This melodrama investigates the life of a sex worker, in a pseudo-documentary style.
South Bank Show documentary concerning the life and music of Ralph Vaughn Williams.
Living on an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, it becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality.
An investigation into nunsploitation, and why men find images of nuns involved in sexual situations erotic. The programme also controversially covers the Muslim hibab and burka.
After a series of traumatic childhood events, a psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind boy becomes a master pinball player and the object of a religious cult.
Trapped in a house of horror, seven people discover that the only way they'll get out alive is to tell their scariest stories.
The untimely death of silent screen star Rudolph Valentino prompts the many women in his past to reminisce about his troubled rise to superstardom.
The outrageous life of the American dancer of the 1920s, Isadora Duncan, whom Ken Russell described as "part genius and part charlatan".
London, England, November 5th, 1892, Guy Fawkes Night. The famous playwright Oscar Wilde and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas discreetly go to a luxury brothel where the owner, Alfred Taylor, has prepared a surprise for the renowned author: a private and very special performance of his play Salome, banned by the authorities, in which Taylor himself and the peculiar inhabitants of the exclusive establishment will participate.
A documentary portrait about the life and times of the infamous hellraiser, who died in May 1999, having starred in more than 100 films.
Rock star Roddy Usher is confined to an insane asylum after murdering his wife. There, he is given various shock treatments by Nurse Smith and Dr Calahari, resulting in a series of bizarre and nightmarish adventures.
The result of a challenge from Melvyn Bragg to write a film that Ken Russell himself would be eager to see banned, was A Kitten For Hitler – a 10-minute short in which a plucky young Jewish boy traverses the globe on a quest to warm the Führer's heart with the gift of a cuddly feline.
Hell on Earth is a documentary about Ken Russell's 1971 film, The Devils. Film critic Mark Kermode chats to Russell as well as two of the film’s stars, Georgina Hale and Murray Melvin. Also included are scenes that were cut from the released film for being too controversial.
Documentary covering the career of French composer Georges Delerue, famous for film scores for such films as Platoon, Contempt, Shoot the Piano Player, and Jules and Jim.
A cine-opera retelling of the legend of Boudica, warrior queen and her uprising against the Roman occupiers of Britain.
In the Paris of the 1910s, brash young sculptor Henri Gaudier begins a creative partnership with an older writer, Sophie Brzeska. Though the couple is 20 years apart in age, Gaudier finds that his untamed work is complemented by the older woman's cultural refinement. He then moves to London with Brzeska, where he falls in with a group of avant-garde artists. There, Gaudier encounters yet another artistic muse in passionate suffragette Gosh Boyle.
A writer taking a rest in a country hotel is obsessed with a strange woman in the same hotel. The woman seems to observe him in provocative ways, but he does not dare to approach her. One day he follows her to her room and listens to strange “erotic” sounds from inside, and begins to have erotic thoughts.
A short directed by Ken Russell.
Biopic about 1970s Welsh marijuana trafficker Howard Marks, whose inventive smuggling schemes made him a huge success in the drug trade, as well as leading to dealings with both the IRA and British Intelligence. Based on Marks' biography with the same title.
A short musical directed by Ken Russell.
The story of Roger Daltrey (vocals), Pete Townshend (guitar), John Entwistle (bass) and Keith Moon (drums): The Who, one of the most original, creative and relevant British bands of the sixties and of the entire history of pop music.
A look at "Dracula" in the arts and his supposed real-life inspiration Vlad Tepes.
A courtroom 'drama' featuring Bob Guccione versus Ken Russell in a breach of contract case regarding disagreements over a script for a film version of Daniel De foe's "Moll Flanders" which Guccione hired Russell to direct.
DON’T SHOOT THE COMPOSER is far from an ordinary profile of Georges Delerue. It also serves as a calling card for Ken Russell, whose work would define the 1970s as Delerue’s did in the 1960s. It begins with a sly work of pastiche, parodying the conventions of French noir. It goes onto encompass slapstick, verité scenes of the Delerue family and a harrowing montage of the Vietnam War. This eclectic approach gives us a sense of the different facets of Delerue’s life- his love of cinema, his home life, his work ethic. It also prefigures Russell’s feature length biopics of Mahler and Liszt, though in a more modest- and lucid- fashion.
In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.
An irreverent survey of British Music.
Behind the scenes of the making of Ken Russell's 1971 film 'The Devils. Shown are the construction of the sets, filming of the courtroom scene, the performance of the musical score for the execution scene.
Documentary presenting Alan Parker’s view of British cinema with comments from Richard Lester and others and location report from King’s Lynn on the making of Hugh Hudson’s Revolution, starring Al Pacino, Donald Sutherland, and Nastassja Kinski.
A line up of star performers celebrate the very best of Edward Elgar's music in the 150th anniversary year of his birth.
Barley Scott Blair, a Lisbon-based editor of Russian literature who unexpectedly begins working for British intelligence, is commissioned to investigate the purposes of Dante, a dissident scientist trapped in the decaying Soviet Union that is crumbling under the new open-minded policies.
The history of film and video censorship in Great Britain.
Following the recent death of Ken Russell, Alan Yentob looks back over the career of the flamboyant film director responsible for Women In Love, Tommy and The Devils. Friends and admirers - including Glenda Jackson, Terry Gilliam, Twiggy, Melvyn Bragg, Robert Powell and Roger Daltrey - recall a pioneering documentary-maker, talented photographer and fearless film director.
An immensely moving story of sacrifice, idealism and musical genius which charts the last five years of Frederick Delius's life through the eyes of a young composer and aide, Eric Fenby.
The true story of a man who posed as director Stanley Kubrick during the production of Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut, despite knowing very little about his work and looking nothing like him.
When an archaeologist uncovers a strange skull in a foreign land, the residents of a nearby town begin to disappear, leading to further inexplicable occurrences.
Gangsters run rampant until they encounter a gutsy minister.
Documentary shows Ken Russell at work on various BBC TV documentaries, with clips from Diary of a Nobody, The Debussy Film, Always on Sunday, Don't Shoot the Composer, Elgar and behind the scenes directing of Isadora Duncan. He discusses his working methods and filmmaking philosophy and is also shown at home entertaining his daughter Victoria.
A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax.
A short promotional film for the 2010 Oldenburg Film Festival consisting of various actors and film personalities telling a joke about an exceptionally talented frog.
The updated autobiography of Britain’s most controversial film director, the maker of Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers, Tommy and The Rainbow, is as unconventional and brilliant as his best films. Moving with astonishing assurance through time and space, Russell recreates his life in a series of interconnected episodes – his thirties childhood in Southampton, his first sexual experience (watching Disney’s Pinocchio), his schooldays at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, early careers in the Merchant Marine and the Royal Air Force, dancing days at the Shepherds Bush Ballet Club and of course his career as a film-maker, beginning with an extraordinary interview with Huw Weldon for a job on Monitor. Full of marvellously funny anecdotes and fascinating insights into the realities of the film director's life, A British Picture is a remarkable autobiography.
On-set footage of the film The Devils (1971) with commentary by editor Mike Bradsell
PUZZLEFACE - 18min short film (CAN) Episode #7 from Spookey Ruben's Dizzy Playground TV series starring: Denis 'SNAKE' Belanger & VOIVOD, Ken Russell (RIP), Lisi Tribble, Maylee Todd, Rodrigo Gudiño (Rue Morgue), Rae Matthews, Jef Farquharson, O.T. Biggs and Spookey Ruben.
This documentary begins with Ken Russell posing the question: "What is a true English folk song, if there is such a thing?" After recieving an indifferent response from his dog, Ken journeys around the countryside of England searching for an answer. He bumps into and interviews such famous artists as; Donovan, Fairport Convention, Osibisa, Eliza Carthy, So What, Edward II and The Albion Band among others.
Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us a comprehensive look at the British pioneer rock group, The Who. It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group in 1964 to 1978. It notably features the band's last performance with long-term drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death.
Twiggy takes a comprehensive look at the life story of UK model and cultural icon Twiggy, real name Lesley Lawson, whose career kickstarted in the 1960s. It features interviews with Twiggy and her husband Leigh Lawson, as well as commentary from Erin O’Connor, Paul McCartney, Lulu, Poppy Delavigne, Brooke Shields, Pattie Boyd and Zandra Rhodes.
Ken Russell revisits the life of Elgar, with musical background provided by the composer's works.
Documentary by Ken Russell that shows Alice traveling through a century of Russian's history, from the period of Tsarism, through Socialism and Glasnost. Alice's original characters embody ideological conflicts crossing politics, art and cultural movements.
Documentary, based on a British poll, listing the 100 sexiest movie and TV moments. Supplemented by new interviews with performers, filmmakers, and authors/critics.
Four erotic short films, all with similar unexpected endings: 'The Dutch Master': a woman who enters a living painting; 'The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch': a woman is lured by noises from a chamber; 'Vroom Vroom Vroooom': a motorcycle transforms into a woman; and 'Wet': a hot tub salesman seduced by a woman.
Documentary looking at how nudity has been used in the movies, sometimes shrewdly and other times without thought.