Pop Goes the Easel

Ken Russell – 1962 – England

Fun, stylish and extremely swinging ‘60s’ quasi-documentary from Ken Russell made for the Monitor program.  It profiles four young Pop artists in a very Hard Day’s Night manner, (predating that Richard Lester film by a couple years, of course), in which they are interviewed, shown working and frolicking around London in a perpetual state of wacky coolness, and perform in staged interactions clearly prompted by the filmmaker.  Of the four, Peter Blake is the only one I was already familiar with; (he designed Sgt. Pepper album cover); the others are Peter Phillips, Pauline Boty and Derek Boshier.  Being a generation older than the other three, who are all in their 20s, Blake seems a little out of place bobbing about at carnivals and in dance clubs.  Considering that Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were already making history in Pop across the pond, the cute little collages of the Brits are a little unimpressive.  (Yes, I know that Pop was actually invented in England as early as 1956.)  Russell was busy making many films for the BBC throughout the 60s, and along with Elgar (also 1962), Pop Goes the Easel demonstrates not only his lifelong concern with artists but his iconoclastic spirit and sheer energy that sustained him through a handful of powerful features in the early 70s.