Tag: ken russell composer films

Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 9 (Conclusions).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8. Conclusions. The auteristic traits of any director can have a strong, almost unstoppable effect on a film and its subject matter.  This often ranges from stylistic visual aestheticism to more thematic trends in a director’s body of work.  For this case study of the work of Ken Russell, this … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 9 (Conclusions).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 8 (Lisztomania).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Lizstomania and the effect of Rock Aesthetics on Classical Reception. After making Tommy, Russell clearly felt as if there was still new territory to be explored.  The last of his composer films would not simply be a final whimper in the delving into a musical and cultural history, but an all-out … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 8 (Lisztomania).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 6 (Mahler).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Mahler (1974) and the Balance Between Personal Reception and History. Mahler is an apt end for this period in Ken Russell’s musical exploration for a number of reasons.  It firstly completes the transition in the director’s popularity as well as the full fledgling of creative confidence.  It also manages to amalgamate all of the elements … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 6 (Mahler).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 3 (The Debussy Film).

Part 1. Part 2. The Dramatisation of History in The Debussy Film (1965). For a film relatively early on in Russell’s portrayals of classical composers, The Debussy Film is surprisingly knowing about the director’s position as story-teller in the relaying of history to the viewer.  The history of the French “impressionist” composer, Claude Debussy, is one of the more dramatic that Russell chooses to recreate … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 3 (The Debussy Film).

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Film, Film Music and Sound, Television

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 2 (Monitor and Bartok).

Part 1. BBC Monitor and the Use of Audio-Visual Form as Musicological Comment. The medium that Russell first gained traction in was not in fact film but in television documentaries.  The flop of his first feature film, French Dressing (1964), marks the advent of his daring creativity entering into his work as television director; a role he had begun at the BBC for their documentary … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 2 (Monitor and Bartok).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).

The Russell Prism: How Ken Russell’s Auteuristic Aesthetics Presents a Reception Study of Classical Music and its Composers. The following essay was a dummy-run dissertation for my Masters course before realising that the subject had already been covered thrice in audio-visual academia.  Though none of three essays analyse or go into the depth of the work (instead choosing to shoehorn their own subject matter through … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).

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