Where is God in Ken Russell's 'The Devils'?

Oliver Reed gives a tortured performance in The Devils.

I don't know who or what runs the universe. It might be a wise, benevolent, and all-powerful God. It might be nobody at all. Either answer is bound to disappoint somebody. But what I can be fairly sure of is that anybody who claims to know definitively what God is and what God wants—and has the evidence to "prove" it—is either being dishonest or delusional. 

I don't necessarily mean that as a complaint. There are considerable benefits to people claiming to speak on God's behalf, even if it's all baloney. In his "Sky Cake" routine, comedian Patton Oswalt explains how there would be no civilization as we know it today if "weaklings" in the past hadn't invented religion. But, human nature being what it is, we invariably take it too far. People will always want power, money, and status. We also want to impose our personal beliefs on large portions of the population, the more the better. And these desires have driven us to do awful things to one another in the name of God.

All this brings me to Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), a long-suppressed, much-censored film just now being released to theaters in its uncut glory. I'd been hearing about this infamous movie ever since I started hanging around Usenet movie forums in the 1990s, but I'd never even bothered to track down any version of it, since I knew I'd just be seeing a censored print. Now that an uncensored Devils is playing on theaters across the country, however, I knew I had to see it. 

Only 55 years late

Unfortunately, The Devils was not playing at my local movie theater, so I had to venture about half an hour due south to a huge shopping center called the Streets of Woodfield in Schaumburg, IL. Traffic was extremely heavy for some reason, and getting into (and out of) Woodfield is always a nightmare even under the best circumstances. Seeing The Devils meant I had to do something I hate: drive on the highway. This is all relevant to my review because, during my journey, I alternately prayed to God for deliverance and cursed His holy name. By the time I got to the theater, I was literally trembling, which is a great state of mind for seeing this movie. I was also sweating rather profusely, which I'm afraid made me rather unpleasant to sit next to.

I will not waste your time or mine with a thorough summary of the plot of Ken Russell's The Devils. If you want that information, it is available elsewhere. Short version: In 17th century France, the foppish Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) is under the influence of the scheming Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue), who aims to unite church and state. Standing in his way is a commanding yet morally-shaky priest, Grandier (Oliver Reed), who... you know what? It's complicated. Let's just say there's a sexually-repressed hunchbacked nun (Vanessa Redgrave), some false accusations of witchcraft, a wildly blasphemous orgy in a convent, and some weaselly-looking guys in robes yelling, "Confess! Confess!" There's plenty of torture, blood, and yelling, and it all ends with one of the main characters being burned (to a crisp) at the stake. 

While I hadn't seen The Devils until now, I'd sat through enough Ken Russell films to have some idea what I was in for. I knew that subtlety and good taste were not exactly his strong suits. As a writer and director, he tended toward shock and excess. Because of this, Russell (1927-2011) was hardly a crowd-pleaser or critical darling even at the crest of his powers. Scathing reviews and audience walkouts were common throughout his career. In some ways—despite its abundance of sex, violence, nudity, and religious imagery—The Devils was one of Russell's more serious and restrained films. Am I actually calling The Devils restrained? Well, compared to Tommy (1975) and Lisztomania (1975), yes. It lacks the campy, comedic elements of those later, wackier Russell movies.

I wasn't prepared for how truly beautiful this film was. Yes, beautiful, even with people getting needles through their tongues. You could take various, meticulously-composed frames from Ken Russell's The Devils, reproduce them on nice glossy paper, and sell the results as a coffee table book. Everything about this movie—the cinematography, the costumes, the production design (by a rookie Derek Jarman!), even the lighting—contributes to its visual power. Credit must also be given to the film's restoration team, who have done a tremendous job. The Devils looks like a brand-new film. Meanwhile, while some may find the movie's booming, cacophonous score to be too much, I found it enthralling. It's the kind of thing I might listen to on its own. For fun.

Russell's movie, a work of concentrated fury rather than the director's usual free-flowing madness, gives the viewer a great deal to think about regarding the nature of religion and politics. But the question that was on my mind as I watched The Devils was: where is God in all of this? Our protagonist, Grandier, is no saint. Early in the film, he impregnates a young woman who is supposed to be learning Latin from him, and he does very little to support her or the child who results from this union. But his enemies are immeasurably worse: cruel, sadistic, power-hungry, and hypocritical. If Grandier has the morals of an alley cat, his foes are jackals.

Certainly, there is a great deal of debauchery in The Devils, along with generous portions of pain, suffering, and mental anguish, much of it inflicted in God's name. If God truly exists in this universe, He must witness all of this and have thoughts about it, but He does not choose to stop it. Writer-director Ken Russell was a Catholic, and I believe his faith was sincere. The Devils is not a godless film. When Grandier speaks directly to God, this is not treated as a foolish or worthless endeavor. But, even if his prayers go unheeded, do they go unheard? And what of his enemies, who claim to be acting on God's behalf? What becomes of them in the world beyond this one?

These were the questions on my mind as I staggered back to my car in the Streets of Woodfield parking lot and ventured back to those dreadful Illinois highways.