The movie that keeps embarassing its studio...

[onager]

"I look forward to a France in which Church and State are ONE!"

It is 1634, and those words are uttered by Cardinal Richilieu as he takes the hand of King Louis XIII.

The king is indulging in some light entertainment, starring in his own stage production of Venus Rising From The Waves. Which he performs in drag (though not much of it) for an audience of transvestites and their dates. Outside the palace walls, Europe is being ravaged by the Thirty Years War and a plague epidemic.

When a movie starts like that, you can be pretty sure it won't be boring.

Probably all of you know the movie: Ken Russell's The Devils, released in 1971 and repressed/banned/censored ever since all over the world.

It's easy to see why. Russell didn't give religion any of the unwarranted "respect" demanded by believers even here on DU. He treated religion as a pure political force used to ruthlessly bludgeon a population to its knees--exactly where the Church wanted them.

Those censors/banners include its own studio, Warner Brothers.

WB hated the movie even in 1971, and only released it to theaters in a heavily censored version. Among the missing scenes were one that became famous as the "Rape of Christ." (Naked nuns tear down a huge crucifix and use it as a sex toy...in case you're curious.)

WB finally released an edited VHS version in 1995. To this day, the movie has never been officially released on DVD. A few years ago, Angel Digital did an unauthorized release with all the censored footage and an excellent documentary about the suppression of the movie, Hell On Earth.

Rumors of a DVD release from a good "official" print run rampant every year. For several years, an on-line petition has asked WB to finally release a DVD.

Back in February 2008, Warner's own website said a DVD version would be released. Some websites even displayed supposedly official artwork for the DVD box.

Whoops!

The information, however, was a "mistake," according to WHV exec publicity director Ronnee Sass. She explained that right now "there are absolutely no plans to put out The Devils in '08," although the title may make an appearance down the road.

"Down the road?"

:rofl:

I think that will be the same road we see at the beginning of "The Devils"--the road decorated with the rotting corpses of religious dissenters chained to wagon wheels.

Still, I have to wonder why WB doesn't do the right thing. Can they really be THAT afraid of Bill Donohue and his Catholic League?

[and-justice-for-all]

1. I would like to see this...

religion as it truly is...

[moggie]

2. I saw it at a film festival many years ago

Whether it was a full print or not I can't tell you, because it has left almost no lasting impression on me. That's the way it is with Ken Russell films, somehow. I enjoy them well enough at the time, overblown though they tend to be, but a year later I couldn't tell you anything more than "Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed were in it, and that bloke off Lovejoy". Strange.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. I've seen it on broadcast TV, in Britain

though without the 'Rape of Christ' scene. Here's BBC film expert Mark Kermode on his battle for a full release of the film including that cut scene:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2008/08/opinion_the_devils_across_the.html

For all that, it's worth pointing out the hero is a Catholic priest. It's just that he cares for people, while the rest of the hierarchy doesn't.

[onager]

4. A priest and a dangerous intellectual!

I just watched it again the other night, which is what inspired me to write the post. This version included the "Rape of Christ."

The priest, Urban Grandier, is depicted as one of those dangerous, book-reading, art-loving intellectual types. This comes across in a scene where the 17th-century Homeland Security staff search his home, gleefully smashing artworks and trashing his book collection.

I couldn't help thinking that, in another era, he would have been in another job. It's probably worth mentioning that the movie script was based very closely on the source material, Aldous Huxley's Devils of Loudon. Huxley did an enormous amount of research and found copies of letters from people actually involved in the case, etc.

There's a great scene with two of the villains discussing Grandier's "worldliness." One man says Grandier was raised by the Jesuits, who taught him to be skeptical:

"...and you know the Jesuits' rule. Give me a man until he is seven and you can have the rest. He will never break."

"I also have a rule. Give me three samples of a man's handwriting, and I will have him hanged."

[Deep13]

6. Yes and the R.C. Church tortured and murdered him because he told the truth. nt

[awoke_in_2003]

5. ...

"Naked nuns tear down a huge crucifix and use it as a sex toy...in case you're curious"
Hmm, now that you mention it, I am slightly intrigued.

"Which he performs in drag (though not much of it) for an audience of transvestites and their dates."
Come on, now, who hasn't done this? :)