"That Crazy Old Bastard": Ken Russell (1927 - 2011)

Amplify’d from www.popmatters.com

For a time, he was the bad boy of British filmmaking, a moniker that actually meant something back in the productive, post-modern phase of cinema. A director by whim instead of choice, he turned an obsession with visuals into an iconic, inventive style. His fascination with religion, symbolism, nature, and human frailty became the calling cards of his fractured, sometimes frightening vision. Today, his oeuvre forms a footnote in the ongoing deconstruction of late century consensus, and that’s really a shame. Before all the ballyhooed bandits who supposedly struck substantive blows against the artform’s stodgy empire, Ken Russell (who died on 27 November) was the original rebel. And unlike his current compatriots, there was a slightly ludicrous legitimacy to his creative cacophony. Read more at www.popmatters.com

 

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