page_title: Ken Russell
section_title: Early features and rising acclaim
hierarchical_section_title: Ken Russell / Television / Early features and rising acclaim
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the film producer André de Toth, director Ken Russell, and actor Michael Caine in Helsinki during the cinematography of Billion Dollar Brain, here on Sofiankatu, near the old police station.
context_page_description: Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell was a British film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. His films in the main were liberal adaptations of existing texts, or biographies, notably of composers of the Romantic era. Russell began directing for the BBC, where he made creative adaptations of composers' lives which were unusual for the time. He also directed many feature films independently and for studios.
  He is best known for his Oscar-winning film Women in Love, The Devils, The Who's Tommy, and the science fiction film Altered States. Russell also directed several films based on the lives of classical music composers, such as Elgar, Delius, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Liszt.
  Film critic Mark Kermode, speaking in 2006, and attempting to sum up the director's achievement, called Russell, "somebody who proved that British cinema didn't have to be about kitchen-sink realism—it could be every bit as flamboyant as Fellini. Later in his life he turned to making low-budget experimental films such as Lion's Mouth and Revenge of the Elephant Man, and they are as edgy and 'out there' as ever".
context_section_description: Russell's first feature film was the low-budget French Dressing (1964), a comedy loosely based on Roger Vadim's And God Created Woman; its critical and commercial failure sent Russell back to the BBC. 
  For television he made the 16-minute Lonely Shore (1964), the longer Bartok (1964) (about Béla Bartók), and The Dotty World of James Lloyd (1964).
  Russell had a noted critical success with the TV movie The Debussy Film (1965) starring Oliver Reed as Claude Debussy based on a script by Melvyn Bragg. Also well received was Always on Sunday (1965), written by Bragg, about Henri Rousseau.
  Russell made Don't Shoot the Composer (1966), a documentary about composer Georges Delerue. He did the highly praised Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World (1967), about Isadora Duncan with Vivian Pickles.
  Russell's television work prompted producer Harry Saltzman to hire him to direct a feature film, Billion Dollar Brain (1967), the third Harry Palmer movie starring Michael Caine. He wanted to follow it with a biopic of Nijinsky but Brain was a commercial disappointment.
  He returned to television for Dante's Inferno (1967) with Reed as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Song of Summer (1968) about Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby. He once said that the best film he ever made was Song of Summer, and that he would not edit a single shot.
caption: Photograph of the film producer André de Toth, director Ken Russell, and actor Michael Caine in Helsinki during the cinematography of Billion Dollar Brain, here on Sofiankatu, near the old police station in 1967
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