Harpooned by Raging Monk

The programming of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s seven day, nine-film Ken Russell tribute, which begins on Friday, 7.30, with a showing of The Devils, is more than a bit curious. I’m very glad for the opportunity to finally see the long and extra-brazen British cut of The Devils and the chance to see, if I so choose, Russell conducting a q & a each and every day of the series, but the film selections are wanting if not perplexing.

The FCLS programmers have included two lesser Russell films — the garish Tommy (’75) and the mediocre Valentino (’77) — while omitting Altered States (’80), one of Russell’s daffiest and most verbose brilliant-nutter pics, and particularly Song of Summer, a 1968 portrait of the last years of composer Frederic Delius that Russell has called “the best film I have ever done.”

Russell is 83 and obviously deserving of a serious, full-on retrospective, but the omission of Song of Summer (as well as his other BBC films including Elgar, The Debussy Film, Always on Sunday and Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World) makes the FSLC tribute seem sketchy and middlebrow. Oliver Reed is quietly touching as Claude Debussy in The Debussy Film (’65), which I saw and quite liked on PBS in the mid ’70s. It was reportedly screened at the National Film Theatre in ’07; it’s a real shame that the FSLC is waving it off.

What could the rationale be for omitting Russell’s BBC work? Rights? Cost? It just doesn’t seem fitting that an esteemed org like the FSLC would tribute Russell with the same kind of greatest-hits approach as, say, a Turner Classic Movies retrospective hosted by Robert Osborne.

Sidenote: The version of The Devils being shown on Friday (as well as on Saturday, 7.31, Sunday, 8.1 and Thursday, 8.5) is the extra-unexpurgated UK version — the longest and most graphic ever assembled at 111 minutes. The US version (which Warner Home Video put on iTunes for roughly 48 hours before withdrawing it) runs either about 108 minutes, give or take. The 111-minute version includes two controversial scenes — a so-called “Rape of Christ” that involves some kind of frenzied orgy, and a bit near the end of the film in which Vanessa Redgrave ‘s Sister Jeanne masturbates with a charred bone from the remains of Oliver Reed‘s Father Grandier.

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36 thoughts on “Harpooned by Raging Monk”

  2. “What could the rationale be for omitting Russell’s BBC work? Rights? Cost? It just doesn’t seem fitting

    I don’t know the particulars of the FSLC retrospective but as someone who has scheduled stuff like this I do know that rights and cost often come into play. Also, my past dealings with the BBC have been incredibly difficult with the availability and quality of screenable materials also playing a large role.

    I was involved into trying to schedule a screening of Danny Boyle’s Mr Wroe’s Virgins a few years back only to be denied by the BBC because Minnie Driver didn’t approve and that the BBC wanted to keep her happy for future projects. (Our assumption at the time was that she didn’t appreciate being filmed overweight and naked and now that her star had risen she would prefer this film to be buried — a shame as it’s one of Boyle’s best).

    One also needs to consider the limited number of available screenings (they can’t play everything) so somebody needs to make the final decision based on a whole host of variables. It’s also very possible that Russell doesn’t want certain stuff screened.

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  3. Russell’s “Altered States” is a true curiosity. I wish I knew the story behind why the screenwriter is credited as “Sidney Aaron” not Paddy Chayefsky. In an rare interview with John Brady, three months before his Aug. 1, 1981 death, Chayefsky would say little about the film. Chayefsky does say the story started as a movie idea but was written up as a novel first which he’ll never do again. Quote:”I did the screenplay after I wrote the novel. The screenplay was much better than the novel…When I sat down to do the screenplay for Altered States, all the holes came out. You can get away with a lot in prose that you can’t get away with in drama. I threw out seventy pages of screenplay because I tried to follow the book and it did’t work. I started from scratch and went back and did a proper screenplay.”The film was the screen debut for both William Hurt and Drew Barrymore.Brady’s interview can be found in his book “The Craft of the Screenwriter.”

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  4. Manitoba, a few years ago I read ‘Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell’ and it has lots of good stories about the process and what happened behind closed doors. If you want to know more about the film and why Paddy Chayefsky took his name off it and left the project, you should check out the book. There are also a lot of stories about projects that Russell never got to make, like his Evita film.

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  5. I actually have the paperback novel version of Altered States. I bought it because I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what the end was supposed to be about (did the same for Ursula K. LeGuin’s Lathe of Heaven). As I recall, it cleared it up somewhat. I still have a great fondness for both film and novel.

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  6. Haven’t seen Altered States since I was like 13… Fucking SURREAL that I used to watch it on HBO when I was like 8 years old…. with my family, who would make me avert eyes whenever there was nudity or sleaze in a movie. So, what, did I see six, seven minutes of Altered States, tops? Isn’t it wall to wall nudity and kinky insanity?

    Probably saw more of the actual movie when it played on ABC cut to shreds than I did stuffing my face behind a pillow every four seconds… I guess I should see it proper as an adult.

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  8. Altered States was on my “GF rewatch” list (you know– whenever you start dating someone new and have to go through the whole catalog of, “What, you’ve never seen Altered States/The Blues Brothers/Amelie, etc.” catch-up list).

    So, I saw this again about a year ago, mostly because the GF didn’t know where that sequence in the A-Ha video came from, heh.

    It’s slightly interesting, in a very 1970s way– that boho potsmoker sensibility that alleged that if only we did the *right* drugs, we’d expand our minds to infinity, man. What comes out of this is something that probably *requires* drug use while watching it to fully appreciate it.

    As a film, it’s kind of clunky, especially towards the end, where it just kind of peters out.

    That said, Blair Brown nekkid *was* a formative moment of my childhood that I’ll always remember fondly.

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  10. I’d always heard that Chayefsky had it in his contract that neither Russell nor the studio could change the script. Russell, in true arrogant auteurist fashion, couldn’t stand it, and started purposefully sabotaging the script, doing things like having actors line-read with their mouths full, and changing the tones of scenes all around through execution while keeping the script accurate. Chayefsky, of course, got plenty pissed.

    All of the above could actually be rumor, for all I know.

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  11. I saw Altered States three or four times when I was about 13. The twin cinema at the North Little Rock mall was thankfully very relaxed about enforcing the R-rating, and yes, crazynine, your last statement rang true for me.

    That said, Altered States is a damn fun movie.

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  12. Plus, while Chayefsky may have had his name taken off the film, it’s still full of his rapid-fire, jargon-laden, “everyone in this movie is smarter than you” dialog. All in service of crazynine’s “right drugs” message.

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  13. Maybe it’s a case of there not being a 35mm print of Altered States in rentable form?

    A few years back an idiot curator booked the museum’s film series based on the logic that “If you can buy the DVD for Amazon, the studio has to have a print ready for rental.” About half of his published original schedule had to be replaced.

    Tommy might seem lesser, but it shall put butts in the seats/

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  14. Man! I saw Altered States when I was 12 or so, intrigued only by the bit in the trailer showing Hurt in “lava man” mode, and it blew my mind. Next day I ran to the video store and rented The Devils. Total surprise, but I loved it – even if it took me a while to come out of the shock, nice catholic that I was. Should check out both again asap…

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  17. “So, I saw this again about a year ago, mostly because the GF didn’t know where that sequence in the A-Ha video came from, heh.”

    I sincerely don’t mean this as a knock on your age (although it’s probably going to come off that way, regardless), but are there still really women out there that remember A-Ha videos, but never actually saw Altered States?

    Shocking.

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  19. yeah, I’m annoyed that ‘The Devils’ is showing in NY while I’m in LA, then when I go back to NY, it comes out to LA. Dammit.

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  20. Altered States also has one of my favourite movie lines of all-time: “Somewhat? This guy’s a fucking gorilla!”

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  21. CitizenKaned– no knock taken. The GF led a fairly sheltered childhood, small town, basic cable (MTV but no HBO). A lot of the video store and summer cable rerun gems I take for granted she simply was never exposed to.

    I recall seeing Altered States any number of times… first time in snippets on ON-TV (anyone remember *that*?), then edited on ABC, then a couple or rentals along the way that allowed me to *fully* appreciate it’s bizarre nature.

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  22. Let me get this straight, Wells. The Film Society of Lincoln Center is showing LISZTOMANIA — which I believe is unavailable in the States, which is perhaps the craziest and most phantasmagorical film that Ken Russell has ever made — with the 83-year-old director in tow, no less. And you’re complaining about ALTERED STATES? Honor the man for his original vision, not the jobs he took on to stay active and afloat (which include ALTERED STATES, as good as that film is).

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  24. I thought ( and still think ) Tommy was brilliantlly, over the top. Especially Oliver Reed, Ann Margaret and Keith Moon.

    Story from that set is that Reed and Moon’s on set debauchery is of legend, had Russell climbing the walls because they wouldn’t go by the script and would just drunkenly improvise. Love that flick. Cult classic with lots of cool cameos and some good rock and roll in it as well.

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  25. Altered States also has one of my favourite movie lines of all-time: “Somewhat? This guy’s a fucking gorilla!”

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  26. TOMMY and ALTERED STATES were touchstones of my youth. Love both those movies dearly. Was just getting into rock at the time and TOMMY led me to the Who and all kinds of fun.

    I just saw THE DEVILS and it really got under my skin. What a great fucking movie. LISZTOMANIA is definitely a curiosity…Daltrey is pretty terrible as Liszt but the movie is so wonderfully bizarre that it’s hard to stop watching.

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