Indulgent. Excessive. Garish.
Vulgar. Words like these are extremely
common in critical estimations of Ken Russell’s work. To this I say, 'so what?' These factors are precisely what make
Russell’s films so vibrant and compelling.
Russell was an artist, not an academic.
I suppose the critics would have been happier if every historical
portrait played more like James Ivory’s stately films. That genius Vincent Canby, for example, said
the we learn much more about Russell himself in The Music Lovers than its subject; Peter Tchaikovsky. He intended that as a denigration, but again
I say that this is exactly what a good film should do. Anyone could have made a by-the-numbers
biographical film of Tchaikovsky’s life – (in fact, I believe they have) – but
this is a Ken Russell film and Ken Russell was the only man on the planet who
knew what a Ken Russell film should be. Roger
Ebert despised it. And what can we say
about good old Pauline Kael; the woman who had the nerve to claim that Orson
Welles didn’t deserve all that much credit for Citizen Kane (1941) and made the bizarre observation that Sam
Peckinpah’s The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
had “too many shots” in it? Well, she
called The Music Lovers “vile” and
said that it made her want to drive a stake through its director’s heart. I really wish she had tried, because Russell
knew how to deal with critics. In a
famous televised debate following the uproar over the following year’s
masterpiece The Devils (1971),
Russell bonked a scornful critic on the head with a rolled-up copy of the
newspaper in which his column appeared.
These attitudes fester, though, continuing to hamper Russell’s
reputation since so many of his key films remain so difficult to find. (The fact that the brutally censored The Devils has yet to receive a proper
restoration still amazes me.) But
compare the umbrage of haughty critics to the impassioned declarations of real
people you can find online, such as on IMDb or Amazon; a startling majority of
whom rejoice in The Music Lovers’
dynamic style and emotional frenzy. It
is not mere showmanship they respond to, but the deep love and respect that
Russell himself conveys regarding art and artists. In his flamboyant way, he always shares in
the pain of composers, poets, dancers and sculptors who are used, abused and
driven to madness by the political whims of the powerful and the jealous,
small-minded contempt of the bourgeoisie.
Russell’s films are about the times in which he lived, not the hazy past.
They use period milieu in the same way that science fiction uses the
future; as a thin veil to critique the horrors and turmoil of the present. In The
Music Lovers, Richard Chamberlain plays Tchaikovsky as a dreamy, troubled
genius wrestling violently with his latent homosexuality, and the great Glenda
Jackson is Nina, the earthy, lower-class woman, practically a groupie, who
eventually marries him; together they are one of many tragically mismatched
couples in Russell’s films. Like Fellini
and Russ Meyer, Russell had such a modern view of sexuality, happy to portray
all permutations as equally valid and romantic.
Critics viewed such aspects of his films as lurid and repugnant; what
better evidence is there that critics are mired in the past while artists are
looking (and thinking) forward? Art that
critics approve of is always the most transparent and safe. What a rare and special time the early 70s
were. Not only Russell but American
contemporaries like Peckinpah and Robert Altman all enjoyed this brief period
of incredible productivity, knocking out one or two films a year, almost as if
running a team of horses into the ground, doing as much as possible so fast
that studios and critics could barely put on the breaks until it was too late. Inside of a mere four years, Russell directed
a remarkable six films; Women in Love (1969),
The Music Lovers, Dance of the Seven Veils (1970), The Boy Friend (1971), The Devils and Savage Messiah (1972); (and I’d say all but The Boy Friend are quintessential Russell tours de force).
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