I am trying to imagine

What it would have been like to go to a pub with Ken Russell, Oliver Reed, Alan Bates, and Glenda Jackson.  Say, back in 1970.  Perhaps they were all celebrating Women in Love and Jackson's Oscar? Or, maybe, it was someone's birthday?

Ms Jackson is an MP now.  Did you know that? I did not.

I imagine much drink would be involved:  first growths, ales, Scotch, etc, ... And I imagine the conversation would be fantastic:  The Old Vic; Sir Larry; Pinter; Finney; The "New" National Theatre; those old "pooftas" Gielgud, Orton, and Lindsay Anderson (and maybe Bates might have bristled here, or, perhaps, his friends all knew and did not care); Shakespeare; Lear; Othello; Richard III; D.H. Lawrence; Keats; Shelley; Byron; John Dunne; Blake; The Who; Swinging London; Beatle Wigs ("They're buying Beatle Wigs in Woolworth's, man.  The greatest decade in the history of mankind [the 60s] is over, man."  h/t Withnail and I); The Profumo Affair; The Suez Crisis; Vietnam; Tom Courtenay; Julie Christie (they probably hated her); Schlesinger; Midnight Cowboy; Kubrick; Sellers; Oliver's Uncle, Sir Carol Reed; and on and on in to the night.

Of course, Reed would probably have left the group two or three times to fuck a pretty lady in the loo.

It would all end up in a fistfight, arguing over who was the best Lear ever, or, some silly quotidian detail of D.H. Lawrence's novels (or criticism.)

Eventually, Tom Courtenay -- who arrived late -- and I would trundle "the lads" -- Ms Jackson browned off hours ago -- in to a London taxi, as they sang "Jerusalem" or "Sing As You Go" at the top of their lungs.

"You see, dear boy," Courtenay would say to me, "They simply cannot help themselves.  They're artistes, you know? Let's see if we can grab a pint before they call, 'Time'."

************

There is something to be said for the passionate, yet, uneven, artist.  I know that, personally, I like a fair amount of them.  Kubrick comes to mind, Nic Roeg, Thomas Pynchon, ...

In fact, Pynchon can go two hundred mind numbing pages before changing your life in an episode, or a paragraph.

Russell was certainly passionate, and he was horribly uneven, sometimes in a single film.  Yet, no one, no one, translated Lawrence to film better than him.  Sadly, no one really even tries nowadays.  Of course, this is currently not an era where folks are reaching for Lawrence novels, or Keats, or Shelley.  (If we are looking for Classic Novels, it is the gentle comic novels of Jane Austen or gloomy "bodice-ripping" Bronte sisters we seem to covet in film.)

Russell was born Out of Time.  He was a hopeless Romantic during an age of Vietnam, Watergate, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Disco, the money-mad 80s, and, eventually Reality Television.  Plus, he had a temper, and was ever so passionate about his art, which does not play well with movie studio types, at all.

Look at his career! He was constantly feuding with the movie brass over sexual content, movie titles, publicity campaigns, running lengths, what have you.  In fact, I am amazed he made as many films as he did.

In what many consider Russell's best film, Altered States, he feuded with Hollywood legend, screenwriter, Paddy Chayefski.  Well, for Hollywood, that truly was the last straw.

I am v glad that he returned to England and made films like Gothic and Lair of the White Worm, two of my personal faves, uneven and/or messy as they are.  And even in the Gordon Gekko go-go Wall Street America of that time, those films resonated with American audiences, and were art-house hits.

I saw Gothic with friends at the University of Texas Union Theater in its' first release.  We talked about it for hours afterward.  Even then, at that young age, I could recognize the films' faults, but there are to this day, still, moments that stay with me.  But, more importantly, Gothic clued me in to an amazing, different world, where poetry could unseat Kings; where art was the true path to Spirituality (or Damnation); and where intelligence and imagination are not things to be cursed.

Still, to me, Women in Love, is his finest film.  And that is what, hopefully, I will be curling up with tonight.

Passion is a virtue, not a curse.

There is truly something to be said for the difficult, brilliant artist.  Sometimes it is those who flail, fight, and fail the loudest that ultimately, we think of the longest, even if their failures might outweigh their successes.

One paragraph might change the world.  Or one moment in a darkened cinema.

RIP, Ken Russell.  We are desperate for more passionate film makers today.