Scarecrow Press
Pages: 288
Trim: 6⅜ x 9¾
978-0-8108-6954-7 • Hardback • August 2009 • $92.00 • (£71.00)
978-0-8108-6955-4 • eBook • August 2009 • $87.00 • (£67.00)
Kevin M. Flanagan holds an M.A. in English/Film Studies from North Carolina State University and is a Ph.D. candidate in Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is editor of The Modest Proposal, an online journal of book reviews.
This is a worthy study of a director who moved too far toward the margins to endure.... Recommended.
— Choice Reviews
Tom Wallis's essay on Tommy (1975) finds that both Russell and Townshend wish to 'transcend and parody' their respective genres, and treats the film in question with a sensitivity rare in writing on rock music which often oscillates between poles of enthusiastic fandom and Adornite misanthropy....In this book, Russell emerges, variously, as a profoundly aesthetic maker of lush costume drama, a gore maestro, pop artist, dogged amateur and commentator on the vagaries of Thatcherism....To say that a 'definitive' Russel does not emerge from this book of essays is far from a criticism— it is a testament to one of Britain's most visionary, contrary and multi-faceted film-makers.
— Journal Of British Cinema and Television