Ken Russell at the BBC

The iconic award-winning English director, Ken Russell, is best known for his flamboyant style, his attention to detail and for being a controversial and visionary artist. Russells approach was determined by a desire to knock the dust off the biofilm genre: "The whole idea had degenerated into a series of third-rate clichés. I wanted to dress people in old clothes and do it in a totally unreal way, and thus make it more real than ever, and in the process send up this new civil service/academic way of doing films." This collection includes two early films starring Oliver Reed, The Debussy Film and Dantes Inferno about Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as well as Always on Sunday about Henri Rousseau, Isadora: The Biggest Dancer in the World, A Song of Summer about Frederick Delius, and Dance of the Seven Veils about Richard Strauss. These early films paved the way for his brilliant carrier that has spanned six decades.