10 - Mythologising Valentino: Stardom, Biography and Performance in Ken Russell’s Valentino

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Ken Russell’s biopic Valentino (United Artists, 1977) was released fifty-one years after the premature death of its subject, Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Valentino, in 1926 at the age of thirty-one. The film is rooted in both Russell’s preoccupation with early silent cinema, as a form of pure cinema as well as in his aborted Nijinsky project from 1967. Nicknamed the ‘World’s Greatest Lover’, Valentino was one of the silent film era’s most prominent stars. He was idolised by audiences for his charming on-screen persona and Italian good looks that set him apart from many other early male leads, who were largely Anglo- American in appearance. Valentino’s unexpected death shocked fans around the world, and his funeral prompted hysteria as mourners flocked to the surrounding streets: women reportedly fainted and rumours emerged that, in their grief, two women killed themselves ‘in front of the hospital where Valentino died’. It is this culture of hysteria that Russell mines for the opening of his film. Beginning with the star’s funeral, it proceeds to track back through the life of Valentino, portrayed here by Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, in a series of flashbacks triggered by those who knew him, who in turn recount their time spent with the star. It is through these oral histories that Russell’s film examines Valentino’s star image. The non-linear nature of the narrative’s timeline maintains focus on his legacy, building an account of Valentino’s life that concomitantly explores his legend as well as his identity and significance as a star.

Brian Faucette observes that ‘Russell’s treatment of Valentino as a character in a novel rather than a historical figure allows him to explore the myths, facts and mediated knowledge of the actor.’ In Russell’s film, Valentino is presented as a ‘man of contradictions’ that are in many ways born out of the complexity of his multifaceted star image; these ‘contradictions’ are explored in subnarratives that contort the figure, each rendering different aspects of Valentino’s myth.4 As each of these components of Valentino’s stardom is explored, the film constantly changes style, which for Russell was employed ‘because it’s about the divergence of a man from his image.