Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell (July 3, 1927 – November 27, 2011) was a flamboyant British film director, noted for his often-controversial films. Several of his movies were highly fictionalized and often salacious biopics of great classical composers, e.g. The Music Lovers (about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Mahler, Lisztomania, The Strange Affliction Of Anton Bruckner, etc. He also wrote a handful of novels.
Russell eventually passed away in November 2011 at the age of 84, having suffered a series of strokes.
Works with pages on TV Tropes:
- Elgar (1962)
- French Dressing (1964)
- The Debussy Film (1965)
- Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
- Women in Love (1969)
- The Music Lovers (1971)
- The Devils (1971)
- The Boy Friend (1971)
- Savage Messiah (1972)
- Mahler (1974)
- Tommy (1975)
- Lisztomania (1975)
- Valentino (1977)
- Altered States (1980)
- Crimes of Passion (1984)
- Gothic (1986)
- Aria (1987), segment "Nessun Dorma"
- The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
- Salome's Last Dance (1988)
- The Rainbow (1989)
- The Strange Affliction of Anton Bruckner (1990)
- Whore (1991)
- Prisoner of Honor (1991)
- Mike & Gaby's Space Gospel (novel, 1999)
Provides examples of
- Animal Motifs: He uses snakes and snake-related imagery in all of his films.
- Author Appeal:
- Classical Music. Several of his films are highly fictionalized biopics of composers, and he utilized classical music as film scores in many of his works.
- Nudity, of both sexes. It's not a Ken Russell film unless people get their kit off.
- Corrupt Church: A frequent theme in his entire oeuvre. It should be noted that Ken Russell converted to Catholicism and continued to identify himself as one for several decades, even when he made The Devils.
- Show Within a Show: He uses this structure to frame his adaptations of The Boy Friend and Salome. The former has a rundown theatre company trying to impress a big producer with their show, and the latter has the staff of a London brothel performing the play for Oscar Wilde himself.
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Spiritual Predecessor: Some see Russell's works like Altered States to share similarities with horror maestro Clive Barker of the Hellraiser fame, except without the gothic macabre horror aspect. Even one of taglines for Barker's Hellraiser, "He'll tear your soul apart" on the original poster could have been a reference to Russell's 1975 film adaptation of Tommy, which features the same poster tagline in exactly the same font.