Song of Summer

Just caught up with this wonderful piece again. I too met Fenby once (briefly) ~ a lovely man (and a bit shorter than Gable, if I recall).

Am I wrong, or is the film clip Chris G is seen accompanying at the start not 1937's Way Out West? Or does that dance appear in an earlier, silent film by L&H?

And it's always intrigued me that Melbourne's Percy Granger is not given an Aussie accent. Okay, he was of English stock and spent some years there but by the time of the story he was living in the States and was a US citizen. And I know he was a fitness freak but he doesn't look 24 years older than Fenby here! In fact David Collings and Christopher Gable were both born in 1940. The best link between Collings and Granger is that both were born in Brighton ~ Brighton Sussex and Brighton, Victoria respectively.

Enough trivia. My main fascination here is that this film expresses most succinctly what I have often called "(Ken) Russell's Paradox" ~ a question he later asked about Gaudier-Brzeska, Tchaikovsky and many others. How can some great artists live such sordid or cruel ~ at least self-obsessed ~ private lives and still bequeath those moving, inspiring and downright humane works to us mere mortals? Or, as Fenby puts it here "I can't reconcile such hardness with such lovely music?"

Ken Russell Song of Summer is a sweet and beautiful composer biopic that was made for television but seems better suited for the cinema.

In fact it is a better film than most of his theatrical releases (Maybe excluding my personal favorite Mahler), with sensitive performances, humour, and an affection for its protangonists. (I know what your thinking - no bloody corpses? Writhing nudes? Swirling visuals?) No there's not much of Russell's trademark shock tactics - but the film is all the better for it.

A film I deeply respect. Try and track down a copy and you won't be disappointed. 9/10.

I agree with the other posters, this is a gem. Ken before he went haywire, a delicate and well made film that does not deserve to languish in obscurity. I saw this on it's original BBC airing and found my old Betamax copy, which prompted my comments.

The music of Delius seems to be an acquired taste. I acquired it at the tender age of 17 (perhaps just about the right age). I have heard only one piece of Delius performed live since then, a performance, and a very fine one, at the Juilliard School of his last opera, "Fennimore and Gerda." It's a shame that this beautiful music can only be heard (in the U.S. at least) on recordings, for the most part. But thank God there are the magnificent recorded performances of Sir Thomas Beecham who seems to have had an almost mystical understanding of Delius's unique style.

And thank God, too, for this wonderful film, which shows that (despite all evidence) Ken Russell once on a time had an enormous talent and impeccable taste. (What happened? Unfathomable. Oddly, though, his 1990's TV version of "Lady Chatterly" -- unlikely material indeed -- shows by and large the same kind of tasteful restraint exhibited here. Ultimately the silliness of Lawrence's ideas does it in -- not Ken's fault though, really.) The performances of Max Adrian and the late lamented Christopher Gable are remarkable. Gable as Fenby is perhaps the more remarkable, in that this was his first film role ever, after retiring from a career as a ballet dancer. He's really fine, and quite handsome as well. And Adrian is simply brilliant, without the excess he frequently exhibits.

And you can see the whole thing (albeit in 9 discrete segments and less than ideal -- though not bad -- video) on youtube! Highly recommended.

What a delight to pick this up on a whim at the video store! I had heard somewhere that Russell's best work came at the start of his career with films about famous composers, and was curious to test this hearsay. And it was no lie, here demonstrating a level of control and sophistication that is out of synch with the later excesses.

The film follows the story of composers Eric Fenby and Delius. Fenby was touched by the plight of Delius (he had become blind, partially paralysed and subject to chronic pain), and went to live with him for some years in order to help him complete his unfinished works.

Delius' introduction is strange and reminded me of the scene in Citizen Kane where Kane's college buddy Jedediah is shown in dark glasses by latticed light, sat in a chair at a sanatorium, indelibly senesced. Fenby, a devout ingénue Yorkshireman, is shown as a reflection in these dark glasses.

Fenby is disturbed by the artworks in the Delius household (including some particularly suggestive Edvard Munch paintings) and tales of Delius' scandalous youth. It's this contrast that lends the film much flavour, the youthful, submissive and repressed Fenby, the crippled atheistic tyrant Delius. Their love of nature and their desire to reflect nature in music is what brings them together.

The acting throughout is stellar, the bit parts contributing just as much to the whole as the rest. Actually the brief stint of Percy Grainger, an altogether different young composer, really brings the Fenby/Delius contrast into relief. The film I would suggest is as much about Fenby as Delius.

What I like about this movie and what Russell would never bring into his more written about later filmography, is the use of suggestion. The imagination is ecstatically dilated by mere recollections of la vie Parisienne, and times spent shooting alligators with negroes in the Everglades at night.

My congratulations to Ken Russell on what is a perfect film, even the closing credits have the mark of genius on them.