Savage Messiah

Dir. Ken Russell

UK 1972 | Colour | 103 mins | Drama | Hollywood Classics

Cast: Dorothy Tutin, Scott Anthony, Helen Mirren, Lindsay Kemp

By 1972 a host of great artists – including Tchaikovsky, Elgar and Isadora Duncan – had already been subjected to the Russell treatment; Savage Messiah was the turn of Vorticist sculptor Henri Gaudier, and particularly, his relationship with author Sophie Brzeska. Russell has Gaudier bash through the processes of sculpting and love-making with such a frenzied energy as to make Picasso seem like an impotent sloth. 

Available on: 35mm