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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 9 (Conclusions).
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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 8 (Lisztomania).
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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 6 (Mahler).
A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 5 (Dance of the Seven Veils).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. When approaching a cinematic portrayal of Richard Strauss, Russell is, for the first time in his biographical canon, openly honest about its position within cultural texts. Dance of the Seven Veils has a sub-heading that reads "A comic strip in 7 episodes on the life of Richard … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 5 (Dance of the Seven Veils).
A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 4 (The Music Lovers).
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Transitional Films and Symbolic Representations of Classical Composers. In spite of using the visual form as an excuse for experimentation with documentary and biography as seen in his films for the BBC, it wasn't until the early 1970s where Russell really found material to properly experiment with. The word … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 4 (The Music Lovers).
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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 3 (The Debussy Film).
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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 2 (Monitor and Bartok).
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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).
