Elgar (1962)

Directed by

Ken Russell

Genre

documentary film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

56 min

Rating

7.0 of 10 from 9 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is a biography about the life of English composer Edward Elgar. It uses dramatic scenes and visuals to show his story. The film helped make his music more popular again.

energeticatmosphericreverentinformativevisually inventivenostalgicdramatichistorical

What happens

Elgar is a British drama documentary made in 1962 by the British director Ken Russell for BBC Television's Monitor series. It dramatised in vigorous style the life of the English composer Sir Edward Elgar. The film established Russell as a directorial talent, and spawned a series of dramatised biographies of composers by Russell, both for television and theatrical release. Elgar helped to revive the reputation of the composer's work. In the words of one writer, the film "marks the debut of both a great and original visual stylist (Russell) and the first use of techniques that have since become almost commonplace in the realm of documentary filmmaking." The film was narrated by Huw Wheldon. The British Film Institute selected it as one of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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