Savage Messiah: Ken Russell > Savage Messiah: Ken Russell
Ken Russell in The Times on Tuesday 2008
Iain Fisher:
I've started a new thread with articles from 2009.
Iain Fisher:
Nothing by Ken today
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times, 23 Dec 2008
Ken talks of his new film "…my latest biographical romp, Bravetart vs the Loch Ness Monster, began filming last Sunday at the stately Walhampton School, a couple of miles up the road from my home in Lymington.”
Ken then talks of his early days in television, “…drama-documentaries on the lives of famous dancers such as Isadora Duncan, painters such as John Everett Millais, poets such as Wordsworth and composers such as Debussy. I made almost 50 biographies in all — mostly for the BBC arts programme Monitor, with a film crew of half a dozen or so. There were also a handful of feature films on arty biographical subjects, with crews of about 50.” An interesting choice Ken selected rather than the more obvious Elgar and Delius.
And talking of his Gorsewood films says “…I like to stretch the parameters of expectations — and flirt a little with the edges of bad taste. All in all, I aim for “dangerous beauty”, and I know it when I see it. “
On Bravetart she is “a sassy Scottish prostitute who is played by my (Jill-of-all-trades) wife Elise and is pure invention, with a nod to Mel Gibson. The monsters — both the man (played by myself) and his amphibious ally or “familiar” — are based on real-life characters. The world-famous denizen of the deep is in actuality Nessie, that serpentine creature of myth and legend come to life. For the extravagant claim that she actually exists, I have the word of my one-time cameraman Dick Bush, who saw the monster from a hilltop overlooking the famous loch. Before he had time to reload his camera, the enormous beast had dived beneath the billows. Still, I believe him— Bush was, as they say, a “God-fearing man”.
It turns out the Loch Ness Monster of the title is "that evil master of black magic, Aleister Crowley— who at one time lived in a sinister castle on the very shores of Loch Ness itself"
Filming is at Hatchet Pond in the New Forest, and the medieval walls of Southampton stand in for Edinburgh Castle. Ken says Bravetart will be ready by Easter 2009.
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times 16 Dec 2008. He is covering old ground, looking at books and films
"l I keep a huge pile of books ready to hand for diving into as I rock, feet up, in my living room chair... Right now I've got in the pile The Quest for God by Paul Johnson; Remember Me... by Melvyn Bragg; The C.S. Lewis Chronicles by Colin Duriez; Hell-Raisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O'Toole and Oliver Reed by Robert Sellers; and 1,000 Tattoos, ed. Hen Schiffmacher. Next week it will be another diverse pile."
He goes on "Literature has played a big part in my life from the days when I followed Laurel and Hardy in the weekly comic Film Fun to my latest good read, Boudica's Last Stand: Britain's Revolt against Rome AD 60-61 by John Waite. Strange bedfellows? Not a bit of it. Most of my reading habits have a common link - the movies. For instance, I've just finished making a green-screen epic called Boudica Bites Back."
Other books Ken wants to make into films:
- For Want of a Nail by Melvyn Bragg
- Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
- The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
On Billion Dolllar Brain "Harry Salzmann asked me to launch my feature film career with a wide-screen epic featuring Michael Caine... I particularly liked Billion Dollar Brain, which I made, because with the Cold War shown as a battle between the US and the USSR, it's the Yankees who get blown away by the Commies. Bizarrely, it was financed by an American company"
Iain Fisher:
My Times went missing today. I checked the on-line Times but there doesn't seem to be a new Ken article, though the on-line version is not always reliable.
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