Nude Magazine: Ken Russell photos

Volume 7 2005 has an article on Ken's career as a photographer, before he went into films.   The photos dated from 1955.  The article includes 11 of the photos.

Camera: Ken Russell special issue

Two consecutive issues of Camera, No 1 Winter 2002 and No 2 Summer 2002 by Paul Sutton.   The first covers the DVD release of Delius Song of Summer, 2 pages.  The second is a special issue on Ken Russell with Glenda Jackson (2 pages), Melvyn Bragg (2 pages), a 14 page interview with Ken and a reprint of "A Case for Canonisation".  Melvyn Bragg says about Clouds of Glory: "I was very pleased to be asked to do it.  I don't think I did a very good job on that.  We had a very good cast but we didn't have a very good script and I'm prepared to take my fifty-percent of the blame.  Ken and I certainly didn't work on the scripts well enough together... The Coleridge film is the better of the two and Ken did more of the Coleridge script himself".  Recommended.

The Devils- A Case for Canonisation?

by Paul Sutton in Necromonicon Book 4, edited by Andy Black, 2001.  An analysis of The Devils, and its critical backlash on release.  "Film adaptations should stand, and be counted, independently from their printed source, but Ken Russell's The Devils is that eyebrow raising rarity, a film that grows in stature when viewed in context with its sources. Gone is the verbiage of Huxley and Whiting, Russell's adaptation is thrillingly lean".

The Lair of the White Haired Filmmaker

by Ken Hanke in Alternative Cinema no. 18 Spring 2001.  Some sharp insights into Russell's later films, mainly Gothic, Salome and Lair: "[in Gothic] Mary, symbolically depicted as a fish out of water throughout the film, is the only character who is not stoned out of her mind on laudanum during the wild events of the night".

Vladek Sheybal

by David Del Valle in Psychotronic, number 31 1999.  A full overview of the career of Vladek Sheybal, whose work includes The Debussy Film, Billion Dollar Brain, Women in Love, The Music Lovers, Dance of the Seven Veils, The Boyfriend.  About The Boyfriend: "I was supposed to be Cecil B. DeMille I was wearing DeMille’s actual britches".  You can read it online click here

Vampire Lovers

The Ingrid Pitt Bedside Companion for Vampire Lovers by Ingrid Pitt, 1998.  Russell provides a short foreword " Dear Ingrid, Sorry I have been so late in getting back to you regarding your book. What I read of it was erudite, witty and the very last word on the subject that it is possible to write. But I am afraid it just became too horrifying for me to read on. I got as far as Vlad and then I simply had to STOP. Maybe my imagination is too vivid or perhaps I'm too squeamish, but I just couldn't handle the images- which probably augers well for its success. So sorry to be a wimp..., but there it is! But that doesn't stop me for hoping that you will have an enormous hit on you hands".

An enjoyable book by Pitt who started as an extra in films with Dr Zhivago and Orson Welles Chimes at Midnight. She became famous for her Hammer vampire films. She was also the librarian in Wicker Man.  Russell's Gothic is discussed briefly "...the camera work, the lighting, the sense of disorientation that Ken Russell brings to [the film]... I'm a fan and this picture does it for me! Byron the mental vampire".  The novel of Lair is covered, but not the film.

A Touch of Genius

by Ingrid Pitt, 1998.  Shivers issues 52 and 53.  An interview of Ken Russell by vampire actress Ingrid Pitt.  "A film I think is stupendous is The Hitcher.  You just don't know what will happen next... The best vampire film I've seen is Near Dark".  "Ken painted The Devils in different shades of white.  The white of the convent, the white of the city, the white of the city walls, and then the whole thing bleeding into black at the end".  Spread over two issues.  Good photos.  Recommended.

Video Watchdog

Three articles.  No. 35 1996.  Cutting the Hell out of The Devils by Tim Lucas (16 pages) looks at the censorship of The Devils.  The Devil Himself is an interview of Ken by Mark Kermode (5 pages).  There is also a one page feature on French Dressing.

Reel Conversations

by George Hickenlooper, 1991.  Interviews with 25 film directors.  From the interview with Ken Russell "I think [films about musicians and artists] deal in mysteries just the way I think life is a mystery. Artists somehow make mysteries concrete, make them more tangible. They interpret the ineffable for the rest of us".