6 - ‘An Authentic Part of the History of European Painting’: Ken Russell’s Early Engagement with the Pre-Raphaelites

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 1965, a woman by the name of Mrs E. Crowder wrote to the BBC expressing her admiration for Ken Russell’s Monitor documentaries. She also inquired as to how the film-maker chose his subjects. A representative from the programme wrote back to Mrs Crowder, stating that ‘Mr. Russell’s choice of subject for his films is purely personal. He makes films about people that interest him and that he feels would yield to film treatment.’ This letter suggests that Russell was given carte blanche, but (tactfully) neglects to mention that Huw Wheldon, Russell’s producer and mentor at Monitor, vetoed the young film-maker’s more outlandish ideas, such as the oft-mentioned pitch for ‘a film about Albert Schweitzer playing Bach to lepers in the jungle’, or those he deemed potentially too expensive. Nevertheless, the letter is not wrong in its assertion that Russell was still afforded an enviable amount of freedom and was in the very privileged position of only having to make films about artists who interested him, and whose work he admired. In a letter from 1965 (a good three years before the broadcast of Delius: Song of Summer) to Dr Geoffrey Connell at the University of Nottingham, for example, Russell notes that he had ‘thought of doing a film on Delius, whose music attracts me immensely. There are many pitfalls to the story, however, and as yet I have not seen my way around them all. Unless someone else beats me to it, I daresay I will film that story someday.’

While the letter cited above illustrated that projects often gestated in Russell’s mind for a long time, and his subjects were carefully selected, it is also worth noting that he writes that it is Delius’s music, rather than any other aspect of the composer’s life, that he is drawn to. In certain cases Russell’s interest in an artist went beyond simple admiration for their work as he sometimes experienced a particularly personal connection with them. In Elgar (BBC, 1962), for instance, one can sense Russell’s kinship with a fellow Catholic convert. Brian Hoyle also notes the film-maker’s ‘clear affection’ for both Henri Rousseau, the subject of Always on Sunday (BBC, 1965), and Isadora Duncan, both of whom Russell portrays as amateurs in the best sense of the word.