Film #12/100: The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZlNO1rHvY

and a TV doc on the film (with many clips) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xeg1yIvalSo

"In 1971 the English filmmaker Ken Russell released The Devils, his depiction of the celebrated seventeenth-century demonic possessions at Loudun and the witchcraft trial of the priest Urban Grandier that followed. For this, he relied on John Whiting’s 1961 stage play of the same name for much of the dialogue and on Aldous Huxley’s famous 1952 novel for most of its historical details. To these elements, however, Russell added his own original interpretation, turning The Devilsinto what he describes as “my most, indeed my only, political film”—an excoriating attack on the corruption and tyranny of the marriage of church and state. The film was instantly controversial, inciting outraged press headlines and public protests in the UK. Moreover, The Devils’ frank portrayals of sexuality and religious zealotry provoked the British Board of Film Classification as well as Warner Brothers, Russell’s own studio, to demand significant cuts. The film’s original X-rated version was out for just a brief run before it was withdrawn, and, for almost forty years, The Devils was only available in a severely redacted R-rated version." (Darryl Dee, Wilfrid Laurier University) 

The Devils is one of the most intense films I've ever seen. I put in a category with certain films by Salo (Pasolini), I Only Want You to Love Me (Fassbinder), Satyricon (Fellin), Epileptic Seizure Comparison (Paul Sharits), and Illuminated Texts (Bruce Elder). All pretty different, but equally appealing to me, while also being close to unwatchable. 

I saw The Devils tonight in a program introduced by Guillermo del Toro and Richard Crouse, two of the nicest guys in the world. During the "workshop" after the film del Toro said, "oh and I forgot to mention, this film isn't for everyone." The audience - or maybe it was just me - broke in howls of laughter at this understatement. 

Here's a 40 minute conversation from 2012 between Crouse and del Toro that Crouse conducted when his book on The Devils was first published. 

But it was for me. Despite squirming in my seat from time to time, I had that warm feeling I used to get in the late 1970s and 1980s watching films at the Bloor (Fox/Brighton/Revue), and then the AGO (before I worked there) and Harbourfront Centre, when my body and mind were in the process of receiving something new, something that expanded my worldview.

I really had that feeling tonight. Like, "what the hell is this thing? Is THIS what film is? Or could be? Are there more films like this? If there are, where the hell are they?" I LOVE that feeling. I LOVE when people are free with cinema the way so often are with theatre, with literature, and with music (and less so, in my opinion with visual art, but that's another story). Sure, there's lots of crazy cinema out there, but it tends to be the low-budget and no-budget variety, and that stuff turns my crank. But what a great feeling I get when it's clear that not only was there a visionary director at the wheel, but that lots of other people approved large budgets for big and crazy films like this. And that's true for Fellini, Kurosawa, Antonioni, Kubrick. The 60s and 70s were great. 

I wasn't sure if I would still like the film. I saw it somewhere around 33 years ago, and that was before VHS and it couldn't have been on TV. I think it was at the Bloor, but I could be wrong. I liked the film, but I didn't become a huge Russell fan ever, in part because I always thought Tommy was a mess, and I never liked Altered States. 

I DID like Women in Love, which I saw at the Revue (I think) in 1981, the day before a grade 13 English class test on the book. I got 100% on the test and gloated because I never read the book. I was an idiot though because, while the film is quite strong, it's an amazing book, something I'd figure out several years later when I finally read it. 

I didn't like Lisztomania, but maybe I would today. Maybe I liked Tommy more because I could relate to the music. Or maybe I didn't like Tommy because it's the first moment where The Who begin to lose their way. I'm conflicted about both films. Kind of intrigued with Rick Wakeman's score for Lisztomania but that wasn't enough to make me think highly of Russell. 

Mahler was quite good, and so was The Music Lovers (the Tchaikovsky film). I haven't seen any of these movies, however, with the exception of Tommy, for more than 30 years. 

Except now The Devils is fresh in my mind and there's no question to me that it's his greatest achievement, but I'm open to persuasion of course. 

The hard part. Why do I love this film? 

I like what del Toro said: "Art can be subtle, or it can be Ken Russell." This is a film where "if you're not shouting, you're not being recorded." And yet, there are some quiet moments, brief punctuating scenes, where the film has its power. Like when Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed) is being asked by Laubardemont  if he "loves his Church", to which he quietly answers "not today." In the context of this film, that comes as a great cathartic moment, but it's also spiritual. The whole film, according to del Toro, can be seen as Grandier's journey from the mind to the world, from idea to reality, and from the Church to spirituality. 

A young Derek Jarman designed the sets, a truly remarkable beginning to a brilliant career. I'll say more about Jarman later. 

One could do an amazing projecting tying Hitchcock, Russell, Jarman, and del Toro together by focussing on their profound use of sets. 

Here's Russell on the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB3GcSSovTk. 

And Reed on the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y52KZqzjVs

I also liked what del Toro said that "nobody suffers like Reed", not just in this film, but this is the masterpiece of suffering of course. "He could have been sculpted by Rodin in The Devils." 

So that was an interesting discovery last night: a film that I kind of thought I hated today feels like one of the greatest moments in cinema history. 

There is no middle ground with this one, though.