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Ken Russell's ABC of British Music
Ken covers British music from Purcell and Britten through to Kate Bush and Queen. For each letter of the alphabet Ken appears in caricature costume, for example for "D" in sailor costume singing "There ain´t nothing like a Dame Janet Baker". X,Y and Z are combined and also curiously Q and R where Q edits Freddy Mercury of Queen with HM the Queen but R for rock'n'roll is only mentioned- maybe Queen cover it as well.
Under letter D Thomas Dolby composes for Ken's Gothic.
Under S for Scotland Linzi Drew performs striptease while doing a sword dance. She learnt to sword dance the day before, but on filming realised she couldn't do it looking at the camera rather than looking at her feet. When after many shots she said her knees were bleeding, Ken answered "It doesn't matter, we can't see it". She later does a reverse striptease (putting clothes on) under W for Wales. Ken later used Linzi to star in one of Ken's best short films, Aria, and she has a bit part in his Salome (from Linzi Drew, Try Everything Once Except Incest and Morris Dancing, 1993 chapter 10).
There are excerpts from a number of Ken's television works including Elgar, Song of Summer, Holst's The Planets, Classic Widows and the videos for Elton John's Nikita and Bryan Adam's Diana. The film is too bitty, not 26 (slightly less actually) themes, rather each theme includes a number of items, for example C covers conductors (Ken's top 10), conductors and Noel coward. This makes the film tiresome, whereas if he had stuck to one topic per letter there would be substance, for example his section on N covered neglected British composers and is interesting, and under G he covers girls, and says they grow up to be soloists but not composers. He then covers women composers whose work is unknown. Music includes extracts from: Arthur Bliss soundtrack for Things to Come, Albert Ketèlbey In a Persian Market, Holst The Planets, Elton John Nikita, Bryan Adams Diana, Brian Eno 2/2, Gavin Bryars The Sinking of the Titanic, Elizabeth Maconchy Proud Thames, Michael Tippett Symphony 3, Midsummer Madness and Concerto for Double String Orchestra, Alan Rawsthorne Piano Concerto 2, John Ireland Overlanders A Suite, Benjamin Britten Death in Venice, Henry Purcell Dear Pretty Youth, Run Rig Gamhna Gealla, Gilbert and Sullivan The Mikado, Edith Sitwell Facade, William Walton Viola Concerto, Edward Elgar Cello Concerto, Blow the Wind Southerly folk song sung by Kathleen Ferrier and Ralph Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending. When he presents Handel's Zadok the Priest a group shout out "but he's German".
All images from the film, apologies for the poorer quality.
1988 A British Picture
Ken uses his son (in a multicoloured wig) to play Ken in his autobiography. A voice-over takes us through Ken's life- all the usual suspects: the child discovering the film Siegfried, the navy and ballet, the first amateur films, Monitor, the famous films through to being sued )and winning) for Moll Flanders and making a Cliff Richard video. It also includes some home movies: when Ken has no budget he keeps on filming. And ends with the family on a rocking horse singing "We'll all be riding on a rainbow".
It was commissioned by Melvyn Bragg who appears in the film phoning Ken with the commission and coincided with the release of Ken's autobiography of the same title (in the UK but not America). The film is highly enjoyable and includes excerpts from many films including the early television and amateur work. My recording from television was eaten by my video from continuous use. The film is also called Portrait of an Enfant Terrible.
1983 The Planets
Holst´s musical suite about each of the planets (except Earth, and Pluto which had not been discovered when Holst wrote the piece). "Russell films using archive footage of space shots, Red Square celebrations, fashion shows etc. reflecting Ken's eclecticism and weaving a theme in accord with each of the music's movements; Red Square being Mars and fashions being Venus etc" (thanks to site visitor Frank for the summary). Russell themes include the elements (air, fire, wind and earth), trains, a crucifix and Catholicism. The fire sequences are similar to those in Don't Shoot the Composer. But overall it is not particularly good or insightful. The music is performed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. There is no dialogue or commentary. Revised opinion: I have changed my mind. More viewings show how inventive Ken is. The film is a compilation of existing stock footage, similar to how Ken started in television, making films about composers and because he was not allowed to use actors, he relied on existing footage. The narrative and link between the images is not particularly profound, but the power is the match of the image to the music. Some shots- horses on fire running from a blaze, a building collapsing under flames- are spectacular. Ken brings over the power of Holst's music. There is a clever image of a desert which then morphs into a woman's body. Mari Yamamura, cinematographer on Zen Nguyen’s short film Scarlet Silence, says “The film [Scarlet Silence] contains an intimate scene between two female characters…. When Zen described the scene to me, I wanted it to be classy rather than erotic, and it jolted my memory of some striking imagery that I had seen in the past but forgotten; a clip once a music lecturer showed us in our class, which was Venus on Ken Russell’s View of The Planets (originally broadcast on South Bank Show in 80’s). It showed several female bodies intertwined without being obvious to which part of the body they are and then dissolved seamlessly into curvatures of sand dune. I felt that the combination of such beautiful imagery and the emotive cinematic music from Holst’s The Planet felt very powerful as a young person” (Mel Noonan, Cinematography World, 2 Jul, 2024, click here).
The programme was for The South Bank Show. Xavier Russell ia credited as film editor and Melvyn Bragg as editor. Ken produced and directed. The film was for London Weekend Television in association with Russell Films Ltd.
All images from the film. |
