{"id":2934,"date":"2013-05-30T17:35:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T16:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/verityholloway.com\/?p=2934"},"modified":"2013-05-30T17:35:01","modified_gmt":"2013-05-30T16:35:01","slug":"ken-russells-dantes-inferno-lets-go-stunner-hunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/?p=2934","title":{"rendered":"Ken Russell&#8217;s Dante&#8217;s Inferno: &#8220;Let&#8217;s go stunner-hunting!&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After casting Sean Bean in <em>Lady Chatterley&#8217;s Lover<\/em>, I can forgive Ken Russell of almost any sin. Even <em>Dante&#8217;s Inferno<\/em>. Most of it.<\/p>\n<p>Through a psychedelic &#8217;60s lens, with the Pre-Raphaelite circle portrayed as drink-mad, cemetery-defiling pyromaniacs on top of all the usual Russell weirdness, <em>Dante&#8217;s Inferno<\/em> the only film I&#8217;ve ever awoken at dawn for, snarling over the final seconds of the auction: &#8220;It&#8217;s <em>mine<\/em>, it&#8217;s <em>mine<\/em>, it&#8217;s the only DVD copy I&#8217;ve ever seen anywhere, and it&#8217;s <em>mine<\/em>&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hxPgMOUONiA\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Now, someone thoughtful has uploaded the whole wacky display to YouTube, so you can enjoy it as much as I did all those years ago, alone in my flat, wondering what on Earth I&#8217;d allowed into my life.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t expect a history lesson. Do expect\u00a0drunken bicycle jousting, zombie Lizzie Siddal, and\u00a0Oliver Reed playing himself. No, it isn&#8217;t sensitive. But if you&#8217;ve ever seen the schlocky &#8217;70s horror <em>Burnt Offerings<\/em>, you can&#8217;t really dislike Reed. My late Auntie Ann used to drink with him, and maintained he was a gentleman. He&#8217;s not a bad likeness of Rossetti, physically; dark and languid in layer upon layer of shabby Victorian tailoring. Jan Marsh has a chapter on the film in her excellent book <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/gp\/product\/0704371936\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1634&amp;creative=6738&amp;creativeASIN=0704371936&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=ratwingle-21\">The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal<\/a><\/em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.co.uk\/e\/ir?t=ratwingle-21&amp;l=as2&amp;o=2&amp;a=0704371936\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>. She calls Reed &#8216;solid but smouldering&#8217;.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2950\" style=\"width: 476px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2950\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2950\" alt=\"Leave me alone - I'm brooding.\" src=\"http:\/\/verityholloway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Screen-Shot-2013-05-30-at-15.43.44.png\" width=\"466\" height=\"349\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2950\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Leave me alone &#8211; I&#8217;m smouldering, solidly.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2952\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2952\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2952\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2013-05-30 at 15.45.00\" src=\"http:\/\/verityholloway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Screen-Shot-2013-05-30-at-15.45.00.png\" width=\"470\" height=\"348\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2952\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Topsy and Janey, experiencing an approximation of married bliss.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2954\" style=\"width: 469px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2954\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2954\" alt=\"Judith Paris as Lizzie Siddal. Again, quite a good likeness.\" src=\"http:\/\/verityholloway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Screen-Shot-2013-05-30-at-15.41.46.png\" width=\"459\" height=\"350\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2954\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Judith Paris as Lizzie Siddal. Again, quite a good likeness.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2972\" style=\"width: 479px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2972\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2972\" alt=\"Swinburne, getting overly-friendly with the Oxford dead. You cannot take him anywhere. \" src=\"http:\/\/verityholloway.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Screen-Shot-2013-05-30-at-17.15.21.png\" width=\"469\" height=\"344\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2972\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8230;and Swinburne, getting overly-friendly with the Oxford dead. You cannot take him anywhere.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After casting Sean Bean in Lady Chatterley&#8217;s Lover, I can forgive Ken Russell of almost any sin. Even Dante&#8217;s Inferno. Most of it. Through a psychedelic &#8217;60s lens, with the Pre-Raphaelite circle portrayed as drink-mad, cemetery-defiling pyromaniacs on top of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/?p=2934\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,20,22,7],"class_list":["post-2934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-film","tag-prb","tag-review","tag-rossetti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2934"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2977,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions\/2977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/verityholloway.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}