Ken Russell at the BBC

Before gaining worldwide fame sor such daring and flamboyant films as The Music Lovers, Tommy and Altered States, English director Ken Russell cut his teeth at the BBC, making groundbreaking documentaries that featured re-enactments, and setting new standards in filmmaking. This collection of Russell's early work - including portraits of composers Sir Edward Elgar, Claude Debussy and Frederick Delius, painters Henri Rousseau and Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and American dancer Isadora Duncan - shows his love of all the fine arts and paves the way for a brilliant, if controversial, career that has spanned six decades.

Elgar (1962) - A partly dramatized account of the life of classical composer Sir Edward Elgar.

The Debussy Film (1965) - An impression of the music and life of the French composer Claude Debussy.

Always on Sunday (1965) - An interpretation of the life of French primitive painter Henri Douanier Rousseau.

Isadora: The Biggest Dancer in the World (1966) - A dramatized biography of the American dancer Isadora Duncan.

Dante's Inferno (1967) - A film showing the private life of the emotional poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Song of Summer (1968) - A biography of the last five years of Frederick Delius, the blind and paralyzed composer. Based on Eric Fenby's 1936 memoir.