Designing persuasion (early 20th century)

 

Two approaches, one in favor, one against. The important thing is to see that both persuasion and fear can be "designed."

Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), apropos of decadent Pre-raphaelites

Could not find Ken Russell Dante's Inferno in youtube

Your suggestion makes perfect sense: At the BBC Russell had his own "pre-raphaelite" company: Oliver Reed, Max Adrian, Murray Melvin, Christopher Logue (the one-time socialist poet). Iza Teller, and Judith Paris among others -names frequently found in the cast listings of his feature films. Russell is a music lover, who manipulates anachronism with almost baroque splendor (for which his work has been called "bizarre," "outlandish," "sick").

You get a good idea of Russell's bombastic style with The Devils, his 1971 film, banned by 17 local authorities in England. It attracted many scathing reviews. Judith Crist called it a "grand fiesta for sadists and perverts." Derek Malcolm called it "a very bad film indeed." However, The Devils won the award for Best Director-Foreign Film in the Venice Film Festival.