New Ken Russell film has met with harsh criticism

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32498, 7 January 1971, Page 4

New Ken Russell film has met with harsh criticism

A new Ken Russell television film was shown in Britain last week. Called “Dance of the Seven Veils” it was a documentary on the composer Richard Strauss.

Russell had warned that the film was going to be violent and satirical, that he had set out to show Strauss as having been “pretty suspect in his political morals.” Said Russell: “I’ve done it like a comic strip in seven episodes. It goes POW!” It went . . . well, how does a kick in the belly go? The television centre’s switchboard was jammed with complaints from viewers. The critics panned it as savage, crude, tasteless and cheap. And Mrs Mary Whitehouse, head of the British clean-up-TV campaign, talked about suing the 8.8. C. for showing the film.

It was the sort of reaction Russell must have expected. Afterwards he was unrepentant.

“One of the reasons for making the film was to shock complacent critics and viewers who sit in front of their sets for hours on end watching cocoa advertisements.” On that score the film succeeded. It was shocking. TV has never shown such scenes of rape, violence, nudity and copulation in Britain before. “This was gratuitous sex and violence of the most outlandish kind,” said Mrs Whitehouse.

“I felt that everything I showed was necessary for presenting my idea of the man,” retorted Russell. “Strauss was one of the most famous people in Germany at that time and if he had taken a stand against the Nazis this would have had a tremendous effect.”

But in presenting his personal view of the composer, Russell breached the world of fantasy. Symbolism too often replaced facts, and there was the rub. For Russell, the man who has revolutionised television documentaries and reckoned to be something of a film genius, went too far.

Through new techniques and an entirely new approach, Russell has in a few years changed the look of the documentary film. Before Russell, they were dusty agglomerations of library stills and narrated facts.

He graduated to the 8.8. C. after a spell in the merchant navy, ballet dancing, acting and magazine photography. “It wasn’t a question of choosing television. I have always wanted to do films and the only place you can do the sort of documentary biographies I like doing is in television.”

But by breathing new life into documentaries, by making biographies fun, Russell has given himself the chance to move into the cinema.

CHTV3 2.00 p.m.: Headline news. 2.03: Cheyenne—“ The Argonauts.” Clint Walker in new western series. 2.52: Variety Special—Al Hirt. 3.43: Where Have All The Drivers Gone? Documentary. (Repeat.) 4.03: The Andy Griffiths Show—“ The Hollywood Party.” Comedy. 4.29: Wooden Tops. Puppets. 4.43: House of Hashimoto. 4.49: Ah De Doo Ah De Doo Dah Day (Phil Garland, Christine Smith, Jae Renaut and pupils of the Mairehau School). Folk music. (Final.) 5.06: Zorro—" Zorro Springs a Trap.” Adventure. 5.30: Headline news, weather. 5.33: This Week in Britain. 5.38: The Andy Williams Show. Variety. (Final.) 6.32: Shadow of Progress. Documentary. 7.00: Network news. 7.15: Weather. The South Tonight. 7.35: Coronation Street. 8.05: Bracken’s World—“ Whatever Happened to Happy Endings.” Drama. 9.01: Newsbrief. 9.03: Department S—“ The Man Who Got a New Face.” Detective. 9.59: Max—Max Bygraves. Variety. 10.26: Comedy Playhouse—-“As Good Cooks Go.” 10.56: Late news, weather.

NATIONAL LINK . (Including 3YA Christchurch (690 kilohertz); 2YA, Wellington (570 kilohertz); 4YA, Dunedin (780 kilohertz): and 3YZ, Greymouth (920 kilohertz). 7.0 p.m.: N.Z.B.C. Sports News. 7.30: In Your Garden This Week. 7.45: On Broadway. 8.0: Songs of the Geordie. 8.30: Weather and News. 9.0: National Youth Band of New Zealand, 1970. 9.30: The Archers. 10.30: N.Z.B.C. News, Comment, Weather. 10.45: Bowls: New Zealand Championships. 11.0: 8.8. C. News and Commentary. 11.15: Chess: New Zealand Championships. 12.0: The Navy Lark. 1.0 a.m.: Melody Time from Germany. 2.5: La Ronde Internationale. 4.9: Dancing at the Savoy. 3YC, CHRISTCHURCH (960 kilohertz)

7.0 p.m.: Marie Vandewart (cello), Bryan Sayers (piano). Janacek: A Tale. Charles Camilleri: Sonata. 7.26: Medelssohn: Love Song; Spring Song; • Her LoveLetter; The Nosegay; Another May-Song Isle Wolf (soprano), Martin Isepp (piano). 7.40: Milhaud: Suite Provencale Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch. 8.0: A Prescription for Patronage: The Arts Council of Great Bri-

His first commercial film “French Dressing” in the mid-’sixties was a modest flop, but on the strength of his £12,000 Debussy documentary he was given a £1 million budget to direct the Len Leighton spy thriller "Billion Dollar Brain.” “It was a mistake and it was a pity. But only because of the time wasted.” It served as a useful apprenticeship for his adaptation of the earthy D. H. Lawrence novel “Women in Love” which received rave reviews in Britain.

Now he is putting the final touches to his latest cinema movie “The Lonely Hearth” —a personal view of Tchaikovsky which he sold to United ■ Artists as the story of a “homosexual who married a nymphomaniac.” In his 30 documentary films for the 8.8. C., he gradually turned them into plays by treating his subjects as living people instead of historical characters.

The revolution began in a small way. In his film on Prokoviev, Russell showed the "composer’s” hands playing the piano. In Elgar, a distant moving figure was used. Finally, in Debussy, an actor impersonated the composer throughout the film.

tain. 8.30: Verdi: Oh, my happiness (I Lombardi); I shall see her once more (Un Ballo); Beneath the burning sun (Aroldo): From remotest exile (I due Foscari). 8.43: W. F. Bach: Double Concerto for two harpsichords, with trumpets, horns, timpani and strings—Leonhardt Consort of Amsterdam and Concentus Musicus of Vienna under Gustav Leonhardt. 9.6: Czech Quartet (of the University of Canterbury). Bartok: String Quartet 'No. 3 (1927); Gyermekeknek (For Children); String Quartet No. 5 (1934). 10.0: Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 John Browning (piano), London Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa. 19.35: Haydn: Divertimento No. 6 in D Little Orchestra of London under Leslie Jones. 3ZB, CHRISTCHURCH (1100 kilohertz) 7.2 p.m.: Hit Wave! 8.2: World Records on the Air. 8.30: Thursday Night with George Taylor. 8.31: Gardening wtih Reg Chibnail. 10.30: Looking Back. 3ZM, CHRISTCHURCH (1400 kilohertz)

7.30 p.m.: Things are Swinging. 10.0: From the Top Pops. . ■

“Some sort of truth emerges from re-creating the lives of people and getting actors to re-enact them. All you want to do is illuminate the subject and his work through his actions.” Russell is proud of his factuality. “People complained about my showing Elgar flying a kite. But Elgar was a mad insane kit flyer. I might take otf from the facts, but there is always a factual basis for what I do.”

Russell is a big and imposing man. With a mass of flowing hair he resembles an Old Testament prophet. He’s 42, married to a designer and lives in a house in a quiet London square with their five children, who frequently appear, as Russell himself does, in his films. He is already working on the script of his next movie, an adaptation of John Whiting’s play “The Devils” and are clans for a film based on the life of Ludwig 11, the mad king of Bavaria, noted for his passion for beautiful women, ornate castles and Wagner’s music. “I am interested in failures,” says Russell. “I am interested in people who have had a tremendous struggle all their lives. I am also attracted to ambiguous people whose character and action can be taken one way or the other. I try to leave this ambiguity in my films.” Despite his success in the cinema he has no intention of neglecting television which he reckons is “more advanced in thought and experiment than the feature film.” He has a lot of ideas in the pipe line including a portrait of Gustav Mahler and a documentary on Baron Corvo, the originator of Hadrian the Seventh. The wide criticism of "Dance of the Seven Veils” and the charges of falsifying history will not make Russell revise his technique when making documentaries. "Photographs can be untrue and if you interview

an old lady who knew the subject of the film it can be just an old trout putting forward a lot of cobblers (Cockney slang for nonsense).” Influenced by the French new wave movies, Russell has a reputation for his flexibility and on-the-spot decisions. Strauss, for example, was shot without a set script.

He gets his ideas in many ways; flicking through the photographs in an encyclopaedia until an idea registers or watching a waterfall in the Lake District, “crytallising the mind, letting things flow.” He is a man close to the elements. Fire and water figure frequently in his films. Music is a preoccupation. “I might sometimes sit for a whole day and listen to records which stimulate me. I’ve got a feeling that certain types of music provoke certain thoughts. There’s something in music which injects its own essence into your mind.” A passionate man with a deep feeling for mood and atmosphere, he still regards film making as a hobby. “But it can become a joy —when you suddenly get that golden burst of light that can turn something unexpectedly in your favour.” London Express Features.