Writer/Director Ken Russell is nothing if not audacious. His films have been decried, censored, cut to ribbons, and outright banned.
It’s no real surprise considering how often violence and sexuality intersect in his movies. Add in religion, and you get the trifecta of politically and culturally sensitive topics, which is why The Devils is his most notorious text.
Released in 1971 and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, The Devils was a lightning rod for outrage and controversy. Six minutes of cuts were made by Warner Bros. before the film was even submitted to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), including the infamous “Rape of Christ” sequence in which nuns masturbate using a statue of Jesus.
Now, more than fifty years later, the film has been completely restored, and several scenes, notably those featuring graphic nudity, have been restored according to Russell’s original vision.
These scenes were technically reincorporated for the 117-minute Director’s Cut in 2002, though the quality of these previously unseen scenes was considered inferior. This new restoration hails from Warner Bros. Clockwork label and updates the entire film to 4K using the negative of the original 35mm.
In a bold move, when the film is released theatrically in October, it will be with an NC-17 rating from the MPA for “sexual content/graphic nudity.”
The Devils focuses on the town of Loudon, France, in 1634 in the wake of the religious wars between the Catholics and the Protestants. As a plague ravages the fortified town built into the mountains, Father Grandier (Reed) has assumed temporary leadership in the wake of the death of the Governor. This leaves the city vulnerable to the whims of opportunistic Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue), who is pressing King Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) to consolidate power (and eliminate the Protestant threat) by centralizing the government, removing feudal lords, and destroying any fortifications individual cities have.
When he vocally opposes this mission by publicly speaking out against the Baron de Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton), Grandier (and by extension Loudon) inadvertently puts himself in the crosshairs.
Not helping matters is the fact that, at the movie’s start, Grandier is something of a playboy scoundrel. His mere appearance in the Governor’s funeral procession is enough to cause a tizzy at the Ursuline convent, and he immediately breaks off his sexual affair with Philippe Trincant (Georgina Hale), the daughter of the Magistrate (John Woodvine), as soon as Grandier discovers she’s pregnant. Early on, he’s more than a bit of a charlatan, but over the course of the film, Grandier matures, finds the love of a good woman (Gemma Jones’ Madeleine de Brou), and even marries her.
Naturally, all of this growth occurs at the same time that his enemies are moving against him. In addition to Richelieu and Laubardemont’s plot, Grandier offends “the chemist and the surgeon” (Max Adrian and Brian Murphy), the local witch doctors whose experimental cures are worse than any malady, as well as the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne des Anges (Redgrave), the Mother Superior of the convent who is so sexually obsessed with Grandier that she has divine (sexy) visions of him as Jesus.
Grandier offends Jeanne by refusing to become Usuline’s official Confessor (he sends Murray Melvin’s sniveling, bowl-cut Father Mignon in his place), then makes matters worse by marrying Madeleine, prompting Jeanne to – in a moment of petty jealousy and spite – lie that Grandier colluded with the Devil to seduce her and her charges.
This accusation allows Laubardemont to circumvent the King’s reticence to make an example of Loudon, and the Baron quickly brings in an inquisitor, Father Pierre Barre (Beatles-lookalike Michael Gothard), to assist him. In short order, Sister Jeane has been raped under the guise of an exorcism, the entire convent has gone completely (sexually) insane, and Grandier, upon his return, becomes the subject of a literal witch hunt as he is arrested, tried in a circus court, and ultimately burned at the stake as the lone rational figure in town.
The Devils is based on a real-life religious figure, though Russell principally based his screenplay on Aldous Huxley’s novel The Devils of Loudon. The film is a masterclass of satire and condemnation of religious hypocrisy, unfettered power, and the way that truth can become lost to hysteria. It’s hard not to see the direct parallels to modern politics in the film, particularly in the climax when Grandier is subjected to terrible torture and ordered to confess to imaginary crimes by his oppressors, all of whom claim to represent the divine but willfully overlook truth and justice to serve their own desires.
The tragedy of The Devils is that the people in power do not care about the truth or the people of the town/convent; they simply use them to get what they want, collateral damage (ie: innocents) be damned.
Thematics aside, The Devils is a stunning visual feast. The scale and the scope of the set design, created by first-time film production designer Derek Jarman, is a glory unto itself, particularly the clean white tiles of Ursuline and Grandier’s rocky attic chamber with its circular stairwell. A personal favourite is the single scene set within the Catholic library where Richelieu is wheeled around by nuns on a dolly; this set boasts a set of doors two stories tall in the shape of a blood red cross.
Russell and director of photography David Watkin shoot the film like a beautiful nightmare, framing characters through barred windows, tongue piercers, and Dutch angles. During the feverish “Rape of Christ” sequence, as naked nuns use the fallen statue of Jesus to rub their dirty bits, the camera frantically zooms in and out while Mignon stands high above on a ladder, watching and masturbating.
These scenes of interior debauchery are contrasted by the soft ethereal glow of Sister Jeanne’s Nature-based religious visions and nicely juxtaposed by the Misery-level torture porn inflicted on the Christ-like figure when Barre gleefully breaks Grandier’s legs. The beauty and the grotesque splendor of the film have never been so evident as in this restored version.
All of this sexual hysteria and religious mania is grounded by two career best performances by Redgrave and Reed. Jeanne could have easily been a pathetic figure, but Redgrave imbues her Mother Superior with such incredible sexual longing and desperation; like the oft misunderstood girls of The Crucible, the character is equal parts villainous and tragic. It’s a vibrant and committed performance, with an incredible physicality to it, that one wishes Jeanne was in the film more.
The other half of the equation is Reed, who is arguably saddled with the more conventional de facto protagonist role. Still, Grandier’s arc is the foundation of the film: he starts off as a mostly well-intentioned leader who is also a complete scoundrel when it comes to women. By film’s end, he is a Christ-like martyr who symbolically represents everything wrong with politics and the church. But Reed never forgets to make Grandier a mere mortal man: he is grounded by his love for Madeleine; he rages against injustice; and he screams in agony and admits to being scared before he dies. It’s a deeply human performance…all while rocking one of the most glorious handlebar moustaches ever committed to celluloid.
Since its debut, The Devils has been one of the most difficult-to-screen films in cinema history due to censorship and rights issues (ironically enough, blame WB for keeping it out of the public eye for most of the last fifty years). This new restored 4K is the defining version of the film; this is how it was meant to be seen – both technically and with its previously censored scenes restored. The result is one of cinema’s most controversial works, resplendently preserved in all of its outrageous button-pushing glory.
The Devils is Ken Russell’s defining film; it is incredibly important cinematically and historically, and – more importantly – it’s just a really, really great movie.
The 4K restoration of The Devils screened at TIFF and releases in theaters for one week on October 16 in North America and October 30 in the UK and Ireland.
