Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell (July 3, 1927 – November 27, 2011) was a flamboyant British film director, noted for his often-controversial films.
Russell eventually passed away in November 2011 at the age of 84, having suffered a series of strokes.
Films with pages on TV Tropes:
- Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
- Women in Love (1969)
- The Devils (1971)
- The Boy Friend (1971)
- Savage Messiah (1972)
- Tommy (1975)
- Lisztomania (1975)
- Altered States (1980)
- Gothic (1986)
- The Lair of the White Worm (1988)
- Salome's Last Dance (1988)
Provides examples of
- Animal Motifs: He uses snakes and snake-related imagery in all of his films.
- Author Appeal: Nudity, of both sexes. It's not a Ken Russell film unless people get their kit off.
- Corrupt Church: A frequent theme in his entire oeuvre. It should be noted that Ken Russell converted to Catholicism and continued to identify himself as one for several decades, even when he made The Devils.
- Show Within a Show: He uses this structure to frame his adaptations of The Boy Friend and Salome. The former has a rundown theatre company trying to impress a big producer with their show, and the latter has the staff of a London brothel performing the play for Oscar Wilde himself.
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Spiritual Predecessor: Some see Russell's works like Altered States to share similarities with horror maestro Clive Barker of the Hellraiser fame, except without the gothic macabre horror aspect. Even one of taglines for Barker's Hellraiser, "He'll tear your soul apart" on the original poster could have been a reference to Russell's 1975 film adaptation of Tommy, which features the same poster tagline in exactly the same font.
