When the late Ken Russell published his autobiography in 1989, he called it A British Picture. That title could just as easily describe The Devils, his 1971 adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, relating the true story of supposed demonic possession among Ursuline nuns in north-west France in 1634. Here is a world-class film by a British director, with British stars and crew, sets by Derek Jarman and a score by Peter Maxwell Davies. So why is it only now getting a DVD release?
Combining sexual abandon, outright blasphemy and scenes of convent life unlikely to be mistaken for The Sound of Music, The Devils fought a notorious battle with the British Board of Film Censors that has been allowed to eclipse the quality of the film. Its (literally) tortured Catholicism gives The Devils more in common with the works of Pasolini or Buñuel than those of most British directors, and one wonders if the BBFC might have viewed it differently had it been a subtitled European ‘art’ film.
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