Awesome Movie

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

In an outstanding display of craftsmanship Ken Russell with a small budget and skeleton crew do a superb job in giving life an energy to this documentary on the life of composer Edward Elgar. From it's striking opening of a young Elgar riding his horse across the bucolic Worcester, England countryside to the sober partnering of "Hope and Glory" with WW 1 newsreel footage Russell vividly evokes the man and the times by seamlessly infusing his music into the striking imagery creating a tight rhythm dictated by the music. Elgar was a self taught musician who worked in his father's music store, eventually dabbling in composing, content to let life take its course when he marries and his wife becomes his biggest booster and promoter. The career takes off as he first finds success in Germany then back in GB as Hope and Glory becomes GBs second national anthem especially during the Great War. Elgar eventually has mixed feelings about its jingoistic tone and retreats from society where the widowed composer lives his days out with a pack of dogs that his wife would not let him own or have in the house after they married.Russell does wonders with the little material he has (Elgar was very private) as he economically moves his story forward, raising the tenor of narration with strong sober compositions and wonderful pastoral shots of the nature loving Elgar the music speaking for him as he rides his pony, bicycle, automobile about the Malvern Hills. There are also some other excellent cost cutting and efficient moves such as conveying Elgar's smashing tour in Germany by way of post cards and the brilliantly staged and edited scene at the Opening of Wembley in 1934 where Elgar detaches himself from Pomp and Circumstance for the last time. Free of his extravagant excess Elgar may well be Ken Russell's most accessible work, it certainly is one of his better ones when you consider the threadbare budget.

Ken Russell is not for all tastes, for me there is stuff of his I do like but others not so much, so I can definitely see either side. I absolutely love Elgar though, for me it is quite possibly the best that he has ever done and also one of the best documentaries ever made. The photography is just beautiful, the final shot will stay with me forever. The use of long shots and none of the actors speaking is for then an innovation that Russell in Elgar mastered. The scenery is just breathtaking, while Elgar's music is glorious, very lyrical and sometimes with pathos. It is helped by being beautifully played as well, that always does help. The dramatisations are subtle and beautifully sympathetic, even without words the body language and expressions told so much. The biographical elements are just fascinating, I love documentaries where you have a good amount about the subject yet the documentary reveals things you don't know. That was the case with Elgar. Russell's directing is more restrained than his later output and all the better for it, nothing overblown and distasteful in sight.All in all, no complaints whatsoever about Elgar. If you love classical music it is a must see, truly one of the best of its kind. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Elgar was made by three people: Ken Russell, Humphrey Burton and Huw Wheldon. All three liked Elgar's music and all three thought him under-rated. They set about, with the aid of legendary researcher Anne James, to gather as much information about the great Edwardian as possible, and soon they had vast amounts of material with which they could tell the story of Elgar's life. Russell and Wheldon fought their famous battle about the role of actors - which, contrary to general opinion, both won - but both Wheldon and Russell and Humphrey Burton were not happy with what they had. It was Burton who finally said what all were thinking - that they were not telling the right story. The right story was not the story of Elgar but the story of Elgar's music. Burton and Russell spent a week doing nothing but listening to Elgar and emerged with a 50 minute soundtrack including snippets short and long. Now they set about making pictures to go with the music. In other words the music was not an accompaniment, the music was the thing itself. The pictures illustrated it. Speaking actors would have shifted the balance of the film back towards words and pictures. The power of 'Elgar' lies in the primacy it gives to the composer's music. Often referred to as 'Ken Russell's 'Elgar'', this film is actually Elgar's Elgar, and therein lies its claim for legendary status.

This is one of the greatest art documentaries ever made. The young Ken Russell was innovative in just about every aspect of this astonishing semi-documentary profile of the composer Elgar. The BBC would only let him use actors in long shots and they were not allowed to speak. However, Russell transcended those limitations with apparently effortless ease, and thereby created a new genre altogether. The final shot of the film is one of the most moving in any motion picture. Elgar's personality and vicissitudes come across powerfully, with pathos and sympathy, and an extensive and inspired use of his music. The shots of the Malvern Hills of Worcestershire as they were in 1961 are astonishing, a reminder of how irrevocably the English landscape has changed. Everyone with the slightest interest in music or in England should see this film. It is irresistible.