reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (11/04/84)
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