The Devils (film)

For the 2002 musical project, see The Devils (band).

The Devils is a 1971 film directed by Ken Russell and starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on The Devils of Loudun, a documentary novel by Aldous Huxley, but despite claims here and there, including IMDb, the film was never released under the title The Devils of Loudun. At the time of its release, and later, the film has been regarded as controversial for its use of religious imagery and its strong and relatively explicit sexual themes.

Cultural impact

Huxley wrote his historical book about the trial of Urbain Grandier to explore how, what he saw as a basic human need for transcendence, could be perverted into mass hysteria and mob violence. However, the details of the film's plot owe rather more to Russell than Huxley or even the play by John Whiting. The characters are all extremes, their character a set of stylized absolutes - allegorical figures rather than people. The stark and anachronistic set, with walls of sterile white brick, designed by Derek Jarman, and expressionistic music by Peter Maxwell Davies give the film an avant-garde feel. However the narrative often seems to rely on a grand guignol of rotting corpses and masturbating nuns for sensational effect. Derek Jarman's designs were inspired by Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis, which had made a tremendous impact on Ken Russell as a child. Russell wanted the sets to look both ancient and modern because he believed that the lessons to be learned from the events (about the corruption of religion and the abuse of power) were as relevant now and to the future as they were in the 17th century.

The film caused enormous controversy. In the UK, it was banned by 17 local authorities, and everywhere attracted many scathing reviews. Judith Crist called it a "grand fiesta for sadists and perverts", while Derek Malcolm called it "a very bad film indeed". However, it won the award for Best Director - Foreign Film in the Venice Film Festival, while the National Board of Review, USA, awarded Ken Russell best director for The Devils and his next film, The Boy Friend. In 2002, when 100 film-makers and critics were asked to cite what they considered to be the ten most important films ever made, The Devils featured in the lists submitted by critic Mark Kermode and director Alex Cox.

Censorship

The film's combination of religious themes and imagery combined with explicit sexual content was a test for the British Board of Film Classification that at the time was under pressure from socially conservative lobbying groups. In order to get an 'X' certificate Russell made sacrificial cuts of some of the nudity. The film was kept from home video distribution and television screening until the 1990s. A two-and-a-half-minute sequence depicting crazed naked nuns sexually assaulting a statue of Christ was removed at the studio's insistence before the film was submitted to the BBFC censors, who removed a further 89 seconds. All of this material was presumed lost or destroyed until critic Mark Kermode found the complete "Rape of Christ" sequence and several other deleted scenes in 2002. Although some material may have been lost forever, the NFT was able to show The Devils in the fullest possible state in 2004. The film has never been released on DVD and although Warner Bros announced that the film would be released an uncut version in 2006, it now appears highly unlikely that the film will ever be released on DVD. The reasons for this are unclear. This uncut version premiered at the Brussels International Festival Of Fantastic Film (BIFFF) in March 2006.

Its fate in the USA was even more stringent, with a further set of cuts made to even more of the nudity with some key scenes (including Sister Jeanne's crazed visions, exorcism and the climactic burning) shorn of the more explicit detail.

The British 'X' version remains the longest available commercial cut of the film.

Plot summary

Set in 17th century France. Reed plays Grandier, a dissolute and proud but popular and well-regarded priest in the fortified city of Loudun. Needing to control the city and crush its Protestantism, Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) and Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) conspire to have Grandier accused of witchcraft and of corrupting the local convent, headed by the deformed Sister Jeanne (Redgrave). She is a neurotic obsessed with Grandier; brought in to attack the Protestants she inspires many into a baseless attack on Grandier as an incubus and witch. He is tried by the lunatic Father Barre (Michael Gothard) in an hysterical atmosphere of religious extremes and outrageous behaviour, condemned and burned.