The look and feel of the film is often surreal and even psychedelic, its atmosphere further evoked by its avant-garde score. The performances are also riveting, with Reed and Redgrave displaying some of their best work. The supporting cast, including Dudley Sutton, Michael Gothard, Gemma Jones and John Woodvine, are equally as brilliant.
The Devils is definitely not for the faint of heart nor those easily offended by depictions of the desecration of religious iconography. It is, however, the finest depiction of the hysteria of witch trials ever put on film, and a poignant cautionary tale about the dangers of fanaticism. It is also a faith-affirming film about a man who regained his soul in his defiance of corrupt rulers, and whose faith in Christ kept his spirit steadfast, even though his body was broken and finally destroyed.
Cut sequence from The Devils discovered
Fiachra Gibbons
Wednesday November 20, 2002
The most notorious of many outrageous scenes to have sprung from the mind of director Ken Russell is at last to be seen 31 years after it hit the cutting room floor.
Russell sliced from The Devils the infamous "rape of Christ" scene, in which a gaggle of nuns have sex with a life-sized statue of Jesus Christ, after the censor told him it was likely to get the film banned.
The orgy of writhing, devil-possessed nuns has gone down in film legend. But many thought the culmination of the "black mass" had been lost forever, until critic Mark Kermode found it in a Warner Brothers vault and persuaded Channel 4 to show it.
However, the scene cannot be legally restored to the film, which will be shown immediately after Kermode's documentary, Hell On Earth, on Monday evening.
Halliwell's Filmgoers' Companion still dismisses The Devils as Russell's most "outrageously sick film", even though the Aldous Huxley book from which it is drawn had some basis in fact.
As well as a stellar cast that included Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, the film showcased the talents of artist Derek Jarman, who did the sets, and of composer Peter Maxwell Davies.
Russell, 75, once the enfant terrible of the British film industry, is now undergoing something of a critical rehabilitation - despite having had to shoot his last film, The Fall of the Louse of Usher, in his back garden.
It was made by Ken Russell, who was then only an emergent name, with a number of acclaimed TV dramatizations of classical artists and composer’s biographies, and two acclaimed films, his adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love (1970) and his Tchaikovsky biography The Music Lovers (1971), to his name. The Devils is one of the finest of Russell’s films. Throughout his films Russell takes a school boyish delight in courting outrage. And The Devils is filled with such typically Russell-esque touches as self-flagellating nuns, piles of rotting plague victims and corpses tied to wheels, sexual fantasies of nuns fucking Jesus Christ, and nun mass orgies. But of all of Russell’s films this is actually one that contains his outrages within a plot. There is a beautifully literate script - the dialogue positively sings at times. The surprise is that it is from the pen of Russell himself, although one suspects based on the relative hamfistedness of many other Russell-penned scripts, that this more due to Russell preserving the essence of Whiting’s play intact than any original writing of his own.
The film makes for fascinating comparison when placed up against (1973), which came out two years later. (The two would make a great double-bill). The Exorcist held that demonic possession was real and actual and the Catholic Church was just and holy in stamping it out. The Devils on the other hand holds the view that demon possession was a product of hysteria that it was formed out of sexual repression and was brutally stamped out by a corrupt Church either as a tool of oppression or by insanely deluded fools. In fact it comes out closer to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible about an innocent persecuted by frenzy and hysteria rather than a possession story like The Exorcist. The contrast between the two films is remarkable. The alarming thing for those frightened into believing in the existence of demons by The Exorcist is that The Devils is based on historical truth.
There is a lot of greatness to the film. Oliver Reed considered it his finest role and he is at his most sexually charismatic. The production design, whereby the entire town of Loudon, even the convent, has been built out of white brick tiling such that the film seems to be taking place inside a giant antiseptic sanitarium, is striking.
Quite arguably this is Ken Russell's masterpiece. It is horrifying not only in content and realization, but it is horrifying because it so accurately captures the most depraved, most bases, shadows side of humanity. "The Devils" is unparalleled in its delineation of the extremes people go to in order to preserve belief systems and in its exposure of abuse of power. Foucault and Bateson, eat your heart out.
The story, adapted from Aldous Huxley's "The Devils of Loudon" and loosely based on historical fact, centres around a rebel priest, Father Grandier, caught between his faith and his humanity. The monarchy of Inquisition-obsessed France seeks to destroy the Protestant-leaning town of Loudon. The only way the powers that be can destroy Loudon is to attack Father Grandier, whose liberalism threatens to steer Loudon farther away from Catholicism and thus from the influence of the throne. Cardinal Richeleau sends a troop of morally bankrupt, power hungry freaks to Loudon so that they might turn the citizens against Grandier. Through a series of diabolical manipulations and inescapable double binds, the Church successfully whips Loudon into a religious frenzy whose energy is directed against Grandier. In the end, Grandier--whose only sin is his own sexuality and pride--nobly sacrifices his life so as not to sacrifice his integrity.
The acting, sets, soundtrack, visuals, and direction come together to create a sadomasochistic mania. Russell wanted to depict that extreme boundary between pleasure and pain, beauty and depravity, and he succeeds brilliantly. Although Oliver Reed as Grandier delivers nearly every line at one hundred plus decibels, it is undoubtedly the finest performance of his career. Reed is finally up to the task of portraying a multidimensional complex character and succeeds in evoking sympathy for the predicament his character finds himself in. Vanessa Redgrave is positively wicked and twisted as the deformed Sister Jeanne. The supporting cast is equally up to the task of creating a warped sensibility. Of particular interest are Murray Melvin's androgyny whose facial expressions provide needed comic relief and the anachronistic (blue tinted shades in the 1600's??) exorcist (No, that's not Warren Zevon.) Peter Maxwell Davies's score is the musical equivalent of a Hieronymous Bosch painting--Dionysian, primal, and repulsive. Russell's imagination is in top form with numerous memorable sequences. Much of the visual credit might be given to Derek Jarman, the future director who was set designer for the film.
Those critics who chastised Russell for the film's decadence and perversity did not fully understand the work. For here Russell's extravagance is "spot on" for the material he is working on. With appropriate distance, it is certain that this film will achieve the classic status it so deserves.
Bottom Line: One of only a handful of films ever created that deservedly be called a horror film. A classic which improves with time. Russell succeeds triumphantly in capturing the extreme cruelty and depravity potential in humanity. Truly disturbing and unforgettable.
Scenes to Watch for:
(1) Opening scene
(2) Redgrave's Christ hallucination.
(3) Infamous "Bye-bye blackbird" scene
(4) Witches orgy (not available on most versions)
(5) exorcism of Redgrave
(6) Finale and credits
What the Critics Had to Say:
---"Despite undeniable technical proficiency, this is its writer-director's most outrageously sick film to date."---
Halliwell's Film and Video Guide.
---"Derek Jarman's sets, however, still look terrific."---Time Out Film Guide.
