This goes for energy extraoardinaire in its characterization of real life French artist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska in this boisterous comic biography starring the handsome but loud Scott Anthony who screams so much about artistic integrity that you want to smash him with one of his sculptures. As independent feminist author Sophie Brzeska, Dorothy Tutin makes her entrance in a grand old library demanding the seat that Anthony is in, claiming it's always been hers. Neither get off to a really likeable start, but it's fun watching them although I wouldn't care to know either of them or anyone like them.
He creates a disturbance practically everywhere he goes, and she encourages him in his outlandish behavior, enabling him and eventually becoming his wife, although companion would be more like it because she hates intimacy although she does briefly seem to be in an erotic ecstasy when he lovingly strokes her face. That's where a young Helen Mirren comes in, with a great entrance as a militant suffragette, and what an impact she makes. This is one of a few Ken Russell films of the time without Glenda Jackson, so it's Tutin who gets the juicy material, and she's outstanding, even though the film is frequently hard to take. But you get a good sense of the Parisian art world at the time and a changing world. Frequently funny but loud, this won't be for all tastes, but those who see it won't quickly forget it.
He creates a disturbance practically everywhere he goes, and she encourages him in his outlandish behavior, enabling him and eventually becoming his wife, although companion would be more like it because she hates intimacy although she does briefly seem to be in an erotic ecstasy when he lovingly strokes her face. That's where a young Helen Mirren comes in, with a great entrance as a militant suffragette, and what an impact she makes. This is one of a few Ken Russell films of the time without Glenda Jackson, so it's Tutin who gets the juicy material, and she's outstanding, even though the film is frequently hard to take. But you get a good sense of the Parisian art world at the time and a changing world. Frequently funny but loud, this won't be for all tastes, but those who see it won't quickly forget it.