Phallic Frenzy: Ken Russell and His Films

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Chicago Review Press, 2007 M08 1 - 384 páginas

Ken Russell has made some of the most daring, disturbing, and beautifully photographed films of all time. Drawing from a wealth of historic and literary references, Russell's subjects are astounding: deranged Ursuline nuns in a 17th-century French province, the inner demons of Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, the sexual angst of Tchaikovsky, the emotionally drained life of Rudolph Valentino, the messianism of a pinball wizard, the fury of lesbian vampires, the introspections of prostitutes. Russell's movies offer not just brazen sensationalism but food for thought; they horrify yet inspire. And through it all, Russell maintains a simultaneously impish and intellectual sense of humor.

            The first full biography of the director, Phallic Frenzy is far from a dry, film-by-film analysis. It shows how Russell's real life has often been as engaging and vibrant as his film scenarios. Here you'll learn how Alan Bates and Oliver Reed compared their penis sizes for the nude wrestling scene in Women in Love; how Russell disfigured Paddy Chayevsky's script for Altered States by having the actors holler out the lines as fast as possible, accompanied by spewed food and streams of spittle; and how Russell was slated to direct Evita, starring Liza Minnelli, and the “creative differences” that ensued. A madcap tale full of wild ideas, surreal situations, and a cavalcade of colorful personalities, Phallic Frenzy is as thrilling a ride as any Ken Russell film.

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Página 218 - The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.
Página 147 - Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do! I'm half crazy all for the love of you! It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage, But you'll look sweet upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two!
Página 292 - ... was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit, that they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration, that new, clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination, to a new growth, rising to the light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven. She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven.
Página 276 - THE first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.
Página 291 - Tut hard ami fierce she had fastened upon him, cold as the moon and burning as a fierce salt. Till gradually his warm, soft iron yielded, yielded, and she was there fierce, corrosive, seething with his destruction, seething like some cruel, corrosive salt around the last substance of his being, destroying him, destroying him in the kiss. And her soul crystallized with triumph, and his soul was dissolved with agony and annihilation. So she held him there, the victim, consumed, annihilated. She had...
Página 276 - ... from all palettes and notes from all keyboards, struggling to render what is most inexpressible in thought, what is vague and most elusive in the outlines of form, listening to translate the subtle confidences of neurosis, the dying confessions of passion grown depraved, and the strange hallucinations of the obsession which is turning to madness.
Página 254 - The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of angels and God, and at liberty when of devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.
Página 160 - I am thrice homeless", Alma Mahler reports the composer as having once pronounced; "as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world.

Acerca del autor (2007)

Joseph Lanza is the author of numerous books, including Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening and Other Moodsong; Fragile Geometry; Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique; and Vanilla Pop: Sweet Sounds from Frankie Avalon to ABBA. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.

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