Year: 2024
Type: book-review
Abstract: The ReFocus series from Edinburgh University Press is a place to reassess the directorial reputations of film-makers.Invariably, the books in the series, which focus both on American and international directors, are framed as critical interventions or expansions, seldom the first place to start when exploring the work of a film-maker; instead, however, they offer a chance to build out a given film-maker's oeuvre, add nuanced understanding to the life and legacy of that artist and assess some of their more obscure projects.Even when books in the series treat the canonical or familiar films, there is usually a self-conscious sense of coming at them from a new angle, either with a novel methodological perspective or with a sympathy that initial critical assessments lacked.Matthew Melia's volume in the series, The Films of Ken Russell, does all of this and more: it represents a renewed attempt to think about Russell in the context of not only British cinema but as a major innovator in television and in several genres, and it does so both with a scholarly acumen that nicely fills in prior gaps or blind spots while also offering the insider's view and a sense of the working life of a major talent.This is not the first stab at a Russell revival.As Melia's introduction notes, there were attempts to reassess his reputation while he was still alive (graciously, he cites my book Ken Russell: Re-Viewing England's Last Mannerist [2009] in this vein), and just after he died in 2011, through to events such as the conference 'Imagining the Past: Ken Russell, Biography, and the Art of Making History' in Brussels in 2014, which coincided with a season of Russell's movies at the Offscreen Film Festival.Melia himself organised the 'Ken Russell: Perspectives, Reception and Legacy' conference in 2017, and it is from the papers presented there that this book is derived.In addition to this, academic framing of Russell, biographical works by Joseph Lanza and Paul Sutton, numerous Blu-ray releases, BFI/National Film Theatre screenings and the occasional availability of his work on streaming services have led to a continued interest in Russell's film and TV output.Melia's introductory chapter carefully frames the goals of the book, which is an attempt at exploring aspects of Russell's creative life and work which have previously received little commentary (his novels and television advertisements, for instance), as well as assessing his legacy and how his work has influenced young film-makers.The foreword,
Author: Kevin M. Flanagan
Institution: George Mason University
Language: English
Topic: Cinema History and Criticism
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4390617498