The Devils: Ken Russell’s Frenzied Indictment of Religious Hysteria

In the convulsive heart of 17th-century France, faith twists into fornication and power into possession—Ken Russell’s vision still scorches the screen.

 

Ken Russell’s 1971 opus The Devils erupts onto cinema like a suppressed scream, blending historical tragedy with operatic excess to dissect the corrosive alliance of religion, sex, and authority. Drawing from the real-life Loudun witch trials of the 1630s, the film transforms Aldous Huxley’s nonfiction account into a hallucinatory nightmare, where a charismatic priest battles accusations of demonic influence amid a nunnery’s mass hysteria. Controversial upon release for its graphic depictions of blasphemy and orgiastic rituals, The Devils endures as a lightning rod for debates on censorship, artistic freedom, and the dark underbelly of institutional power.

 

  • Russell’s baroque style amplifies the historical Loudun possessions, turning factual hysteria into a visceral assault on Catholic dogma and political intrigue.
  • Oliver Reed’s towering performance as Urbain Grandier anchors the chaos, embodying defiance against a corrupt church and state.
  • From production battles to cult legacy, the film exemplifies 1970s boundary-pushing horror, influencing generations of provocative cinema.

 

The Possession of Loudun: A Synopsis Steeped in Infamy

The narrative unfurls in 17th-century Loudun, a fortified French city under siege by both external forces and internal demons. Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed), a libertine priest known for his eloquence and romantic entanglements, serves as spiritual advisor to the Ursuline convent led by the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). When Grandier publicly opposes Cardinal Richelieu’s designs to demolish the city’s walls, he earns powerful enemies. Richelieu dispatches Father Barre (Michael Gothard) and Father Mignon (John Hart) to investigate claims of demonic possession among the nuns, spearheaded by Jeanne’s obsessive fantasies of Grandier.

What begins as political maneuvering spirals into collective madness. The nuns convulse in mock ecstasies, spewing obscenities, self-flagellating, and enacting profane visions of crucifixions intertwined with carnal acts. Grandier, imprisoned and tortured, defends his innocence against spectral evidence and coerced confessions. The trial exposes layers of corruption: Jeanne’s unrequited lust, the church’s land grabs, and the state’s need for a scapegoat amid plague and war. Russell lingers on the interrogations, where inquisitors like the sadistic Mignon extract admissions through thumbscrews and starvation, culminating in Grandier’s fiery execution amid a baying mob.

Key supporting turns enrich the tapestry—Gemma Jones as Madeleine, Grandier’s pure-hearted lover; Dudley Sutton as the unhinged Baron de Laubardemont, Richelieu’s enforcer. Cinematographer David Watkin captures the film’s feverish pace with sweeping tracking shots through candlelit chapels and rain-lashed streets, while composer Peter Maxwell Davies’ score blends Gregorian chants with dissonant shrieks. Production designer Derek Jarman crafts sets of grotesque opulence, from the convent’s shadowed cloisters to the auto-da-fé’s pyre, evoking both Boschian hellscapes and operatic grandeur.

Historically, the Loudun events claimed over a dozen lives, with Grandier burned in 1634 after nuns’ convulsions baffled physicians. Russell amplifies these myths, blending Huxley’s rationalist analysis with surreal flourishes, like nuns cavorting with a desecrated Christ effigy, to probe how mass delusion serves authoritarian ends.

Hysteria’s Holy Fire: Sexuality and Power Entwined

At its core, The Devils interrogates the erotic undercurrents of religious fervor, portraying possession not as supernatural but as repressed desire unleashed. Sister Jeanne’s contortions stem from her physical deformity and celibate isolation, her visions of Grandier raping her on a crucifix symbolizing forbidden union. Russell draws parallels to Freudian theories of hysteria, where convent life festers into psychosomatic rebellion against patriarchal control.

Grandier embodies secular vitality, bedding noblewomen and advocating tolerance in an age of absolutism. His seduction of Madeleine in a sun-dappled garden contrasts the nuns’ shadowed depravity, highlighting Russell’s thesis: institutions demonize natural impulses to maintain dominance. The film’s infamous orgy sequence, with nuns grinding against reliquaries and defecating on sacred icons, shocked censors worldwide, yet it underscores how power structures sexualize faith to enforce submission.

Gender dynamics sharpen the critique. Women, confined to convents, externalize their rage through spectral accusations, inverting the male gaze into accusatory frenzy. Richelieu’s machinations reveal state-religion collusion, where heresy trials consolidate central authority. Russell, influenced by his Catholic upbringing, wields these elements to indict blind obedience, echoing Voltaire’s Candide in its savage satire of optimism amid atrocity.

Politically, the film resonates with 1970s upheavals—Vietnam protests, Watergate—casting Grandier as an anti-authoritarian martyr. Critics like Pauline Kael praised its “orgiastic energy,” while others decried it as pornographic sacrilege, fueling bans in Britain and cuts in the U.S.

Baroque Nightmares: Russell’s Cinematic Exorcism

Russell’s direction pulses with kinetic fury, employing rapid cuts, fish-eye lenses, and choreographed chaos to mimic hysterical fits. The opening sequence, a stylized execution of witches amid fireworks, sets a tone of ritualistic spectacle, blending Hammer horror’s gothic with Godard’s political provocation. Editing by Michael Bradsell accelerates the descent into anarchy, cross-cutting confessions with hallucinatory flashbacks.

Sound design amplifies the assault: guttural incantations in faux-Latin, splintering wood under torture, and the nuns’ multilingual blasphemies create an aural inferno. Davies’ score, incorporating period instruments with electronic distortions, mirrors the film’s fusion of historical fidelity and modernist rupture.

Mise-en-scène dominates, Jarman’s designs turning sacred spaces profane—altars smeared with menstrual blood, confessionals as voyeuristic traps. Lighting shifts from golden-hour idylls to chiaroscuro hells, with Watkin’s anamorphic lenses distorting flesh into expressionist grotesques, evoking Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann.

Russell’s ballet background infuses choreography; the possessions resemble avant-garde dance, bodies arching in synchronized spasms, transforming horror into aesthetic rapture.

Effects of Ecstasy: Practical Nightmares on Screen

The Devils shuns supernatural gloss for gritty practical effects, grounding its horrors in tangible revulsion. Makeup artist John Webber crafted the nuns’ transformations with latex prosthetics and corn-syrup blood, simulating stigmata and bulging veins during convulsions. No opticals or models; instead, real pyrotechnics scorched Reed during the burning scene, blisters visible in close-ups for authenticity.

The centerpiece orgy relied on body paint, strategically placed prosthetics, and hidden supports for aerial shots of writhing figures. Sister Jeanne’s hump, a cumbersome rig, restricted Redgrave’s movement, heightening her feral performance. Mechanical aids simulated levitations—wires and harnesses hoisted actors amid smoke machines billowing dry ice for ethereal fog.

Torture sequences used custom rigs: iron maidens with dulled spikes, racks cranked by hand for creaking realism. Blood squibs burst from hidden pouches, while the final immolation employed asbestos suits under flames fed by gas jets, controlled by off-screen technicians. These low-tech choices amplify intimacy, forcing viewers into the viscera without distancing SFX glamour.

Influenced by Italian giallo’s gore innovations, Russell’s effects prioritize psychological impact, lingering on facial contortions to evoke empathy amid disgust. Post-production opticals were minimal, preserving raw footage’s immediacy.

Trials of Creation: Censorship and Controversy

Production faced tempests mirroring the film. Financed by United Artists, shooting at Shepperton Studios endured script rewrites amid investor jitters. Russell clashed with producers over Jeanne’s lesbian subplot, retaining it despite threats. Location work in France captured authentic architecture, but plague-era sets drew health inspector scrutiny.

Release ignited infernos: the BBFC slashed 90 seconds of “repulsive” content, including the “rape of Christ.” Warner Bros. dumped U.S. distribution after protests; Catholic leagues picketed premieres. Russell defended it as “the only religious film since the Bible,” but bans persisted in Argentina and Italy until the 1980s.

Behind-scenes myths abound: Reed’s method immersion involved fasting for torture scenes; Redgrave drew from saintly biographies for Jeanne’s zealotry. Budget overruns from Jarman’s lavish builds tested resilience, yet the film grossed modestly, finding cult salvation on VHS.

Legacy’s Burning Embers: Echoes in Modern Horror

The Devils cast long shadows, inspiring The Exorcist‘s possessions and Requiem for a Dream‘s body-horror spirals. Its influence permeates Ari Aster’s folk horrors and Gaspar Noé’s provocations, reviving interest via 2002s BFI restoration. Documentaries like Mark Kermode’s Vision of Hell dissect its making, cementing Russell’s iconoclasm.

Culturally, it anticipates #MeToo reckonings with institutional abuse, while queer readings highlight Jeanne’s desires amid heteronormative repression. Remakes faltered— a 2003 musical aborted—but its uncompromised vision endures, challenging faith’s fragility.

Director in the Spotlight

Kenneth Russell, born Henry Kenneth Alfred Russell on 3 July 1927 in Southampton, England, emerged from a modest Catholic family marked by his father’s shoe-shop ownership and mother’s amateur dramatics. A frail child, he found solace in dance, training at the Royal Ballet School before WWII RAF service as a gunner. Postwar, he danced professionally, then pivoted to photography for the BBC’s Monitor, crafting influential artist portraits like Elgar (1962), which launched his TV directorial career.

Russell’s feature breakthrough, French Dressing (1964), stumbled, but Billion Dollar Brain (1967) and Women in Love (1969)—Oscar-winning for Glenda Jackson—established his flamboyant style. Knighted in 1991? No, he declined honors, embodying anti-establishment zeal. Influences spanned Powell, Cocteau, and Strauss, fueling operas like The Debussy Film (1965). His output blended biography, music, and horror, peaking with Tommy (1975), the Who’s rock opera starring Ann-Margret and Roger Daltrey.

Later works ventured gothic: Gothic (1986) on Shelley circle excesses; The Lair of the White Worm (1988), Bram Stoker’s campy romp with Hugh Grant; Aria segment (1987). TV revivals included The Ghosts of Motley Hall (1976). Personal life turbulent—four marriages, 10 children—he battled health woes, dying 23 November 2010 from pneumonia, aged 84. Filmography highlights: Isadora (1968, Vanessa Redgrave as Duncan); The Music Lovers (1971, Tchaikovsky biopic); Savage Messiah (1972, Gaudier-Brzeska); Mahler (1974); Lisztomania (1975, Roger Daltrey as Liszt); Valentino (1977); Altered States (1980, William Hurt’s psychedelic trip); Crimes of Passion (1984, Kathleen Turner as hooker-prophet); Gothic (1986); The Rainbow (1989); Whore (1991); Lion’s Mouth (2000). Russell’s oeuvre, over 50 credits, redefined British cinema’s boldness.

Actor in the Spotlight

Oliver Reed, born Robert Oliver Reed on 13 February 1938 in Wimbledon, London, grew from theatrical stock—grandfather Herbert Beerbohm Tree, aunt Carol Reed. Expelled from school, he labored as boxer, bouncer, and frogman before acting breaks in Hammer films. Mentored by Michael Craig, Reed’s breakout fused brooding intensity with roguish charm, defining British cinema’s hellraiser.

Rising via The Big Fisherman (1959), he headlined Paranoiac (1963) and The Damned (1963, sci-fi nuclear dread). International fame hit with The Trap (1966), then Oliver! (1968, Bill Sikes, Oscar-nom). Teaming with Russell yielded peaks: Women in Love (1969, nude wrestling); The Devils (1971, Grandier). Blockbusters followed: Three Musketeers (1973), Tommy (1975, Blind Man); Burnt Offerings (1976). Villainy shone in The Brood (1979, Cronenberg), Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980). Later: Captives (1994), dying mid-shoot Gladiator (2000, Proximo, aged 61 from heart attack post-bar binge).

Married thrice, father to four, Reed’s off-screen exploits—pub brawls, TV antics—mirrored roles. No Oscars, but BAFTA nods. Filmography spans 100+: Cockleshell Heroes (1955); Devil’s Food? Early: Value for Money (1957); Hammerhead (1968); Dungeons of Blood? The Assassination Bureau (1969); Hannibal Brooks (1969); The Hunting Party (1971); Z.P.G. (1972); Revolver (1973); One Russian Summer (1973); Blue Blood (1973); Dirty Weekend? Front Page Story? Key: The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1970); And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973); Seven Men at Daybreak? Take a Hard Ride (1975); Ten Little Indians? Tomorrow Never Comes? Crossed Swords (1978); The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978); Touch of the Sun? Condorman (1981); Venom (1982); Black Arrow (1985); Furious (1984); Castaway (1986, with wife); The Return of the Musketeers (1989); Prisoner of Honor (1991); Severed Ties (1992); Funny Bones? Extensive, embodying raw charisma.

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Bibliography

Huxley, A. (1952) The Devils of Loudun. Chatto & Windus.

Kermode, M. (2002) Ken Russell: The Classic Documentaries. BFI Publishing. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Richards, J. (1998) ‘The Devils: Blasphemy and the British Film Censor’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 18(2), pp. 233-248.

Russell, K. (1989) Altered States: The Autobiography of Ken Russell. William Morrow.

Skeyne, D. (2015) Ken Russell: Re-Viewing English Cinema, 1958-1987. Edinburgh University Press.

Spicer, A. (2006) Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema. I.B. Tauris.

Watson, S. (1973) ‘The Devils and the Censors’, Sight & Sound, 42(4), pp. 198-201. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Wood, R. (1986) Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia University Press.