Following a series of strokes, British film director Ken Russell died on Sunday at the age of 84. Russell was famed for being experimental and flamboyant with his films which had heavily sexual overtones and often rebelled against the otherwise rigid and subdued tone used by other famed British filmmakers. It earned him the nickname 'The Fellini of the North'.
Russell first came to notice with 1967's "Billion Dollar Brain", the third film in the Michael Caine-led Harry Palmer spy drama series based on Len Deighton's books. Two years later he directed his signature film - an adaptation of Dh Lawrence's "Women In Love".
'Women' scored numerous Oscar nominations and featured the now infamous nude wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates that broke the taboo of full frontal male nudity on camera in a mainstream film.
That lead to numerous films in the 1970's that have since become infamous.
Russell first came to notice with 1967's "Billion Dollar Brain", the third film in the Michael Caine-led Harry Palmer spy drama series based on Len Deighton's books. Two years later he directed his signature film - an adaptation of Dh Lawrence's "Women In Love".
'Women' scored numerous Oscar nominations and featured the now infamous nude wrestling scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates that broke the taboo of full frontal male nudity on camera in a mainstream film.
That lead to numerous films in the 1970's that have since become infamous.
- 11/28/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
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