MichaelB wrote:(I only watched the live feed on that one night, but I get the impression you'll get more value out of Ken that way - most of his anecdotes don't tend to make it into the packaged version)
That's a shame. I don't have digital so the parts of the live broadcasts I've watched only involve snoring! It still amazes me that a television channel can broadcast hours of people sleeping taking up huge amounts of time that otherwise would have to be filled with films or other expensive programmes! I think the whole reality thing was satirised best by the 'People on the toilet' sketch from the Monkey Dust animated series, a spoof on reality shows which showed the creation of a reality star (or a Jade!), called Elaine, who throughout the series appeared in the background of other sketches in ever more bizarre and high profile situations including resolving a humanitarian crisis, lighting the torch at the Olympics etc! ("and as the torch reaches the stadium it is finally passed to..Elaine, from TV's People on the toilet")
The Daily Mail, of all papers, did a piece by Suzanne Moore today all about Russell (praising The Devils very highly!), and describing him as 'one of England's great eccentrics'. How attitudes change, probably due to the comfortable length of time since his last film to forget the controversy and be able to hold him up as some sort of icon of a forgotten age.
MichaelB wrote:But who the hell could convincingly take over from Ken Russell?
I can't think of anyone - as Lino said, there are people like Baz Luhrman who like the camp and kitsch, but I get the impression there is no real satire or use of the style to put across a message there, he just likes the pretty dresses and sets and people singing and dancing, or pushing together modern day and Shakespearean dialogue to introduce Romeo and Juliet to youngsters. That is nice, but it is never going to really piss people off and challenge them the way Russell's films seem to have done!
After all, who else would have the nerve to have begun Whore with the shockingly inappropriate (but strangely apt!) song with the repeated lyric: 'I want to bang her'! That, if not the title, must have driven a lot of people away before the film even properly got going!