hyped garbage

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

"Savage Messiah" 1972, remains an interesting conundrum in Ken Russell's maniacal retelling of the lives of tortured artists. Russell tackled some big names during his heyday in the 1970s: Tchaikovsky, Mahler,Liszt. The flamboyant director switched gears from musical geniuses to observe a second-tier sculptor, one Henri Gaudier- Brzeska. Only Ken Russell would have resurrected this forgotten artist and put his brief life story on the screen. The results of the director's mania for depicting artists as driven wretched humans who live outside the norm failed at last. "Savage Messiah" is a hot mess. Russell's famous visual styling is lukewarm at best here, only in a few scenes do we see the explosions of color and texture Russell is famous for. The Vortex nightclub and the dinner at Angus Corky's are pure Russell, which is to say, that people are monstrous and behave monstrously when given the chance. The rest of this movie is a shrill, incoherent assemblage of scenes documenting Gaudier's bizarre affair with Sophie Brzeksa, a woman old enough to be his mother. He's a randy 19 year old artistic demon and she's a failed writer who hates sex. They meet, instantly bond for some weird "artistic" reason, argue non-stop about art and culture, finally taking each other's last name in a strange sort of marriage and the rest is history. Watching this is a pretty exhausting affair. The now-forgotten actor Scott Antony wears out his welcome pretty quickly by portraying Gaudier as a screaming out-of-control artist who shouts platitudes about art incessantly. That is, when he's not physically jumping over anything in his path and dribbling food/drink all over himself in a metaphorical visual about devouring everything in order to create. One wonders if Antony decided to play Gaudier as a borderline sociopath or if Russell urged him to go full throttle. One suspects the latter, as subtlety was never Russell's strong point. We get it, Ken. Artists are passionate. Russell shovels the Bohemian lifestyle on the viewer with a bulldozer.So, by the end of this tale of art and the makers of, we learn that Gaudier-Brzeska dies at the tender age of 23 in WW1. His work is showcased at the film's finale and the viewer wanders off to get aspirins. Not much sticks in the viewer's memory with the exception of an astonishing nude scene by none other than Dame Helen Mirren. This must be seen to be believed and seems to be the most remembered thing about this film. Set design by the brilliant infant terrible of the 70s UK art scene, Derek Jarman. He designed the sets for "The Devils" which are unforgettable. Jarman echoes those sets here. Costumes by the equally brilliant Shirley Russell.Not a complete failure, but very close for Russell. There's a reason this has been a forgotten film, but worth a look if you need to complete your Russell library. By the way, if watching look for the scene in the Louvre in which Gaudier decides to perch on the enormous Easter Island head while raving about primitives. The head is obviously made of paper-mache and it wobbles underneath the actor.

Ken Russell always has been a controversial film-maker, interesting and unique certainly but did have a tendency to resort to excess that could cheapen things. If we exclude his composer documentaries on Elgar, Delius and Debussy(wasn't crazy about the one on Richard Strauss), which are even better than any of his feature films, Savage Messiah is an underrated film. Maybe it could have had more time to breathe in places, while the deliberate pace was very effective there was a tendency to have a restless vibe, and more could have been done with Gaudier's war-time experiences, it was still affecting but compared to the love relationship it did seem on the brief side. However, it does rank alongside Women in Love, The Devils, The Music Lovers and Mahler as one of his better films(of his feature films the only one that I'm iffy about is Lisztomania). It is opulently and atmospherically filmed- if not as much as Valentino or The Music Lovers- and the production values are just as much and even more so. The classical music doesn't feel too much of a hodge-podge and is placed remarkably well, not feeling misplaced. Debussy is the most frequently used, and the impressionist style of his music is beautiful and powerful and judging from how many times his music has been used in his films Russell seems to think so as well. The script is dialogue-heavy and that it was very articulate and had genuine bite too is most admirable with a healthy balance of comedy and tragedy, while the story always engages and the platonic love relationship is told with emotion, while not exactly warm it's hardly hollow, and a sense of fun. Russell's direction is ideal for the subject matter and the story that's been told, like with Valentino for example you can tell he was having fun directing but he also does so with restraint, especially when being compared to Tommy or Lisztomania. There are some great touches here, those who say Helen Mirren's staircase scene is unforgettable are absolutely right, matching Leslie Caron's funeral scene entrance in Valentino in sensuality. The vegetable chopping scene is just as savage as the dialogue and you cannot fail to be moved by the final tragic 10 minutes. The performances while theatrical are fine, Scott Anthony does overact at times but carries the film excellently. Dorothy Tutin is superb as is Helen Mirren(one of those women who still does look amazing, always a standout at awards ceremonies). Overall, one of Russell's better films and deserving of more recognition, it is nice to see though that there are people who remember it very fondly. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Ken Russell made entertaining films; you would be unlikely to fall asleep during your first viewing of any of them. He was at the top of his game in the 1970s when 'Savage Messiah' was made (his previous film was 'The Boy Friend' starring Twiggy). This one is a biopic about French artist/sculptor Henri Gaudier portrayed here as unconventional, out-of-control, over-the-top, and his love for an older Polish woman writer. She is played by Dorothy Tutin who wins the film's acting honours hands down. The DVD released by Warner in 2011 has moments where the sound is slightly out of sync, especially during Helen Mirren's scenes; perhaps the editors were thinking about something else. Ms Mirren, in her late-20s here, cuts a striking figure as a suffragette and obliges us by appearing in her birthday suit.

Among the best of Ken Russell's films, this work probes, again, the nature of artistic genius, the mores of artists during the last 150 years and, especially, the proximity of this form of genius to psycho-pathology. During this period-- 1968 to 1975-- the period of Russell's greatest popularity, infamy and exposure coincided with a formative period of my life. He was ' a god of my adolescence.' This is a powerful and important film, based on Ede's book. If you have the opportunity to go to England, visit Ede's house, now a museum, in Cambridge city. The Kettle's Yard.