July 29, 2010 06:00PM EDT
Russellmania: July 30 to August 5
Ken Russell
Starting Friday, July 30, the enfant terrible of the artist biopic, Ken Russell is the focus of 9-film retrospective at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theatre. The series is capped by personal appearances by the maestro each evening, making this series a must-do for cinephiles. Russell’s work can be readily identified by its visual boldness and dream logic: his work is closer to opera or poetry than to traditional film. This series highlights Russell as the master of the mad cinematic gesture.
Ken Russell burst on the film scene as a director of international importance with his 1969 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, starring Oliver Reed, Alan Bates and Glenda Jackson, for which Jackson took home the Oscar. 
Ken Russell directing Oliver Reed in The Devils
Some of Russell’s most critically acclaimed films from the ’70s will be screened, including Savage Messiah, The Devils, and The Music Lovers. Russell famously said of The Music Lovers—his first big-screen composerama—that it is “the story of a love affair between a homosexual and a nymphomaniac,” starring Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky and Jackson as his mad wife.
Tommy
Also in the series is Tommy, adapted from The Who’s rock opera; Valentino, an extravagant homage to the idols of silent Hollywood, starring Rudolf Nureyev; and The Boy Friend, a giddy romp starring Twiggy in a Busby Berkeley-esque behind-the-scenes look at a struggling acting troupe.
Twiggy in The Boy Friend
If the descriptions make your head spin, wait till you see the movies! This series presents the highlights of Russell’s controversial oeuvre of ferociously inventive films.
Learn more about the series.
Buy tickets: $12 General Public; $8 Seniors & Students; $7 Members
Save before 6pm: Mon-Fri screenings before 6pm are only $9; $6 Students & Seniors; $5 Members
Save with a Three-Film Pass: $30 General Public/ $21 Seniors & Students/ $18 Members
Update! Ken Russell was in attendance at the Monday night screening of his biopic Mahler. Russell charmed the audience with anecdotes relating to his celebrated oeuvre. During the filming of Mahler, just prior to shooting an important scene in a lake, the young actor who plays Mahler as a child confided to Russell that he could not swim. "That’s perfectly all right, young man," Russell reassured him. What he did not tell the boy was that it was a near drowning scene. Executed to perfection, Russell deadpans.
When asked why Wagner is featured so prominently in the film Mahler, even though the two never met, Russell’s response was, "Because he had to be there."
The lion still has his teeth.
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