By COLIN WILSON (Intergroup Publishing; 1974)
A short book but also a valuable one, representing as it does a rare meeting of two most interesting minds: the author-philosopher Colin Wilson (1931-2013) and the filmmaker Ken Russell (1927-2011). Wilson of course was the highly opinionated and controversial author of THE OUTSIDER and numerous other publications, while Russell was the equally divisive director of films like WOMEN IN LOVE, THE MUSIC LOVERS and THE DEVILS. Wilson evidently saw in Russell a kindred spirit, which explains the enthusiastic tone he takes in this 69 page screed.
A short book but also a valuable one, representing as it does a rare meeting of two most interesting minds…
This may well be the most unambiguously positive piece ever written about Ken Russell. Even Russell’s most ardent supporters, such as John Baxter and Joseph Gomez, tend to be quite ambivalent about his outrageous and excessive films, but not Wilson. In this, Wilson’s first-ever book on a filmmaker (most of his others centered on writers and criminals), he dubs Russell’s THE BOY FRIEND (1971) a “masterpiece” that “doesn’t put a foot wrong,” THE DEVILS (‘71) “one of the most powerful things I had ever seen” and SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972) “Russell’s best film yet.” Also discussed are a number of stalled Russell projects, such as a script called THE ANGELS, an adaptation of Georges Neveux’s surrealist play JULIETTE that Wilson dubs a “mind-boggling explosion of images and ideas.”
This may well be the most unambiguously positive piece ever written about Ken Russell.
Included in the text are transcriptions of a televised interview Wilson conducted with Russell in which he offers up quintessentially Russellian quotes like “People seem to think I get a kick out of shooting sex scenes. In fact it’s about as clinical and unstimulating as an operation for appendicitis” and “most actors only have three or four tricks.”
“People seem to think I get a kick out of shooting sex scenes. In fact it’s about as clinical and unstimulating as an operation for appendicitis”
Wilson’s major claim is that Russell was besotted with the neurotic artist “who wants to storm heaven,” with his “basic obsession” being “to create a real hero.” This of course fit in quite well with Wilson’s own views, which despite his obsessions with deviance and perversion were quite idealistic. Russell himself, in turn, gave Wilson his stamp of approval, dubbing this book (in a handwritten note reproduced on the back cover) “just about the best ever written about my aims and my work.”
The major problem I have with KEN RUSSELL: A DIRECTOR IN SEARCH OF A HERO, aside from its briefness (as Wilson himself concedes, it’s more an extended essay than a proper book), is that it was published in 1974, a time when many of Russell’s most important films (TOMMY, LISZTOMANIA, ALTERED STATES) had yet to be made. Of Russell’s future Wilson was quite optimistic, claiming in the final line of this book that (no joke) “He could be the most important director in the history of cinema.”
See also: KEN RUSSELL’S DRACULA