Savage Messiah: Ken Russell > Savage Messiah: Ken Russell
Ken in The Times 2009
BoyScoutKevin:
--- Quote from: Iain Fisher on June 30, 2009, 11:22:12 AM ---"Gay films let me express solidarity with the outsider". Ken in The Times 24 Jun 2009
Ken talks about the Pout Film Festival of queer cinema at the ICA and Curzon Soho cinemas during London Pride Week to 6 Jul 2009. Ken talks of watching gay films with his favourite gay T-shirt “If time and space are curved, where do all the straight people come from?” The festival includes classic and recent gay films and documentaries including Before Stonewall, The Celluloid Closet, The Killing of Sister George and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
But Ken has drawn up his own “mini DVD festival”
To Die For (or Heaven’s a Drag): "utter trash, but a British cult classic"
Longtime Companion: "moving, powerful and as good as film-making gets... puts a discerning and human face on the Aids tragedy".
Chuck and Buck: "this tale of the divergent life paths of boyhood friends is full of surprises... holds the attention with fantastic performances and writing".
Almost Normal: "gay professor gets transported back in time to his youthful high-school self, except that it’s an alternate reality where everyone is gay... The plot twists keep coming".
After Stonewall: “an eloquent documentary, the sequel to Before Stonewall…”
Gone But Not Forgotten: “too slow, but intriguing” A man with amnesia develops a relationship with another man, but then the wife turns up.
The Lost Language of Cranes: “moving, flawless, painful portrait of a marriage in breakdown and a son’s coming out. Exquisite writing”. The director is John Schlesinger.
Flawless: “an inspiring, well-acted tragicomic tale about a homophobic ex-cop forced by a stroke to accept therapeutic singing lessons from his outrageous drag-queen neighbour”. With Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
But Ken says, his favourite “gay-friendly” films are…The Music Lovers, Women in Love and The Rainbow.
--- End quote ---
Actually, while I myself am not gay, that is one of the things that attracted me to Ken's films. His willingness to do films with a gay theme. Actually, I think he's done more gay themed films than most gay directors.
And while I don't have the complete article in front of me, I'd like to correct something I remember him saying. Sort of him saying that Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct" was a lesbian. The character may have had some lesbian moments in the film, but the character was not a lesbian. The character was bisexual. Which Ken ought to know, having so many bisexual--both male and female--characters in his own films.
And I'd like to say, why is the film festival not showing any of Ken's films, such as "The Music Lovers?"
Iain Fisher:
This continues in a new thread.
Iain Fisher:
Ken in The Times, 7 Jul 2009
Ken is 82 and is using his birthday “to take stock” and look at things in his earl;y days that made an impression on him: Some memories are part of his usual repertoire of interview anecdotes- as a child showing German expressionist movies during the war, his infatuation with Dorothy Lamour on the screen. But there is other interesting stuff:
Through the Looking Glass puddles: Ken talks of rain filling the gutters, then seeing the sky reflected in the puddles. “Later I was to use the reflection of an actor playing Prokofiev in a murky pond to push the boundaries of Huw Wheldon’s dictum that in BBC Monitor biopics, no actor be used to portray a non-fictional artist.”
Toy soldiers: The boy Ken playing with lead soldiers painted in bright enamels “A director’s dream, organising precision battles where the brave and invincible come out on top and no one is killed, no animal harmed.”
My first documentary: “At 9 I created my first documentary, using a silent newsreel, called Camel: Ship of the Desert. I saved my pennies to record my commentary in a novelty booth at the Lee-on-the-Solent pier.” Ken discovers the recording was faulty, high-pitched and squeaky. “As a director I pay close attention to the pitch and music of the characters’ voices.”
Skiddaw: “Scouting locations in the Lake District for a biopic on the poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti... and his Pre-Raphaelite friends, I awoke the first morning to witness a vision across Derwentwater. Before me was Skiddaw, a god of a mountain when Olympus was still a baby, looking like a great pterodactyl with a wingspan of seven miles. Legend has it Skiddaw sleeps under stone, but will awake when needed, to wrench himself from Earth and soar, transfiguring all who fall beneath his flying shadow. In the spell of this leviathan I made Song of Summer, Tommy, Clouds of Glory, Dance of the Seven Veils, The Rainbow, The Devils and Mahler.”
The partner: “Elise was a student when she took a job at the town cinema to see my movies free… selling tickets… We spent a few sunshine minutes in her Chelsea apartment one morning. She kept my photo on her desk for 20 years before concluding that I’d never call and throwing it away. Five years after that I phoned. She joined me in the New Forest ten years ago and that, my friends, is art.”
Iain Fisher:
"Gay films let me express solidarity with the outsider". Ken in The Times 24 Jun 2009
Ken talks about the Pout Film Festival of queer cinema at the ICA and Curzon Soho cinemas during London Pride Week to 6 Jul 2009. Ken talks of watching gay films with his favourite gay T-shirt “If time and space are curved, where do all the straight people come from?” The festival includes classic and recent gay films and documentaries including Before Stonewall, The Celluloid Closet, The Killing of Sister George and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
But Ken has drawn up his own “mini DVD festival”
To Die For (or Heaven’s a Drag): "utter trash, but a British cult classic"
Longtime Companion: "moving, powerful and as good as film-making gets... puts a discerning and human face on the Aids tragedy".
Chuck and Buck: "this tale of the divergent life paths of boyhood friends is full of surprises... holds the attention with fantastic performances and writing".
Almost Normal: "gay professor gets transported back in time to his youthful high-school self, except that it’s an alternate reality where everyone is gay... The plot twists keep coming".
After Stonewall: “an eloquent documentary, the sequel to Before Stonewall…”
Gone But Not Forgotten: “too slow, but intriguing” A man with amnesia develops a relationship with another man, but then the wife turns up.
The Lost Language of Cranes: “moving, flawless, painful portrait of a marriage in breakdown and a son’s coming out. Exquisite writing”. The director is John Schlesinger.
Flawless: “an inspiring, well-acted tragicomic tale about a homophobic ex-cop forced by a stroke to accept therapeutic singing lessons from his outrageous drag-queen neighbour”. With Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
But Ken says, his favourite “gay-friendly” films are…The Music Lovers, Women in Love and The Rainbow.
Iain Fisher:
Nothing by Ken today.
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