Iconic director Ken Russell was in town to receive a lifetime achievement award from Fantasia for his 50-plus years in the business, a career that has spawned many genre classics including Altered States, Gothic, and The Lair of the White Worm. But it was the little-seen and hard to find The Devils from 1971 that proved to be Russell’s most controversial work, and Fantasia managed to snag a copy to be screened on Russell’s big night. In the video, Russell discusses the true story behind the film and receives his award with the grace befitting one of the great filmmakers of all time.
In 17th-century France, during the plague, the village of Loudon is in a bit of a pickle. Its governor has died and the townsfolk look toward rogue priest Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed, Burnt Offerings) for leadership. He has a few issues of his own, though: he is not averse to bedding the town’s women and even manages to get the magistrate’s daughter pregnant, unceremoniously dumping her as soon as he finds out, and actually secretly marries another young woman. He is at odds with many town officials, but is somewhat of a hero to the common folk. In a bid for power, Cardinal Richelieu has proclaimed that all towns’ fortified walls will be torn down. When Father Grandier resists Richelieu’s attempt at power and Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave, Mary, Queen of Scots) falsely accuses Grandier of sexual improprieties against her, he becomes a political scapegoat and the stage is set for mass hysteria and anarchy.
Frolicking naked nuns, rock star exorcists, sexually adventurous priests being burned alive, a cross-dressing layabout king of France. What’s not to love about The Devils? And yet, Russell manages to pull it all together, creating a cohesive and compelling film that includes many of his trademarks, not the least of which are extreme closeups set to a cacophonous soundtrack to parlay confusion and hysteria.
Reed and Redgrave turn in quite possibly the performances of their careers in this one, with Reed commanding the viewer’s attention whenever he’s on screen and Redgrave portraying a disfigured and more than slightly insane nun quite convincingly. Risqué even by today’s standards and notoriously hard to find in an uncut version, The Devils is worth searching out for all fans of Ken Russell’s work.
