Early career
Russell was natural inside Southampton, served in two a RAF and the Merchant Navy, and get into television function when the brief affair by owning dancing and photography. In the late 1950s, Russell's amateur films secured him a job at the BBC, where he worked regularly from either 1959–1970 making arts documentary film for Monitor and Omnibus. Amongst his better known works from either this period of time were Elgar (1962), The Debussy Film (1965), Isadora Duncan - The Biggest Dancer in the World (1967) and Song of Summer (1968). His television films became more & more flamboyant and outrageous — The Debussy Film opens with the scene where the woman is shot good of arrows (the information to Debussy's The Martyrdom of St Sebastian), while Dance of the Seven Veils (1970), a self-styled "comic strip in seven parts on the life of Richard Strauss", caused such outrage that questions were asked in the British Parliament and the Strauss family withdrew all music rights, effectively banning it from legal circulation. Although a majority of his BBC films were about musical cases, he as well tackled ocular art, in the originative film in British Pop Art, Pop Goes the Easel (1963) and the biopic of French painter Henri Rousseau, Always on Sunday (1965).

Russell's number one feature was French Dressing, a comedy loosely according to Brigitte Bardot's And God Created Woman (dir. Roger Vadim) made within 1963; its critical & commercial failure sent Russell back to the BBC. His 2nd heavy-screen effort was a share of creator Len Deighton's Harry Palmer spy cycle, Billion-Dollar Brain (1967).

1970s and controversy
His number 1 truly private feature was 1969's Women in Love, based on a novel by D. H. Lawrence. the film manufactured a star of Glenda Jackson and broke the cinema taboo of full frontal male nudity. Function inside the similar vein continued sustaining The Music Lovers (1970), a biopic of Tchaikovsky which drew attention to his homosexuality, and The Devils, based on Aldous Huxley's book The Devils of Loudun, starring Vanessa Redgrave in a highly controversial role as a nun. The Devils was among a total of high-profile films freed in that period of time by owning an X-rating, including Greetings, Midnight Cowboy, and A Clockwork Orange. Rather tons one films The Devils was later discharged R-rated without any edits to home streaming videos.

Russell's foremost attempt to break into United states by having a time musical/Twiggy vehicle The Boyfriend met with critical derision & audience apathy. Russell turned to European funding for Savage Messiah, a biopic of creative person Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Mahler resulting in modest critical praise. It became evident, nevertheless, that a die got been cast against Russell in the critical community, by using David Thompson and Pauline Kael vociferously denouncing his output.

Around 1975 Russell was gifted a hit by having the star studded film version of The Who's Tommy starring Roger Daltrey, Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, Elton John, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, and Jack Nicholson. A film premiered at Cannes, enjoyed high financial comes back & went in to be the kinda cult film. A profits of Tommy allowed Russell to indulge his ocular flair within his watch higher Lizstomania, designed as a vehicle for Roger Daltrey. Charges of self-indulgence that got dogged Russell's ouvre peaked by having Lizstomania, and the consequent film was a cinematic non-starter. Despite a reverse, a profits of Tommy gave Russell a second shot at Hollywood, however a biopic Valentino satisfied neither Russell's fans nor the general public.

1980s
Russell's 1980 effort, Altered States was a departure around each genre & tone, such that these are Russell's single raid good science fiction and contains few open elements of satire and caricature. Working from either Paddy Chayefsky's screenplay (based upon the novel of the same title), Russell utilized his predilection for elaborate ocular results to translate Chayefsky's hallucinatory story to a cinema & gave him the chance to add his trademark religious & intimate imagination. the film itself was a modest profits financially, scored by having critics world health organization experienced otherwise dismissed Russell's function, & has since been reclassified, along by owning 2001: A Space Odyssey as a classic "head-film." Nevertheless, any praise a film received was dampened by Chayefsky's vocal dissatisfaction sustaining a task, getting dropped out shortly when motion-picture photography began. The disputative human known for his intractibility, Chayefsky experienced antecedently fired Arthur Penn from a design &, before its release, requested the screenplay credit substitute "Sidney Aaron" for Chayefsky's have title. A move was designed to emphasize Chayefsky's vitriol. This, & Chayefsky's subsequent demise from either stress-related unwellness has clouded Russell's attempt at the comeback. Russell's previous Western film was Crimes of Passion (1984), & is restored to his major themes, sex and religion, contrasting a tart by having a "priest" & advantages from either a performances of Kathleen Turner and Anthony Perkins.

Unable to comply by owning a conservativism of Hollywood, Russell returned to Europe & mostly witnessed funding within independent & fly-by-nighttime corporations rather Vestron. Gothic (1986) was a fittingly hysterical professional assistance of Lord Byron and the creation of the story that became Frankenstein.

Within 1988 he released 2 films: a Hammer spoof The Lair of the White Worm and ''Salome's Last Dance that reunited him with his Women in Love star Glenda Jackson. Worm, which typically plays rather self-parody, was accepted inside several quarters as a trashy lark, when Salome received grudging praise. Russell returned to Lawrence for what, and then far, has been his survive household plan for the cinema, an adaptation of The Rainbow''.

He directed a music streaming video for Pandora's Box's "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" in 1989.

1990s
Per 1990s, Russell's notoriety & persona experienced attracted such media attentiin that he was widely take to be unemployable in the cinema, & is at present largely reliant on his have finances to prove my point making films. Lot of his function since 1990 has been commissioned for television & he has contributed regularly to The South Bank Show. Prisoner of Honor marked Russell's final feature with Oliver Reed, Mindbender was dismissed as propaganda for mentalist Uri Geller, and Tracked (aka Dogboys) unrecognizable as a Russell film. Efforts like ''The Lion's Mouth and Fall of the Louse of Usher'' suffer from low production values (shot on video on Russell's estate, often featuring Russell himself) and limited distribution.

Russell has written many books in filmmaking, a British movie industry, an autobiography "A British Picture" (published in the U.S., confusingly, when "Altered States"), & books for immature readers.

Filmography

French Dressing Billion-Dollar Brain Women in Love The Music Lovers The Boy Friend The Devils Savage Messiah Mahler Tommy Lizstomania Valentino Altered States Crimes of Passion Gothic Aria (short segment) Lair of the White Worm ''Salome's Last Dance Whore (aka If you Can't Say It, Just See It Prisoner of Honor (HBO tv movie) Mindbender Tracked (aka Dogboys The Lion's Mouth Fall of the Louse of Usher''