myself to type RIP - such a dismissive acronym. The world just became a little duller. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Yeah, it did. Requiescat in pace, Kenneth. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 147.252.230.148 |
A Graham Linehan tweet: Heard a story about Ken Russell (now the late Ken Russell, sadly) when he was directing the famously terrible 'Lair of the White Worm'. The mornings would go ok, but then he would go to lunch and knock back two bottles of wine. So after lunch his acting note to everyone was simply "Bigger! BIGGER". So the performances would get bigger and sillier and more broad, until finally everyone was acting as if they were in a Carry On film. At that point he yelled "PERFECT! NOW...DOUBLE IT!" | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.158.237.2 |
His masterpiece for me was his TV film about Elgar. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 82.6.90.110 |
Another purveyer of the different and original gone, it's up to us now. Cheers Terry I liked the "Lair of the White Worm". | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Even when it was daft, excessive and OTT, it was still unmistakably his own vision. I'll take one whacked-out maverick like him over a dozen Michael Bays or Ron Howards. | ||
| Matthew Fryer (Matthew_fryer) Username: Matthew_fryer Registered: 08-2009 Posted From: 94.12.171.45 |
That Graham Linehan tweet is brilliant. I loved his flamboyance, and that Freud meets Dionyssus take on the arts. Hope his heaven is full of hysterical nuns, snakey creatures, lurid crucifixions and plenty of wine. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
A complete lunatic and all the more cherishable for it but, like most people, there are only a few of his movies I actually really liked - mostly from his 60s/early 70s heyday. 'Women In Love', ' & 'The Devils' were his greatest achievements, imo, while later genre works, such as; 'Altered States', 'Crimes Of Passion' & 'The Lair Of The White Worm' remain fascinating oddities with a certain style all their own. But 'Gothic' was atrocious. If ever there was a mercurial talent who failed to live up to his early promise, while becoming a legend in his own lifetime irrespective, it was Ken Russell. Have to say 'The Rainbow' was a triumphant return to form in 1989, and the most focussed of his later works, but after that the myth took over from the talent. RIP. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
I've never been able to watch more than about 20 minutes of Gothic... it didn't help that I came to it after reading Howard Brenton's play Bloody Poetry, about the relationship between Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley and Claire Claremont. Mary and Claire were both remarkable women for their time, independent, intelligent and liberated; the film reduced them (Claire in particular) to a pair of dippy bimbos. Fail. Also: Julian Sands. How does a man with no discernible talent whatsoever continue to find employment? OK, rant over. Time to order The Devils off Amazon. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.144.196.223 |
I'll set Steve Volk onto you . . . | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Simon, Julian Sands assembled and performed the selection of Harold Pinter's poems and letters that I saw at the Belgrave Theatre in Coventry a few months ago. It was a superb evening. There was a nice anecdote about Pinter in a restaurant: he ordered a round of drinks, the waiter said 'No problem' and Pinter said 'I didn't anticipate one.' | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
RIP. I love Gothic - always have done. A real guilty pleasure. For me, Russell never made an uninteresting film. Simon - The Devils is getting a release on DVD early next year by the BFI. It's the original Uk cinema edit (longer than the US one). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Tommy, Altered States, Crimes of Passion, Whore...all of them remarkable, and utterly fucking barking mad. The Devils, though, is simply brilliant. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.29.205 |
I haven't watched his Elgar documentary, but I've seen Delius - he ditched the documentary format and went for a biopic, pushing the boundaries of what he was allowed do on the BBC. It's full of such beauty and energy. WOMEN IN LOVE is perhaps his best work. DHL's writing refuses to lie down on the page; just as Russell's film refuses to be pressed like a butterfly to the screen. It wants to sing, to dance, to run, to get to the next scene, to leave that one. It's the enthsuasm of a child with the appetites of an adult. Joel, as time goes on I've come to think of Pinter as a massive fraud. And that comment, witty in print, sounds like a vicious act for the benefit of his friends, and at the expense of the man serving them. (The Dumb Waiter?) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.27.143.88 |
No, Proto, I think it was a blow struck in defence of real language against its cynical deformation and falsification in the name of corporate pseudo-congeniality. I gravely doubt whether the waiter had the faintest idea what Pinter was saying to him or why. And I'm afraid the idea that Pinter's drama is bogus is rather reminiscent of someone pointing to a mathematical equation and saying "Just random scribbles, it's all fake, doesn't mean a thing." Pinter requires his audiences to know things and to make connections. I don't tell you as a scientist that you're making up random nonsense because I don't understand your language or methods of analysis. We don't expect science to be dumbed down, so why should we expect that of the arts? | ||
| John Forth (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
No, Proto, I think it was a blow struck in defence of real language against its cynical deformation and falsification in the name of corporate pseudo-congeniality. I gravely doubt whether the waiter had the faintest idea what Pinter was saying to him or why. Regardless, Joel, it still makes him sound like a prick. And no doubt the braying of Pinter's companions made the waiter feel about an inch high. On topic: unlike a lot of film-makers, Russell managed to infuse his films with an especially manic energy. For that he'll be missed. It's a shame that a lot of the scripts he worked with, THE DEVILS and a couple of others aside, weren't always the best. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.60.242 |
I don't think the analogy with science works because unlike cryptic art, science irrefutably comes up with the goods. We know there's truth at its core because of the miracle of you being able to read these words. That assures us that time spent understanding it will not be wasted. With art, we must rely on faith or the words of others. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.60.242 |
Back on topic: someone filmed with a wide-angle lens, laughing maniacally as they run around with their boobs out. |