The Devils review – Ken Russell’s 1971 possessed-nuns tale is a frenzied aria of confrontation and hysteria

Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave put in the performances of their lives in this film originally banned for obscenity that highlights the violence of power ‘I could never be Satan’s boy. I haven’t the humility.” The speaker is Father Urbain Grandier, the 17th-century French priest

Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave put in the performances of their lives in this film originally banned for obscenity that highlights the violence of power ‘I could never be Satan’s boy. I haven’t the humility.” The speaker is Father Urbain Grandier, the 17th-century French priest accused of witchcraft, stylishly played by Oliver Reed, in Ken Russell’s scabrous 1971 classic; it is now restored and rereleased in its complete form after years of censorship. It comes from an era when movies, playing in high-street cinemas, still had the power to shock, to position that shock in the polite cultural mainstream and to compel serious discussion about whether that shock – or, conversely, a ban – was justified.

The Devils is based on a true story of politically directed mass hysteria, adapted by Russell from two literary works: Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting’s stage play The Devils . Of course it is obscene; obscenity is the glowing sulphurous paint which Russell is applying to the canvas. It is about obscenity – but the obscenity does not reside in the sexualised images of the crucified Christ or naked nuns disporting themselves; it is the violence of authority that is shown to be obscene.

The idea of martyrs or heretics being burned at the stake has long been an accepted fact recounted in U-certificate history lessons, and a punishment which survived well into the European enlightenment. Russell shows you what it might actually look like and that is to involve a confrontational assault on good taste. Continue reading...