Russell, Ken

   b. 1927, Southampton

   Film-maker

   Ken Russell directed numerous television documentaries before Women in Love (1969) catapulted him into the cinematic mainstream. The Rainbow (1989) and television’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1993) later concluded his trilogy adapted from D.H. Lawrence. Russell’s Tchaikovsky biopic The Music Lovers (1970) set the sensationalist tone of much ensuing work, including the overwrought iconoclasm of The Devils (1971) and other biopics Mahler (1974), Lisztomania (1975) and Valentino (1977), which preceded a brief Hollywood excursion. From the early romanticism of his pioneering anti-realist documentaries, Russell’s work has degenerated into increasingly dark, sexually disturbed, often misogynistic terrain, with Gothic (1986), The Lair of the White Worm (1988) and Whore (1991) demonstrating an exhausted intentional power to shock.

   Further reading

    Grant, B.K. (1993) ‘The Body Politic’, in L. Friedman (ed.), British Cinema and Thatcherism, London: UCL Press.

   SATINDER CHOHAN