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Ken Russell (center)
Ken Russell is one of the older, more classic bizarros to grace the screens. He's played both what old Hollywood adores (e.g. musicals) and what any Hollywood would hate. And whenever you think that he's stuck doing one sort of film, he moves on to something else.
This 72-year old brit is characterized by using nightmare-inducing hallucinations in his films, while the "reality" in the film progressively starts becoming just as strange as the hallucinations, starting at, oh, 20-30 minutes into the movie. And that that he many times films stories based on real characters and "facts". Other than that, he is also characterized by placing snakes somewhere in the film, not to mention images sacriligious to the most Christian religions (barticular some involving baptisms, nuns, and crucificcions), and, for some reason, fire and mountains, as well as toying around with the dark aspects of sex, and using very strong and very weak female characters. There's also this rather dark daylighting involved in his films. But on the downside, his movies tend to have terrible sound.
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Altered States
(1980)
Starring: William Hurt (Oscar winner for Kiss of the Spider
Woman; also in Lost in Space, Broadcast News, Dark
City, The Big Chill, Children of a Lesser God),
Blair Brown (The Paper Chase, Stealing Home), Drew Barrymore
(E.T., Firestarter, Scream, Poison Ivy), among
others.
Written by: Paddy Chayefsky (Network, The Hospital,
Marty),
whom disowned the script, due to Russell taking over the film at the last
minute and changing it drastically.
Genre: Sci-fi/Suspense
Bizarreness level: 7 shots out of 10
Rating: 8 out of 10
The Devils
(1971)
Starring: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Jones, Christopher
Logue (Dante's Inferno, Jabberwocky,
writer of Savage Messiah), Dudley Sutton (Fellini's Casanova;
The Big Sleep;
The Pink Panther Strikes Again), Graham Armitage
(The Boyfriend,
Zulu Dawn, the butler in Kickboxer 5),
Michael Gothard (For Your Eyes Only, The Three Musketeers,
Scream and Scream Again,
Lifeforce), among others.
Written by: Russell.
Availability: Some video rentals. However, it just got
rereleased in video stores on VHS.
Imagine another remake of The Crucible, only that this time replacing the fanatical Protestants with the Catholic church at one of its most corrupt moments, set in Loius XIII's France, and directed by Ken Russell at his most deranged levels, and this is what you get. The recently deceased Oliver Reed, in the time where he was near the peak of his career (after Oliver! but before The Three Musketeers and becoming the highest paid British actor of the era), stars as Father Urban Grandier, a popular and handsome priest who philanders in his free time, yet holds a position of power over the church-based fortified town of Loudon where he resides. At the beginning of the film we get to dislike him, as he leaves his young lover pregnant and refuses to do anything about it, but it turns out that he's the most likeable being in the entire film. We get to take a look at the local nuns, which are composed mostly out of girls whose parents couldn't afford a dowry to get them marriage so sent them against their will to become part of the religious service, most of whom have a crush on Father Grandier (they all huddle up and take turns looking at him out of a window and squeel as if they were watching the Backstreet Boys). This does not bode well with the head nun, a hunchback named Sister Jeanne (Redgrave), who behind her strict-superior-nun-who-dissaproves-of- squeeling-girls attitude hides her own insane sexual crush on Grandier. Enter a new young nun named Madeleine (Gemma Jones) who is more innocent and religious yet also feels something for Grandier, although instead of a sickening sexual obsession, she actually feels in love with him. She reveals her love to Grandier, whom seems oddly touched by her, and, in a change of heart, decides to marry her, performing the ceremony himself, in secrecy.
Enter level 2 of the story. The infamous Cardinal Richelieu (who else would be the nemesis of Oliver Reed? Played by Christopher Logue this time) is trying to consolidate a French Empire for the wicked young Louis XIII (Armitage) and his own religious/political rule. His most recent plans involve taking over Loudon with the help of the Baron De Laubardemont (Sutton), something that he cannot carry out for meanwhile due to the strong character of Grandier, who refuses to let the town go down, and insists that the matter be resolved in the courts first, appealing his town's autonomy. The two levels of the story intersect when a jealous Sister Jeanne decides to say that Grandier is a demon and that he raped her and made her an unholy servant. Richelieu dismisses it as what it is, but, just for the fun of it (and, oh, the possibility of taking over Loudon), he sends in the top professional witch hunter, Father Barre (Gothard), a being who has the looks of John Lennon but the mind of Joseph McCarthy. Let's just say that Barre's assistant sees through the Sister's fake act, but that Barre himself believes her to be possessed, and decides that he must interrogate (read: torture) all of the nuns to see if they are possessed as well, and therefore find out (read: make up) if Grandier is a warlock or not. Of course that the nuns discover that if they tell the truth they'll only get tortured more, so, fuck Grandier they think, and decide to pretend to be possessed, which leads to more torturing and nuns behaving as rabid baboons in heat. Meanwhile, Grandier comes back from his honeymoon, only to make sure that the city does not fall into Richelieu's hands, unaware of what is going on. Of course he is arrested on spot, and his long set of torture sessions begins, trying to get him to confess. Grandier refuses to confess, and instead uses his tongue to denounce the corruption of the church and the murderous lies that are being perpetuated in the name of "Christianity" (not that that helps him any bit, of course), leading to a bloody fate.
So far, it must be noted, I have left out all the Russell touches. For, you see, this is not directed as a James Ivory film, but more in the vein of Gothic. We get to see the nuns sexual fantasies involving Grandier, for example. But, unlike most Russell films, none of the hallucination sequences are as insane as what is going on in reality. For example, aside of the tortures, we get to see the decadence of the noble class and high rule of the Catholic Church, including one scene where the noblemen release a Protestant prisoner, dressed in a frog costume, and hunt him down. One of the standout scenes (which is constantly featured in these hilarious documentaries made by paranoid Catholic priests with a not so high IQ which denounce Hollywood's planned destruction of the Catholic Church), is one in which Barre is exorcising the demons out of the nuns who are acting possessed, unfruitfully, and suddenly Louis XIII walks in and hands him a box which is supposed to contain a holy relic, which Barre uses and enables him to exorcise all the demons of the nuns, only to open the box and find to his ridicule that it only contains a colored tissue paper (this does not stop him, of course). And a standout line is when the father of a deflowered girl who just had a bastard son holds the baby in the air during the execution of his father, cheerfully saying "Come on boy, it is not every day that a man has the chance to see his father die." As if you hadn't gotten the hang of the tone of the film yet, let me tell you that it gets confused constantly with a horror film. Surprisingly enough, the US National Board of Review gave Russell the award for Best Director of the Year for this and The Boyfriend.
The performance of the cast are great, and the standout is an excellent Oliver Reed (and that that I don't usually care for his performances). The story is intriguing and the images are haunting, and many characters are the most perverse you will ever see (the title is a double reference, to the imaginary devils that are possesing the nuns, but also to the infernal characters that bring these events about). And, to top it off, it is based on a true story. It will leave you uncomfortable, but it is worth checking out.
Bizarreness level: 7 shots out of 10.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Gothic
(1986)
Starring: Natasha Richardson (Nell, The Parent Trap-
98, Fat Man and Little Boy) , Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects,
Miller's
Crossing), Julian Sands (Warlock, Arachnophobia,
Naked
Lunch, The Loss of Sexual Innocence), Timothy Spall (Branagh's
Hamlet;
Secrets
and Lies;
The Bride), among others.
Written by: Stephen Volk (The Kiss, The Guardian)
Mary Shelly, Lord Byron, and their usual cohorts spend a weekend in a castle, where they are to have an orgy - laudanum included. In between the odd debauchery, they start telling each other some odd tales or horror stories. And they have hallucinations and nightmares. That's the entire plot. The end of the movie suggests that this was the inspiration for Shelly's Frankenstein. Gets boring and slow quite quickly, but picks up from time to time with bizarre scenes. Enjoyable when in the mood for a very odd movie.
Bizarreness level: 8 shots out of 10
Rating: 6 or 7 out of 10.
Liar of the White Worm
(1988)
Starring: Peter Capaldi (Smilla's Sense of Snow, Dangerous
Liaisons, Bean), Amanda Donohoe (Liar Liar, Castaway,
The
Rainbow) Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting
Hill, Nine Months, etc.), Catherine Oxenberg (Overexposed,
The
Omega Code, some soft-core thrillers, and Princess Di in all those
made for TV bio-flicks), and Sammi Davis (Four Rooms seg. 1, Hope
and Glory, Mona Lisa, The Rainbow, not to be confused
with the singer), among others.
Written by: Russell, adapting a Bram Stroker (Dracula)
novel
Genre: Horror/Black comedy
There is something very bizarre about this film. And it is not the female Dracula snake/vampire who has orgies with her victims-to-be and wants to revive a gigantic snake, nor the hallucinations of a gigantic snake taking over a crucifixion while roman soldier rape all the nuns that were worshipping there, nor the fact that due to the bad quality of sound and the thick accents it is hard to make out what anyone is saying throughout the whole film. Noooo... The REALLY bizarre thing is that Hugh Grant is in the film and it's not a romantic comedy, and furthermore, he's not the lead! WHAT THE FUCK??!!! A dream come true!
[FULL REVIEW COMING SOON!]
Bizarreness level: 6 shots out of 10
Rating: 7 out of 10.
Liztomania
(1975)
Mahler
(1974)
A sort-of bio of famous composer Gustav Mahler, setting as touchpoint a train ride, from which he recalls his life. For a moment it looks like Russell is doing a straight film, with better production values than his usual fare. Then we get the scene where Mahler is in an upright coffin and stares out to different people dancing in front of him. Several scenes like that follow from time to time.
To be honest, I haven't watched this all the way, so I cannot rate this.
Salome's Last Dance
(1988)
Starring: Stratford Johns (Z-Cars/Softly Softly,
Lair of the White Worm, Splitting Heirs), Glenda Jackson,
Imogen Mallais-Scott, Nickolas Grace (The Green Man, TNT's The
Hunchback, and many TV adaptations of fairy tales and whatnot, plus
a couple of forgotten horror films).
Written by: Russell and wife Vivian Russell, based on Oscar
Wilde's play.
Russell trying to be Fellinni - the Fellinni of Satyricon, that is. It's an adaptation of the old biblical Salomé story. Of course, since this is Russell, it is really an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Salome. And of course, this that would be too simple, the movie is about Oscar Wilde being at a brothel where, for no reason whatsoever, the people at the brothel decide to stage his play. It pretty much is just the play going on, with the occasional shots of Wilde half-watching the play, while wooing some guy. Meanwhile, all the characters in the play are ugly, misshapen (or conversely overly sculptural), sex-obsessed, perverted, and lack any form of decency. Some are dumb people in high power. Others are insane. The rest just hangs around. John the Baptist is the critic of all this. The very young teen Salome gets enraged when he doesn't return her affections. King Herod is a drunken idiot, knowingly controlled by a cheating, scheming wife (Glenda Jackson, whom must really, really need work at the time before joining the British Parliament). You know how the rest of the story goes. Russell ads certain make-up, costumes, and odd shots to make sure that we appreciate the full ugliness of these characters. The story is stretched on for too long. But it does contain some amusing lines. Being a Russell film, and this being about Oscar Wilde in a brothel, we get some naked people, and one of the characters is not really the gender he/she seems to be.
Not a must see by any means. Not even really worthy of a rental. May be of interest if it's on cable and you have nothing to do, but that's it.
Bizarreness level: 7 shots out of 10
Rating: 5 out of 10
Savage Messiah
(1972)
Tommy
(1975)
Starring: The members of The Who: Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend,
John Entwistle, and Keith Moon, none of which have a good movie resumé.
Also in this mess are Oliver Reed (Oliver!, The Three Musketeers
and etc., and most of Russell's flicks in the 70s), Ann-Margaret (Viva
Las Vegas, The Cincinatti Kid, Grumpy Old Men, Stagecoach;
somehow nominated for an Oscar and winning a Golden Globe for this flick),
Robert Powell (Jesus of Nazareth, The Asphyx), Jack Nicholson
(1/2 of the popular bizarre movies made in the late 60s and early 70s have
something to do with him), Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Elton John, among
others.
Written by: Russell, adapting the conceptual album of The Who
written by Townshend.
Genre: Musical
Duration: Forever, it seems, although it really is 1 hr. 8-11
mins (depending on which version you watch)
Availability: Most video rentals. It also gets shown
from time to time on Bravo and the IFC. It's now available on DVD
as well.
Basically, to enjoy this film you have to be a) a fan of The Who + b) a fan of musicals + c) a fan of bizarre hippie movies. Unless you meet all 3 characteristics, you will be bored to death by this flick. And even THEN you may hate this. Myself, I consider The Who to be a very dull band, and I hate most musicals. Furthermore, I may enjoy very bizarre flicks (including the offerings of Ken Russell), but I found the images here to be PVS-inducing. Oh, yeah, it is an imaginative flick (with great set design, I must add), but that does not mean it is any good. Quite frankly, if a civilization centuries from now watches this flick and take it as an evaluation device of the 70s, they will arrive to the conclusion that the 70s was populated by morons...
Let's start with a description of the vague plot, in case you've never seen the Broadway version or heard the album. Basically, Tommy (Daltrey) is a kid who was born after his father was presumed dead in World War II. His mother (Ann-Margaret) eventually remarries this odd guy named Frank (Reed). One day Tommy's father (Powell) returns home, and gets into a fight with Frank, and winds up dead. Tommy witnesses all this, and becomes so psychologically traumatized that he becomes deaf, dumb, and blind (not to mention a moron - oh, wait, that's Daltrey). So Tommy grows up like this, while his mother and stepfather try to treat him in odd manners. He also keeps on getting hallucinations or apparitions of strange characters that tell him a lot of incoherent things. One day one of those leads him to a pinball in the middle of an auto scrap yard, which he starts playing and becomes good at, while strange things happen. Before you can say "what?", suddenly a bad 70s band led by the Pinball Wizard (Elton John) or whatever is featuring him playing pinball and breaking records on it during their concerts, and the crowd of teenage airheads adore him, which of course forces his mother to sing while writhing in a giant vat filled with baked beans. Then he eventually recoveres his lost senses, and somehow becomes a leader of a cult, which of course all the teenage airheads follow him into. Beyond this, I really don't know or care what was going on... Oh yeah, every line is the movie is sung, so you will witness the embarrassment of listening to the not-so-golden throats of Oliver Reed and Jack Nicholson (Jack, you're one of my fave actors, but please don't ever do something like this again)...
In many ways, the film is just a product of its time. The 70s, a time when Andy Warhol could be considered not only an artist, but THE artist, and the epitome of cool. A decade wherein half the rock bands not only pointlessly added keyboards to their lineup, but sounded at times as if the record had gotten stuck, or as if the band had forgotten how the song went on at some point, probably due to the effects of all the drugs kicking in, so they would just wing it for a while until they all could remember what the heck the rest of the song was, and then continue. An era when hippies tried to make their own counter-culture movies, but forgot to write the scripts for them.
Of course, good psychodelic films have been made (ex: Performance), good hippie musicals have been made (Hair), and good twisted versions of fairy tales with 70s music added have been made (The Wiz, Phantom of Paradise). So why does Tommy fail? Because it is 100% STUPID. Annoyingly stupid, to boot. It may be one of Russell's most bizarre and pretentious films, filled wall to wall with incoherent and fucked up imagery (including attempts to satire TV), but lame imagery. You can mute it, put your own music, and get high, and this will still not become interesting. It all just feels like a nightmare (not the type that scares you, but just confuses you into desperation) or a really bad acid trip.
Quite frankly, I spent the whole time wondering when the heck Carrie would come in and incenerate the whole bunch...
Bizarreness level: 8 shots out of 10
Rating: 2 out of 10