Tag Archives: Ken Russell

Videos for the weekend

2.02.2013 posted by Category: Links
Videos for the weekend

I have my colleague Todd Macdonald to thank for the weekend’s first clip: a timelapse panorama of the courtyard observed by Jeff (James Stewart, above) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954). Todd was laid up with a bug for much of the week and instead of spying on his neighbours he watched a lot of stuff online – and chronicled this on a blog post. Jeff Desom‘s remix was one of his discoveries – and it’s a revelatory reworking of the film and the studio space in which it was made. The artist also shows this as an installation. Across the jump there are nine other clips that I encountered during the week that I hope you may enjoy.


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Weekend links

22.01.2012 posted by Category: Links
Weekend links

Here’s a little campaign that is well worth supporting: Save the 35 Ken Russell BBC Films. Or, as the Facebook page (above) also – and more accurately – argues, Free the 35 BBC Films of Ken Russell. The late, great director made wonderful documentaries and drama-documentaries for the BBC between 1959 and 1968 (for details, start with Michael Brooke’s BFI ScreenOnline page). These include the much-loved Elgar, produced for Monitor in 1962 and repeated on BBC Four last week (available on iPlayer until 30 January). But thanks to extortionate commercial expectations from BBC Worldwide, not one of these films is legally available in the UK on DVD (although a number have been released in the USA). A decade back the BFI partnered with the BBC on releases of Elgar and Song of Summer (1968), but when it came time to re-licence these, the terms expected were such that the BFI had to discontinue the titles. So it’s a wholly worthwhile aim to try to get at least some of the films out into the world. Go to the campaign’s Facebook page for more – and go below for further links to interesting stuff.
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Something for the weekend

3.12.2011 posted by Category: Links
Something for the weekend

We have highlighted the excellent Colonial Film: Moving Images of the British Empire website before. But there’s a further excuse now with the publication of two new books linked to its project: Empire and Film and Film and the End of Empire, both edited by Lee Grieveson and Colin MacCabe. Also, drawing attention to its very good freely accessible print of Basil Wright’s still remarkable Song of Ceylon (1934, above), started under the Empire Marketing Board and finished by the GPO Film Unit, offers a link back to this blog’s discussion of the GPO’s films from the 1930s. There’s much else to explore at Colonial Film, including numerous other films in full and extensive notes about films from and about the Empire. Below, nine further recommendations for alternative weekend viewing freely and (mostly) legally available online.
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Ken and me

28.11.2011 posted by Category: Film, People
Ken and me

Like many others, I was sad today to learn of the death of Ken Russell. There are already tributes aplenty online, including Derek Malcolm’s Guardian obituary, a Telegraph obituary, some excellent short interviews with those who worked with him, and an artsdesk Q&A with Jasper Rees about his photography and early films. Film Studies for Free has a great page of links titled ‘Pity we aren’t madder’ (it’s from Women in Love) to academic engagements with the films. My thought here is simply to record the place that Russell had in my life. I’m sure a similar storycould be told by ten or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. But perhaps its particularity gives it an interest. In any case, it’s one very small way of saying ‘Thank you’.
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