Historic Re-release of THE DEVILS

Host Eileen Jones is joined by writer and cinephile Alex Deley in celebrating Ken Russell's THE DEVILS, a 1971 film so controversial in its day that it was heavily censored, then banned in many countries, then released but rated X in the UK and USA, then critically reviled—Roger Ebert gave it zero stars—and then made very hard to find for decades. Now with a director's cut finally and fully restored in 4K, with an upcoming theatrical re-release, we can access and fully appreciate the brilliance of Russell's best film.

Based on Aldous Huxley's 1952 book THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN, and John Whiting's 1960 stage adaptation THE DEVILS, the film concerns the appalling historical records of a 1634 case of demonic possession overtaking the nuns at an Ursuline convent in Loudun, France, which was supposedly achieved by the sorcery of the dissolute but popular priest Father Urbain Grandier (played by Oliver Reed). The tormented abbess, Sister Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave) falsely accuses Grandier of being in league with the devil, which suits the plans of Catholic statesman Cardinal Richelieu, who’s consolidating state power by crushing the authority of the feudal lords. Their walled and fortified cities include Loudun, and Grandier has served as a defiant champion of the people of Loudun. His brutal and carnivalesque trial, torture, and execution is a gruesome public spectacle precipitating Loudun’s destruction.

Russell called this his most political film, saying it represents “what happens when the state takes over.”