["Excess"] and an unrelentingly ironic point of view have probably been the qualities most responsible for the critical hatred of Russell's past work. His almost obsessive desire to destroy pretense and smash romantic icons seems to guarantee an adverse reaction. And an adverse reaction is bound to come each time he realizes this desire with vitality and an approach to cinema that does not admit of subtlety or moderation. But the reaction is quite urfounded. To be offended by a style without analyzing the reason for the style suggests critical self-satisfaction and cowardice, two qualities Russell is always attacking in his films.

Russell sees the artist as a man or woman of heightened sensibilities who is beleaguered both by his own neuroses or sense of mission and by an environment that is strained into madness as the artist tries to live out his life in it. Russell's inquiry...