MrOllie This is a really dreadful film! I remember going to the cinema one Tuesday afternoon in 1972 thinking Savage Messiah was probably an action thriller. Instead, I found I was watching an arty biopic of a French sculptor that I had never heard of. Scott Antony who plays the sculptor spends almost the entire film shouting and acting in an overly manic way. Believe me, ten minutes in the company of this fella and you would want to strangle him. His relationship with an older woman played by Dorothy Tutin did nothing for me as she too was prone to manic outbursts.I will, however, be eternally grateful to Savage Messiah for introducing me to the lovely Helen Mirren. After ten minutes of watching this film I was tempted to leave the cinema, but I stuck it out and was rewarded with the best full frontal nude scene that I have ever seen in a mainstream film. As my eyes almost popped out of my head I waited for the final credits to see who the luscious creature was who had played Gosh Boyle. I have been a huge fan of Ms.Mirren ever since.I do have this film on VHS, recorded when on TV, but only watch it to admire the lovely Helen whose beauty will remain forever.

ma-cortes This is an impressive story about the outlandish affair between the Polish Sophie Brzeska (Dorothy Tutin) and sculptor Henry Gaudier (Scott Anthony). Meanwhile , he falls in love with a rebel suffragist (Helen Mirren) . At the ending , Gaudier died in action during WWI at 10 p.m , near of Neaville(France) at 23 years old.This is an intense and thoughtful tale about the platonic relationship proceeded in a Russel's style . It's a convincing picture though relies heavily on the stormy relationship between the great artist Henry Gaudier and Sophie Brzeska . As the film displays Russel trademarks , extreme angle cameras , excessive facial close-ups , utilization of numerous camera shots with primary colors and overblown visuals . Excellent cast with deliberately theatrical performances . Magnificent main players and secondary actors , such as : Helen Mirren , John Justin , Lindsay Kemp , Michael Gough and Peter Vaughn , among others . Glamorous cinematography with exceptional attention to period detail and captivating images by Dick Bush , Hammer's usual cameraman . The motion picture was well directed in flamboyance style by Ken Rusell . He's an expert director , whose greatest success was in the 70s making offbeat musical biographies , such as : 'Mahler' , 'Lizstomania' , 'Music lovers'(Tchaikovsky) ; besides , he directed other hits , as 'Women in love' , 'Valentino' and 'The Devils' , and today still directing , as 'Moll Flanders' in production . This oddball biographic chronicle will appeal to Ken Russell aficionados .

Jugu Abraham Ken Russell did it with Valentino, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Lizst. He made British movies of these non-British geniuses, biographical at the obvious level, with satire and pathos lurking beneath the obvious layer. "Savage messiah" is once again a biopic of an eccentric French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, though not as famous as Russell's three musical composers or the ballet dancer he made films about, yet a gifted French genius (an outsider in British society) who finds a Polish spouse 20 years his senior in real life ("ugly", he calls her in the film), intelligent, creative and sensitive as the sculptor but disinterested in sex. Russell captures the rich world of artist's agents, the rich who frequent art galleries and museums, rich society's rules that give importance of tucking in shirt-tails while appreciating art in museums, the rich copying art and passing the results off as genuine works...Russell's film captures the brave suffragettes (in the character of Gosh Boyle, played by the stunning young Dame Helen Mirren, who even appears nude) who are not averse to sex and nudity and contrasts them with the lead character of Sophie Brzeska (a charismatic portrayal by Dame Dorothy Tutin), who never takes off her clothes and is openly averse to sex.The director makes the viewer virtually taste the cabbage in the soup made by the poor artists as the rich agent savors the bad concoction. That is an example of Russel at his best.The film is a love story--an unusual one. There is sexual energy that exudes in the cutting of cabbages by Dame Dorothy that seems to have been copied decades later in the vegetable chopping by Cate Blanchett in the recent film "Bandits". The death of the artist is captured by still photographs of the World War and his spouse viewing his sculptures in a public gallery.The film is a remarkable work of two great actors--Dame Dorothy Tutin and Dame Helen Mirren--honored by the British Queen much after the film was made.Russell and set designer Derek Jarman dishes out a movie that may not be outstanding but worthy of note to any one who appreciates the genius among artists and what they have to battle against in the quest to state the truth and tear down pretensions in society. It is a tragic tale of a genius nipped in the bud. Only his spouse, herself a loser among "geniuses", seems to realize this.

gratian-2 Among the best of Ken Russell's films, this work probes, again, the nature of artistic genius, the mores of artists during the last 150 years and, especially, the proximity of this form of genius to psycho-pathology. During this period-- 1968 to 1975-- the period of Russell's greatest popularity, infamy and exposure coincided with a formative period of my life. He was ' a god of my adolescence.' This is a powerful and important film, based on Ede's book. If you have the opportunity to go to England, visit Ede's house, now a museum, in Cambridge city. The Kettle's Yard.