by Marilyn Ferdinand
Note: This review of ‘The Devils’ first appeared at Ferdy-on-Films in June of 2009, and is offered up here by the author as a contribution in Ken Russell’s remembrance at the sad time of his passing.
Necessarily graphic or exploitative trash? Blasphemous or truthful? All the fuss that has accompanied Antichrist, the pas du tout-est of the pas du touts at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, put me in mind of another film that raised hackles so high that it was released only after heavy censoring and nonetheless still was banned in many places. I’m talking, of course, about The Devils, Ken Russell’s account of events that took place in Loudon, France, in the 17th century that marked the end of independent city-states and the beginning of a united France under royal rule.
Ken Russell is the most operatic of film directors, and with the The Devils, he made his most impassioned statement about power, corruption, human degradation, and the possibility of redemption to date—indeed, it’s hard to think of another film that matches the sheer ferocity of its vision. I’ve seen the film maybe four times, and it never gets easier. This latest viewing was the hardest by far because it included a number of banned scenes I’d never seen before, including the infamous “Rape of Christ” sequence. Russell and all supporters of the film who saw it—including a Catholic priest who sat on the Legion of Decency board in the United States and saw it prerelease—consider this scene to be the very heart of the film, and so it is a welcome inclusion indeed.
After many fruitless searches, a canister of film showed up in England that contained this and several other deleted scenes. Eurocult issued a cheaply produced, muddy DVD of the film in 2007 that includes this footage but does nothing to restore the sharpness and vibrant colors created by DP David Watkin and the textures of the famous Derek Jarman set. Until this deficit can be corrected, this DVD stands as must-see viewing for cinephiles, in general, and Russell fans, in particular.
Russell introduces us to the world in which the story takes place, fittingly, on a stage. A roiling sea, created by moving pieces of scenery shaped like waves back and forth, brings forth a majestic figure in a geometric fan of a cloak. When the cloak is removed, we see a heavily made-up man wearing a gold seashell bra and codpiece—Botticelli’s Venus in drag. Cruel, dissipated King Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) and his politically astute adviser Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) applaud the performance tableau and retire to consider the destruction of the walls and independence of the fortified city-states of France. Richelieu has his eye on the most powerful of them all, Loudon, whose popular governor has just died, making it vulnerable. He will learn when he moves against the city that he will have a formidable enemy in Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), who forcefully protects the city’s right to self-rule.
Unfortunately, Grandier has opened himself to attack by his sexually promiscuous lifestyle. He has impregnated and abandoned the daughter (Georgina Hale) of a powerful city elder, and virtually every woman in Loudon has the hots for him (“Now there’s a man worth going to hell for!”), including the head of the Ursulline convent, Mother Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). A hunchback with no prospects for marriage, Mother Jeanne had no alternative but a nunnery. She and many of the other throwaway women in the convent are starved for human contact and very sexually frustrated.
She has fixated on Grandier, and has had vivid sexual fantasies about him; Russell films one amazing fantasy in which Grandier, as Christ, steps off the cross on which he has been crucified so that Mother Jeanne can lick his wounds—a portent of things to come. When she overhears news that Grandier has married himself to a beautiful orphan named Madeleine (Gemma Jones), whose dying mother he attended to, she goes quite mad. She tells Father Mignon (Murray Melvin), the convent’s new confessor, that Grandier has bewitched her and violated her sexually. This is all that Richelieu’s agent, Baron De Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton, in a swelteringly brilliant performance), needs to bring Grandier to trial for witchcraft and have him condemned to the stake.
It’s hard to know where to begin in describing this stunning and disturbing film, but several scenes stand out not only for their visual audacity, but also for the way they communicate character. Madeleine’s mother is attended to by two sadistic “doctors” who put wasps under glass directly onto the plague boils that afflict her, causing her enormous suffering. Grandier tosses the pair down a long staircase and removes the cupping jars from the poor woman so that she can die in peace. The opposition of these men and Grandier is made clear in this scene; on another level, the bloodthirsty “doctors” show the worm in the apple of Grandier’s eye—Loudon—and the “doctors” will get a turn at Grandier when he is tortured to determine if he is a minion of the devil. However, they do their worst against Mother Jeanne.
Russell told Jarman that he wanted Mother Jeanne’s physical examination for proof of sexual violation to be like a rape in a public toilet. This Jarman realized beautifully by creating a Loudon made of white tile. The nave of the convent’s church even has a white-tile altar; the doctors sweep the religious artifacts used for mass off it with a rough arm and lay Mother Jeanne upon it, where they penetrate her with their instruments. Her screams and blood-soaked habit, followed by the verdict, “Yes, definite signs of violation,” come as no surprise to Mignon, De Laubardemont, or us.
Grandier’s execution is another vividly disturbing scene. Dragged through the streets on a sledge because his legs have been shattered by torture, he is made to crawl to the stake. The executioner promises to strangle him before the fires can reach him, but the impetuous exorcist Father Barre (Michael Gothard) lights the flames before the executioner can position the noose. As the crowd (according to reports of the time, the largest ever assembled at a public execution) celebrates, Grandier’s flesh blisters and chars in graphic horror. Father Mignon, heretofore a crazed zealot against Grandier, becomes convinced of the priest’s innocence and twists his amazing face into an image of despair. Peter Maxwell Davies, the great English modernist composer, said that members of his orchestra were in tears as they played his discordant, plaintive score in synching the film.
The most disturbing and meaningful scene of all is the rape of Christ. While Grandier is pleading Loudon’s case with the king, Barre has been whipping the nuns and town into a frenzy. He holds an exorcism in Loudon’s cathedral attended by masked townspeople. The Ursulline nuns strip off their habits and cavort naked and wonton among the horde. One nun is shown licking and rubbing herself against an altar candle. Others allow themselves to be groped, and tear at and rape a priest. The scene climaxes when several nuns lift an enormous crucifix off the church altar and begin licking it; one woman fucks its wooden genitalia. Father Mignon climbs a staircase on the wall, watches the women groping the figure of Christ below, and masturbates desperately. Intercut with this scene of blasphemy is Father Grandier holding a simple mass for himself on a river bank, with a voiceover narration of a letter to Madeleine in which he asks for her prayers that he may fulfill his wish to serve the people of Loudon. Besides being, as Russell calls it, a “mindblowing” scene to watch, it embodies the outrage at the perversion of Christian teachings of forgiveness and love. A cynical government used and abused some already used and abused women to distract and put the town in the mood for a lynching; these “exorcisms” would continue throughout France to allow the Crown to destroy the independent city-states and those who would oppose them.
After Grandier’s execution, Baron De Laubardemont visits Mother Jeanne preparing for her exorcism act in a neighboring town; this road show reverberates with the birth of Venus at the film’s opening—both theatrical perversions of the birth of love. He throws her a bone, “a souvenir” he calls it; it is, literally, a charred bone from Grandier’s body that looks very much like a cock and balls. In another censored scene restored, Mother Jeanne uses it as a dildo to commune with the man she loved and destroyed.
Among the DVD extras is a fine documentary hosted by BBC film critic Mark Kermode, who led one search for the deleted scenes, that details the film’s battle with the censors and critics and shows Russell and two of the film’s stars, Georgina Hale and Murray Melvin, viewing the rape of Christ scene for the first time in more than 30 years. The film critic of The Evening Standard at the time, Alexander Walker, reads from his review and recounts how Russell bashed him over the head with a rolled-up copy of that week’s paper when they met on a talk show. Russell relates that after that incident, Walker was good-naturedly trounced with rolled-up newspapers by his colleagues: “Too bad there were no lead pipes in them,” Russell says bitterly.
While Russell’s film clearly shows his obsessions with sex and excess, and his occasional silly hamminess (for example, the king shoots men dressed as crows for amusement and says into the camera, “bye bye blackbird”), the events portrayed in the film are not exaggerated. Censors always worry about excessive nudity, but their concerns merely reinforce the sexual repression that set the stage for the sexually explicit exorcisms of 17th century France. The blasphemy of the nuns is juxtaposed with the piety of Grandier, but in exercising their prudish prerogatives, the censors also succeeded in preventing the public from seeing the disturbing complexities of faith this scene evokes. In the end, nakedness is much less arousing than the idea that Church and State can conspire to rob the people of their freedom.
Well Marilyn, I stated flatly under the original post at FoF, that this was an extraordinary essay, and since have come to regard it as one of your greatest reviews in your rich archive. The fact that it is a Ken Russell film (a director you have enjoyed a long affinity for, and one you have followed right up until failing health set in) was an extra insurance policy, not that it needed such. Anyway, the controversial “Rape of Christ” sequence is covered most comprehensively here, and it wa stelling to know that even a Catholic priest asserted it was the heart of the film. It doesn’t apear likely, however, that this vital segment will be included in the upcoming BFI release. Unfortunately this sequence was also MIA in the otherwise gorgeous print I saw at Lincoln Center about 16 months ago in the Russellmania Festival. So it has become a Holy Grail of sorts, and one can only imagine if and when it will finally be reinstated in a legitimate DVD release. I’ve come to know Kermode too in the past days, and appreciate your acknowledgement of him in your review.
Anyway, your concentration on the film’s most disturbing scenes really convey it’s essence and visceral qualities that have made it both controversial and artistically daring.
Thanks again, Sam, for your support of me and, more important, this extraordinary work of art. Difficult and angry Unkle Ken might have been, but his humanity could never be in doubt. I miss him so much already and he’s only been gone a couple of days.
Beautifully written treatment of The Devils. I’ve never seen the film with the Rape of Christ sequence, so I’m more than intrigued at seeing such a print. Still, I’ll be obtaining a copy of the BFI DVD, as I’m sure it will showcase the film in the best possible quality to this point. They owe this to Russell’s legacy.
Peter – While I long to see Jarman’s sets as they were meant to be seen, the hacked-up film is nothing to rejoice in. I will not be buying it. I know Russell was pleased with the release, but he had long been used to getting what he could and shutting up about the rest. I think film fans owe it to his legacy to see his complete vision gets the respect it deserve.
Oh I agree, I was taking second best here, which isn’t really enough.
I get it. If Facets gets the Blu-ray in, I’ll rent it.
Warners will never allow this film to be released on Blu Ray and uncut. It will never happen.
Do you think that there is a possibility that in time they will eventually relent?
There is more chance of me finding a flux capacitor, purchasing a DeLorean, going up to 88 mph going back to ancient Egypt and finding that aliens did indeed build the Great Pyramid of Giza.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean the same Warner Bros. that released ‘The Exorcist’ and little Linda Blair masturbating with a crucifix won’t allow the release of Russell’s original version of ‘The Devils’? Say what???
I may not care for Russell’s film, but I like censorship even less, and this hypocrisy is appalling.
Big difference here, Mark.
The Exorcist = American film in which the Devil is defeatd by the Holy Church.
The Devils = Limey film in which Holy Church triumphs over good.
That’s a brilliant treatment of the Rape of Christ sequence. A great review.
With all the ‘anything goes’ aspect of culture and the arts, it never ceases to amaze me how it would be possible in this day and age after everything we’ve seen for the dogged resistence to this film. So may other films have posed blasphemy in more forceful terms. I think Warner Brothers needs to move out the dark ages.
Frank – The politics, and particularly the rise of the religious right, have kept Warner Bros away from this lightning-rod film. Too many shareholders would be pissed off. Thanks for your kind words. This film is a real, if painful, passion of mine.
So a major issue is whether to see the complete film with the rape of Christ in shabby condition or the film without it in pristine condition. I think I would prefer the former.
You could get both and watch the rape of Christ when that scene came up and then go back to the Blu-ray for the rest.
This is a great essay on a film and a director that I really don’t care for that much. I find Russells films jump, erratic and unfocused. With the exception of WOMEN IN LOVE, I’ve had little in the way of praise for his work (and WOMEN scraped by me unscaithed because of the tremendous performance by the great Glenda Jackson).
However, as Marilyn often does, she presents an opinion and an overview on the subject in such an exhaustibely detailed and passionate way that it demands investigation and has tendency to sway one into retreading old grounds again.
I’ll have to give this film another shot…
Wonderful work, as always, dear Marilyn…
Dennis – Thank you. Unlike you, I am an avid fan of Ken Russell’s work. I love his zest and go-for-broke extremism, but I also think he is better than anyone I can think of in connecting with the emotional zeitgeist of the periods he surveys. In Valentino, for example, the hysteria surrounding matinee idol Rudolph Valentino is communicated wordlessly with a clever manipulation of the cast of characters. It’s a unique talent he had.
Marilyn –
I’m very late with this comment, but I only just had the opportunity to see THE DEVILS over the weekend. Unfortunately it wasn’t the director’s cut (the censored version of the film is available in its entirety now on YouTube), but I still found it disturbing and brilliant for all the reasons you so eloquently outline here. I was quite moved by Oliver Reed’s performance and by the the story of his relationship with Gemma Jones’ character. Obviously a serious and profound film that hasn’t been given its due. I think that’s probably a little bit due to Russell’s over-the-top style, although the humanity and outrage beneath those stylizations here is undeniable.
Pat – I had only seen the censored version all these years and was devastated by that, so I understand completely. This is be Russell’s masterpiece and quite shows his touch with real people and historical events. Thanks for the praise.