Ken Russell - The Old Devil

I knew it was going to be a shitty day when I found the milk had gone off overnight. Despite being kept refrigerated and well within its 'use by' date, the bloody stuff was sour. Of course, I didn't realise it was off until I started eating my breakfast Weetabix. Truly disgusting. Deciding that I didn't have time to buy more milk and have another Weetabix before I had to get to work, I decided to check the headlines on Ceefax. That's when my day really took a turn for the worse - Ken Russell was dead. I know he was eighty four, but it still came as a bit of a shock. I always thought he was somehow indestructible. But sadly not, it seems. At a time when public life seems to be getting ever blander and 'entertainment' ever safer, the world can ill-afford to lose a singular talent like Ken Russell.

Now, don't get me wrong here. I'm not an uncritical fan of Ken Russell's films. He made quite a bit of crap in his time and his films could often lean toward the puerile. That said, he also directed some genuine classics like Women in Love and The Devils. However, what I must admired about Ken Russell was the fact that he was a genuine eccentric and maverick. Throughout his career he doggedly followed his own vision - Ken Russell films are always immediately recognisable as his work. It didn't seem to bother him that, ultimately, this forced him away from the major studios and their lavish budgets, to the more financially restricted world of the independents. He just kept on making his films, his way. I salute him and note with regret that I can now never fulfil one of my teenage ambitions - to get a job with the British Board of Film Censors as the bloke who cuts the naughty bits out of Ken Russell films. The sights I would have seen!