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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: The films of Ken Russell
Message-ID: <1983@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 4-Nov-84 05:16:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.1983
Posted: Sun Nov  4 05:16:50 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Nov-84 06:25:01 EST
Organization: UCLA CS Dept.
Lines: 22

Russell certainly is lively, if not exactly refined.  I recommend "Mahler",
"The Devils", and "The Music Lovers" as really good films, and "Lisztomania" and
"Valentino" as guilty pleasures.  "Tommy" was OK, "Altered States" was 
disappointingly routine.  I haven't seen "Savage Messiah", "Women in Love", or
"The Boy Friend"; all three have excellent critical reputations.  (Those
who laughed when Russell gave Twiggy the lead in "The Boy Friend" should eat
every chuckle now that she is a legitimate Broadway musical star.)  I also
haven't seen Russell's first two feature films.

I strongly recommend some of Ken Russell's early BBC work.
He did about ten films (each 1hr-1&1/2 hrs.) on famous composers (mostly), 
poets, and other artists.  I've seen the Isadora Duncan one (so-so), the Delius 
one (very good, and not at all like most of Russell's work), and "Dante's 
Inferno", about Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with a terrific performance by Oliver 
Reed.  The latter film gave Russell a historically accurate chance to preside 
over a disembtombment, as Rossetti recovers the poems he impulsively buried with
his dead wife.
-- 

					Peter Reiher
					reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
					{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher