Books I have been swotting up on the Brontes, particularly Jane Eyre and the biographies, in preparation for filming in Haworth. Jane Eyre is a page-turner. It's cunning and brave, a woman recording unsentimentally the oppressive culture in which she finds herself. Wuthering...

Das 12. Internationale Filmfest Oldenburg (7.-11.9.) widmet dem britischen Regisseur Ken Russell eine Werkschau. Sieben Filme des provokativen Independent-Regisseurs werden gezeigt, darunter "The Devils", die Rock-Oper "Tommy" sowie "Der Höllentrip". Auch Russells jüngstes Werk "hot Fants" ist in Oldenburg zu sehen. Ken Russell hatte...

Today is Tuesday, July 3, the 184th day of 2007. There are 181 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On July 3, 1863, the three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, Pa., ended in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated.On this...

Celebrity birthdays for the week of July 1-7:July 1: Actress Olivia de Havilland is 91. Movie director Sydney Pollack is 73. Actor Jamie Farr is 73. Actress Jean Marsh ("Upstairs, Downstairs") is 73. Bluesman James Cotton is 72. Dancer Twyla Tharp is 66. Gospel singer-choir...

[Even] Russell's bitterest enemies would not deny that he has his own distinctive vision. His baroque visual effects are easily identifiable…. Characters and episodes from one film are re-interpreted later…. These relatively simple connecting links point to a more comprehensive thematic unity. Many of Russell's obsessions can be traced to his television films. One of the quintessential Russell images appears in Dante's Inferno, his film on Dante Gabriel Rossetti, when the ...

To say that Rudolph Valentino best embodies Russell's idea of a hero is not to imply that Valentino was genuinely heroic in every aspect of his life and character, but that the real-life Valentino provided Russell with the raw material out of which he could fashion a cinematic hero that approximated his concept of greatness without distorting the latter's life and character in the bargain…. It may seem somewhat incongruous to compare a superstar of the primitive silent screen to compose...

["Excess"] and an unrelentingly ironic point of view have probably been the qualities most responsible for the critical hatred of Russell's past work. His almost obsessive desire to destroy pretense and smash romantic icons seems to guarantee an adverse reaction. And an adverse reaction is bound to come each time he realizes this desire with vitality and an approach to cinema that does not admit of subtlety or moderation. But the reaction is quite urfounded. To be offended by a style wi...