Ken Russell

Birthday: 1927-07-03
Deathday: 2011-11-27
Birthplace: Southampton, Hampshire, England, UK
Gender: Male

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."

Credits

Year Title
2009-08-06 Boudica Bites Back
2007-06-01 A Kitten for Hitler
2007-02-17 Watch the Birdie
2006-09-12 Trapped Ashes
2006-01-01 Charlotte Brontë Enters the Big Brother House
2005-03-17 The Miner's Picnic by Ken Russell
2004-07-14 Revenge of the Elephant Man
2002-09-22 Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle
2002-02-02 The Fall of the Louse of Usher
2000-01-01 Lion's Mouth
1998-04-04 Dogboys
1997-11-14 Ken Russell: In Search of the English Folk Song
1996-10-02 Mindbender
1996-01-01 Tales of Erotica
1995-09-27 Treasure Island
1995-01-01 The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch
1995-01-01 Alice in Russialand
1993-09-27 The Mystery of Dr Martinu
1992-11-22 The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
1991-11-02 Prisoner of Honor
1991-06-21 Whore
1990-04-02 Women and Men: Stories of Seduction
1990-01-01 The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner
1989-07-01 Pandora's Box: It's All Coming Back to Me Now
1989-05-05 The Rainbow
1989-03-20 A British Picture
1989-01-01 Il Mefistofele
1988-09-21 The Lair of the White Worm
1988-05-06 Salome's Last Dance
1988-02-04 Ken Russell's ABC of British Music
1987-09-15 Aria
1986-11-30 Gothic
1985-06-01 Faust
1984-10-19 Crimes of Passion
1983-01-30 The Planets
1983-01-01 Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait
1980-12-25 Altered States
1977-09-07 Valentino
1975-10-10 Lisztomania
1975-03-19 Tommy
1974-04-04 Mahler
1972-06-27 Savage Messiah
1971-12-16 The Boy Friend
1971-07-16 The Devils
1971-02-12 The Music Lovers
1970-02-15 Dance of the Seven Veils
1969-09-13 Women in Love
1968-09-15 Song of Summer
1967-12-22 Dante's Inferno
1967-11-02 Billion Dollar Brain
1966-01-09 Don’t Shoot the Composer
1966-01-02 Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World
1965-06-28 Always on Sunday
1965-05-18 The Debussy Film
1964-12-12 The Diary of a Nobody
1964-05-24 Bartók
1964-04-10 French Dressing
1962-11-11 Elgar: Portrait of a Composer
1962-07-01 Mr Chesher’s Traction Engines
1962-05-20 The Preservation Man
1962-03-25 Pop Goes the Easel
1962-03-25 Monitor: Pop Goes the Easel
1962-01-14 The Lonely Shore
1961-11-05 London Moods
1961-06-04 Old Battersea House
1961-04-21 Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill
1961-03-13 Prokofiev
1961-03-12 Antonio Gaudí
1960-12-18 The Light Fantastic
1960-09-25 Shelagh Delaney's Salford
1960-08-26 A House in Bayswater
1960-07-03 The Miners' Picnic
1960-03-28 Journey Into a Lost World
1959-10-25 Scottish Painters
1959-08-28 Portrait of a Goon
1959-06-07 From Spain to Streatham
1959-04-21 Variations on a Mechanical Theme
1959-03-29 Gordon Jacob
1959-03-01 John Betjeman: A Poet in London
1958-05-12 Amelia and the Angel
1958-01-01 Lourdes
1956-03-29 Peepshow
1956-01-01 Knights on Bikes