On the birthday of Ralph Vaughan Williams, a party favor:

A link to Ken Russell’s quasi-documentary, “Vaughan Williams: A Symphonic Portrait” (1983) – aptly named, since the hour is structured around the composer’s nine symphonies, with a few welcome digressions to accommodate reflections on the “Tallis Fantasia,” “The Lark Ascending,” and the Oboe Concerto.

The film is surprisingly reverential by Russell standards – this, after all, is the guy who directed “Tommy” and “Lisztomania” – though it is not without its moments of impishness. Russell himself appears prominently, as does his crew, who are made part of the supporting cast, as they are shown shooting on various locations with the composer’s widow, Ursula. The style is part documentary, part deconstruction, with touches straight out of French New Wave, as when Russell calls in a script supervisor to sit down with Ursula to go over her “lines,” when she leaves something out of one her personal reminiscences! There are a number of instances of filmmaker and subjects breaking the fourth wall.

There is also a recurring bit with Russell and his daughter, Molly, clearly engaged and asking questions, as he flips through photographs in a book about Vaughan Williams. By the end, cumulatively, I found this surprisingly moving.

A number Vaughan Williams associates and champions also appear: David Willcocks, Vernon Handley, and Evelyn Barbirolli – widow of the conductor John Barbirolli (Glorious John, as Ralph called him), for whom RVW composed his Oboe Concerto – composer and Vaughan Williams pupil Elizabeth Maconchy, and violinist Iona Brown, arguably the foremost interpreter in her day of “The Lark Ascending.”

I’m afraid you’ll have to ignore the Swedish subtitles. The only other option I could find is dubbed into German!

I figured out that the book the Russells are reading is “Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Pictorial Biography,” a volume I had somehow overlooked. Since viewing the film, I was able to track down a copy, signed by Ursula and her co-author, John E. Lunn. This will now reside in my library alongside Jerrold Northrop Moore’s “Vaughan Williams: A Life in Photographs.”

Enjoy the film, and happy birthday, Ralph Vaughan Williams!