I was standing in Mothercare in Southampton when my mobile phone rang and a familiar voice came on the line. It was Tim, an archivist from Warners whom I had been pestering for years about trying to track down some long-lost film footage. "I've got the tin you were asking for," said Tim, with an edge of excitement in his voice. "I'm not sure what's on it, because when I opened it, it smelt of vinegar, so I've sent it to be treated. But I had a quick look at the first couple of frames and from what I could see there was a bunch of naked nuns and a bloody massive crucifix…" "I'll call you straight back," I said, hastily hung up the phone and dialled another number. "Ken, it's Mark. Listen, I'm in the nappy department of Mothercare and I think we just found the rape of Christ…"
Like so much of Ken Russell's fiery oeuvre, the infamous missing sequence from The Devils had long been shrouded in a cloak of controversy. Cut from the film back in the 1970s by both the censors and (more importantly) shocked studio executives, the sequence – which respected Catholic theologian Father Gene D Phillips SJ correctly described as "depicting blasphemy" without "being blasphemous" – had entered the annals of modern mythology. Indeed, it was the central topic of conversation when I first met Russell at his home in the New Forest in the early 1990s. I had been sent to interview him for a Sight & Sound magazine censorship special and I was trepidatious – there is, after all, a maxim that says you should never meet your heroes.
Yet Ken was everything I hoped he would be: passionate, belligerent, friendly, enormously well-read and often laugh-out-loud funny, but with a steely streak of deadly seriousness, a man who had become used to seeing his work misjudged and mistreated, but who never felt the need to apologise for his own genius. I was completely star-struck and promised him there and then that I would make it my mission to help find that lost fragment of film and restore it to its rightful place. "Good luck with that!" he laughed. "They probably burned it!"
That promise became the basis of a friendship, although I remained an obsessive fan-boy whose over-enthusiastic devotion and constant droning on about "missing footage" Ken had the good grace to tolerate and humour. Not that he ever gave me a soft ride.
A few years later, I found myself doing an on-stage interview with Ken (the first of many) at the beautiful Harbour Lights cinema in Southampton. We were meant to be doing a lengthy Q&A prior to a screening of The Devils, but after 10 minutes Ken decided that I was getting a bit boring and suddenly walked off, leaving me alone on stage. We hurriedly started the film and I pursued him out into the bar, terrified that I had done something to offend him. "They've heard enough words," explained Ken in typically forthright fashion. "They want to see the film." "But they've paid to hear you talk!" I pleaded. "Please come back and do some more after the movie." So he did. And 10 minutes later he walked off again!
Ken could be magnificently cantankerous, but he was generous to a fault and loved nothing more than to inspire young film-makers. He was genuinely excited about the digital revolution, as anyone with a video camera and elementary editing software could make movies. Indeed, in his later years, Ken (who never believed in compromise – ever) circumvented the problems of dealing with difficult film companies by simply making his own movies at home, in his back garden, often with his friends and family. He proudly called himself "a garagiste!" and made outlandish productions such as Fall of the Louse of Usher and Revenge of the Elephant Man in his garage.
Many of his later films were musicals, including a bawdy adaptation of the notorious sea shanty "Twas on the Good Ship Venus", which he swore he would document "in its most complete version!" His soul-mate (and fourth wife), talented musician and performer Lisi Tribble, encouraged Ken's musical escapades; he once turned up at our barn party where everyone had been invited to perform a musical number and solemnly announced that he was going to rap. He then produced from his pocket a lengthy screed that had been written (he told us) by a lawyer whose services he had once used in yet another battle with a film company, and who had asked that, rather than pay him, Ken should direct his music video. The song was called "The Sing Sing Rap" (named after the prison) and although I never heard the original, it can't have been any more terrifyingly brilliant than it was the night that Ken performed it in the wilds of the New Forest, to the delight and amazement of the residents of Brockenhurst.
Even more than a national treasure, Ken was a local hero, the boy who grew up cycling between the multitudinous cinemas of Southampton, and who went on to become the area's most celebrated son. He implored young local film-makers to make movies about the trees that surrounded them and made them feel that they were special, talented and brilliant enough to do so – though he didn't suffer fools gladly.
In any other country, he would have been feted as the illustrious maestro who made DH Lawrence come alive with Women in Love, redefined the rock musical with Tommy, pushed the edges of psychedelic sci-fi with Altered States and tested the bounds of the psycho-thriller with Crimes of Passion. He deserved a knighthood and there had long been a petition to get him one, which I think he viewed with amused derision, because at heart he knew he would always be an outsider.
He may have been the greatest film-maker of the postwar period, a visionary genius who broke the mould of stuffy British cinema, but there was always something of the punk-rocker about Russell – the rebel with a cause, even at the age of 84.
My fondest memory of Ken is seeing him walk out on stage at the National Film theatre when the director's cut of The Devils, rape of Christ and all, was finally premiered in 2004. The film had brought him nothing but trouble in its time, but now here it was in its uncut glory and the audience were on their feet giving Russell a riotous standing ovation. The crowd loved the film, but more importantly they loved Ken Russell, as did everyone who had the privilege of meeting him, working with him or just simply being entranced by the magic of his movies. He was a real hero. And a bloody good rapper.
