British filmmaker Ken Russell, who directed the film version of the Who's Tommy, died Tuesday November 28, 2011.

He was 84.

Russell's long, provocative career featured recurrent themes including sexuality, the Catholic church and the flamboyant lives of classical composers (such as Lisztomania, which starred the Who's Roger Daltrey). In 1969 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Women in Love, his racy adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel. It was his most critically accepted piece. Despite its erotic content, it won an Academy Award for Best Actress (Glenda Jackson) and earned three nominations, including Best Director. In the 1971 film The Devils, Vanessa Redgrave played a nun who is vividly tortured. The church objected, as did a legion of critics disgusted by the film's excesses and sadomasochism. But Russell, a Catholic convert, defended his films. He told NPR in 1991: "My films assault people, but that's because the images are potent. I don't have any gratuitous scenes in my films. They're actually integral to the plot."