Author Topic: Ken's Kids  (Read 3554 times)

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Offline BoyScoutKevin

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Re: Ken's Kids
« Reply #2 on: November 15, 2010, 11:10:37 PM »
"Women in Love"
Again no lines, but no fouls apparently befall them.

"Gothic"
A dead baby.

"Russell also depicts intergenerational abuse with unprecedented extremes."
Joseph Lanza's "Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films" about "Lair of the White Worm"

Both Ken's greatest strength and his greatest weakness is his willingness to push the envelope in his films, as it appeals to some and repels others, and this is certainly true in his film "Lair of the White Worm," where Kevin, the boy scout in the film, is sexually assaulted, then drowned in the tub, while taking a bath, by the film's villainess in a scene that is uncommonly explicit, even for one of Ken's films.

"Salome's Last Dance"
Both the maid Rose and the pageboy live in a den of inquity.

"The Rainbow"
A school student is physically punished.

Of course, the question them becomes why, does Ken place the children in his films in such perilous peril? Probably the best answer to this question came from writer Stephen King, when asked the same question, replied that he did it as a coping mechanism to cope with the fears he had for his own children. Maybe Ken is the same, or maybe not.

Next Time: Questions. We have questions about Russell and his fans.

Offline BoyScoutKevin

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Ken's Kids
« Reply #1 on: November 04, 2010, 10:01:54 PM »
Ken has always seem to have gotten along with  children, at least his own six, except for one son from whom he seems estranged, including giving most of them small parts in his films or giving them jobs behind the camera on his films.

Thus, you may want to have been one of Ken's kids, but you sure didn't want to be one of the kids in his films. Here is a list of his films that I've seen in total or in in part, and the fate of the kids in them.

"The Music Lovers"
The twins have no lines, that I can remember, but nothing untoward happens to them, which makes them one of the few lucky child characters in Russell's films.

"Tommy"
Tommy sees his stepfather murder his father.

"Altered States"
Another lucky one.

"Mahler"
The girls die in a fire, and young Mahler almost drowns.

"Lisztomania"
The children are led astray by a poisonous pied piper.

To be continued . . .