Matt Damon’s Odysseus spent years getting back home in The Odyssey. However, even he didn’t face as many obstacles as the original cut of Ken Russell’s The Devils endured. Warner Bros. executives, terrified of its religious commentary and extreme displays of sexuality, infamously butchered and censored The Devils. Since then, even a truncated cut of The Devils has been hard to procure. Save for one United Kingdom release in 2012, the title’s been nonexistent on 21st-century home video formats. Appearances on streaming platforms have been sporadic at best.
Then, in 2002, film critic Mark Kermode announced he’d uncovered the deleted Devils footage. It took 24 years, but that material's finally restored in The Devils proper. To boot, the entire motion picture has received a 4K restoration, a grand theatrical release, and no cuts (this one earns its NC-17 rating). Finally, this original creative vision, here titled Ken Russell’s The Devils, is available. Praise be!
The centerpiece of Ken Russell's The Devils (based on both Aldous Huxley's 1952 novel The Devils of Loudon and the John Whiting play adaptation The Devils) hinges on Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed). This real-life 1630s France figure is pivotal in the town of Loudun. Sturdy walls separate this domicile from the world. This yummy mustached religious figure is always secretly bedding women and quietly the object of lust for Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave). She yearns for his body like a parched human craves water. She wants a piece of that Lord with her always, if you catch my drift.
Anywho, Agnes isn't the only figure enamored with Grandier. Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) is seeking to assimilate all French territory under the Catholic Church's power (and ensure anyone of different religious persuasions won't have any sway). His loyal follower, Baron de Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton), begins plotting with jilted Loudun residents harboring grudges against Grandier to destroy this priest. Agnes claiming Satan has possessed her and other nuns at the behest of Grandier proves perfect for disposing this man of the cloth.
Ken Russell’s The Devils hasn’t aged a day since its 1971 release. Russell’s creative vision still radiates danger, gusto, and distinctive creativity. Suppressing it for so long has only ensured it hits theaters when it’s tragically so relevant. An opening scene where Richelieu sternly tells King Louis XIII of France (Graham Armitage) that he hopes they can finally abolish "the separation between church and state" might as well be verbiage plucked from any modern right-wing Christofacist leader dominating the global political scene. The decades have changed, but Russell’s cinematic Molotov cocktail is as needed as ever.
And oh, what a fiery burst of rebellious cinema this is. Ken Russell’s creative vision is a maximalist achievement, constantly tossing middle fingers at authority and “sacrosanct” religious institutions. Actual historical individuals (like Richelieu) are deployed and turned into villainous individuals without hesitation. Religious authority figures use their power and scripture just for selfish means, and there’s nary a trace of “it’s just a few bad apples!”-style dialogue.
Such rebukes of power stand out as excitingly taboo even today. Allegedly, in the late 2010s, Apple once asked the Servant creative team not to feature crucifixes lest theologically inclined viewers get mad. In contrast, Ken Russell’s The Devils features a riotous moment where a naked nun uses a gigantic cross to bonk "witch hunter" Father Pierre Barre (Michael Gothard) on the back. All the lust, sexual pleasure, and other “deviancies” demonized by Christian-based institutions appear here fully on the screen.
Anyone who gasps at the mere sight of bare asses on-screen or bemoans “pointless sex scenes”, avert your eyes at a mesmerizing fantasy sequence where Agnes traces her tongue across the crucifixion-originating wounds of Jesus/Grandier. The rest of us will watch engrossed at the phenomenal imagery and intoxicating atmosphere.
Throughout watching Ken Russell’s The Devils, the thought “is this one of my favorite movies of all time?” raced through my brain. Even beyond its rebelliousness, everything here is just so perfectly crafted. Russell’s dialogue, for one thing, commits wholeheartedly to making these characters speak and sound like they’re from the 17th century. This produces consistently distinctive dialogue. Especially juicy are Agnes’s earliest scenes where she uses dense verbiage to mask her more primal desires. “Communities which ought to be furnaces where souls are forever on fire with the love of god are merely dead with the grey ashes of convenience,” she notes to a prospective nun in one especially unforgettable line.
Ironically, despite being such a criticism of Catholicism, Ken Russell’s The Devils is as ornately composed as great religious artworks like the Sistine Chapel. Take any frame from this feature, and it looks like a Renaissance painting. Derek Jarman’s sets, for instance, are breathtaking. The nunnery alone is a marvel. White colors, cramped ceilings, and persistent lines lend rich specificity to every room in this terrain. The coldness of the tiling is tangible. Meanwhile, the black nun habits and chilling rails of red blood stand out against the white. Then there's the beautifully constructed sets representing Loudon’s streets and buildings, the latter of which carry striking semi-Brutalist qualities in their appearances.
It's staggering to witness all these hand-crafted wonders on the big screen. Combining Jarman's set design with the deeply precise blocking makes for a transcendent visual experience. To boot, Ken Russell’s The Devils is awash in succulent colors. Establishing shots, like one showing King Louis on a bridge shooting “bird”, practically pop off the screen with their radiant reds and yellows. Ken Russell and company have so much to say about fascism, organized religion, and the demonization of sexuality. Yet headiness doesn’t come at the expense of vibrant hues. Instead, the two elements beautifully complement and enhance each other.
Just Ken Russell’s The Devils’ inherent maximalism opens the door for a barrage of tremendous images, so too does this aesthetic give the assorted actors a chance to deliver unforgettable outsized performances. What’s especially impressive about each of these turns is how they feel organic to the characters they’re inhabiting. Of course someone like Perre Barre would always be so over-the-top. He’s a conman mistakenly convinced of his own grandiose importance. He’s constantly reaffirming his own “God-anointed” stature through his pronounced behavior. Vanessa Redgrave, meanwhile, subverts societal expectations for how nuns “should” behave with her astonishing go-for-broke work.
This legendary performer has appeared in several momentous features (including Blow-Up and Howards End), yet this is her greatest work. How absorbing she is whenever she appears on-screen, fully committing to writhing sexually, screaming in tortured pain, or monologuing to herself without ever batting an eye. She does it all with flair and, in the middle of all the madness, rich humanity. Then there’s Oliver Reed, lending an appropriate level of believable gravitas to Grandier. His immediately arresting on-screen presence makes it clear why Loudon’s inhabitants treasure him. Reed’s similarly engrossing vocals also make scenes ranging from intimate conversations with his character’s wife, Madeleine (Gemma Jones), to big climactic speeches all equally captivating.
Everyone in Ken Russell’s The Devils giving 110% creatively includes composer Peter Maxwell Davies, who litters the sonic landscape with instruments and sounds you wouldn’t expect to hear in a 17th-century period piece (like atonal trumpets). His orchestral creations especially come alive and become hypnotic in the feature’s second half. Once the possession of Agnes and the other nuns becomes “fact,” sexual havoc, debauchery, and deceit dominate Loudon's church. Davies sets these images to tracks wailing with chaos and pain. Meanwhile, Russell and cinematographer David Watkin often capture this mayhem with intentionally disorienting camerawork. This includes sudden zooms littering the infamous “rape of Christ” set piece.
Technically, this was my second The Devils viewing (I watched the truncated Criterion Channel cut a few years back). However, witnessing everything spiraling out of control left me awestruck and my mouth agape, like it was my first time. That haunting sequence where Grandier is set ablaze and the camera cuts between his screams, Loudun citizens laughing at his pain, and images placing audiences in Grandier’s point of view? Good Lord, it’s all so blisteringly realized. In this agonizing segment, Ken Russell’s The Devils perfectly conveys madness and cruelty consuming the world like quicksand ensnaring a person. This is the hideous endpoint of succumbing to fascism.
The folks behind this 4K restoration have commendably ensured all these grim atmospheric feats and the other glorious visual achievements in Ken Russell’s The Devils remain intact. Several 4K restorations of 20th-century movies (namely James Cameron directorial efforts) have been nightmares, excessively smoothing out the images and obliterating all the idiosyncrasies tied to older eras of filmmaking (the excellent Chris Person essay “They Want You to Forget What A Film Looks Like” delves into this). This Ken Russell’s The Devils restoration, though, achieves a perfect balance between the old and new.
Images and colors on-screen are crisp, but still maintain potent tactility. Everything still looks like a 1971 feature (rather than a 48 frames per second nightmare), just with extra spiff and shine. Such glorious care ensures it’s easier than ever to savor the endless artistic accomplishments in Ken Russell’s The Devils. We still need works like this taking powerful institutions to the woodchipper, speaking out on the dangers of nationalist movements, and demonstrating the wonders of hand-crafted filmmaking. See it on the big screen and bellow "HALLELJUAH!" over what Ken Russell's The Devils offers its disciples.
Ken Russell's The Devils is now playing in theaters for a limited time through October 22nd.
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