The definitive scene from Ken Russell‘s Savage Messiah (’72) was highlighted by the one-sheet. It was more of a brief sequence than a scene, not lasting more than 10 or 12 seconds…a snippet. Wielding a jackhammer on a London street, sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brezka (Scott Anthony) completes a pavement etching as a crowd of passersby cheer and applaud. I’ve seen Messiah only once (and many moons ago), but this moment never left my head. That’s filmmaking — the art of penetration and lifelong embedding.
