I'm expecting a copy of 'Russell's Progress' soon, I'll let you know what's in it.

The full specs for the release are wonderful (and glad the Russell / Kermode commentary Colinr0380 referred has made it's way onto the release) and I'd just like to throw a tiny amount of appreciation to Amelia and the Angel which is an utterly charming and beautifully filmed short and I'm very glad it's going to be in the mix. Shame, as has been said, that this isn't going to be in Blu but thanking my lucky stars that this has finally been given a green light at all. Good luck also to the BFI in regard to the sales for this - I'd imagine initial estimates should be pretty high and deservedly so given that this looks to have happened only due to persistance and a passion on their part for this film see the light of day.

Those specs sound as if they will make for a wonderful collection of extra material - I'm especially excited by the Russell short film!


That sounds great in itself, since it could be argued that the set and production design of this film was one of Jarman's greatest contributions to cinema, as important as any of the films he directed (and I've often wondered if the opening orgy sequence of Jarman's Sebastiane was the all male equivalent of the naughty nuns here!)

Warner have effectively disowned this film so why not just give the negative and trims to BFI with all Warner logos removed so that BFI carry the burden of any offence caused to uppity cunty fake-sensitivity religious inadequetes? It's a film, it's not a manifesto. Millions of people watched two girls devour fecal matter from a dainty kitchen vessel. Honestly, who cares. Children are being prostituted/tortured in regions of this planet. A 40-year-old film by an eccentric British geezer will get ZERO heat. BFI could make it an online-only sell-thru release, ie. no bricks and mortar outlet. It's a great film, an important film, a powerful film. It alone proves that Ollie was a great actor and not some boozed up misogonystic boorish chat show target. Thanks for reading my thoughts on this, btw.

Completely worthless if it doesn't include the 2004 restoration, or at least the deleted footage as an extra.

Really? You're going that route? I think it's been explained well enough why that's simply not possible. Just look at it the way any reasonable person would the Daria situation. Better to have a minuscule compromise than not at all especially when this is how the DVD would have gone any time before 2004.

Yes. My feeling is that the BFI should've said no thanks if Warners is unwilling to authorize the use of Russell's (and most film buffs') preferred version. Coupled with the fact that a Blu-ray isn't happening, this seems like a very 2004 release indeed.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. Are you in seriousness saying that you don't want a gorgeous restoration of the film available in an edit that existed as the primary edit for over thirty because a case of masturbation and one other scene is missing from the film. You would rather they not give us the film looking better than it has in twenty years? I can't comprehend that silliness.

If a more definitive version is known to exist, yes. I also didn't see the point of releasing films that were seriously compromised by BBFC censorship (like Marketa Lazarova). I seem to be in the minority on this.

However, I would point out the obvious, which is that a purchase of this DVD will financially reward the people at WB who have suppressed the film for decades and continue to suppress the restoration cut.

You're certainly in a vanishingly small minority if you think that a single tiny cut to a three-hour film is "seriously compromising" it - in fact, it's so obvious what's happening from the surrounding context that when I finally saw the uncut version the shot in question was pretty much exactly as I'd imagined it.

But then again, you also use the phrase "completely worthless" to describe a two-disc set crammed with rare material, including one of the only two cuts of The Devils that Ken Russell personally signed off - so we're firmly in hyperbole territory here.

In any case, if we follow your argument to its logical conclusion, it's literally impossible to release a version of The Devils that you'd consider "worthwhile", since even the Russell-approved versions were compromised to some degree - the 1971 cut by the need to get it past the BBFC (a contractual necessity, obviously), and the 2004 cut by the continued absence of much of the footage that was cut in 1971 (the scene that Russell obliquely referred to when he told the BBFC's John Trevelyan "I have cleaned up the shit on the altar", for instance). While the re-emergence of the "rape of Christ" scene makes it impossible to state with complete confidence that all this footage has genuinely been destroyed, it does seem extremely likely. (I understand that there's going to be a very detailed account of the film's censorship in the booklet, written by the BBFC's Craig Lapper with much reference to documents of the time).

I fully agree that the BFI should have walked away from the deal if the only thing that Warner was prepared to offer them was the mangled US cut that's already fuelled the iTunes and Spanish DVD versions - that would rightly have been treated with outrage by a British public that's long been familiar with a far superior version. But the British theatrical cut is another matter entirely: until the surprise discovery of the "rape of Christ" scene, it was the definitive version - and, given that the number who've seen the 2004 version must only be in the low four figures at most (I think it's only had four public screenings), the 1971 cut is still the only version most people will be familiar with.

Obviously, the BFI would much rather release a dual-format edition of the 2004 cut - but I think that given a choice between releasing a crammed DVD edition of the 1971 cut or not releasing The Devils at all, I think they made absolutely the right call. Quite aside from anything else, it finally gives people in the US the chance to see a Russell-approved version of the film in the correct aspect ratio, an opportunity I don't think they've ever had before unless they happened to visit Britain in 1971 or when a repertory screening was scheduled.

Yes, I saw that too and you're quite right, but perhaps those few seconds are still in the film and more "offensive" seconds have been cut. It's so long since I saw the film (on Channel 4 I think) that I can't remember. Very much looking forward to this release!

Having watched the 'Rape of Christ' footage in the Hell on Earth documentary currently up on YouTube, it is certainly an extreme moment (more for the intercutting of Murray Melvin masturbating over them from the rafters, like an onanistic Quasimodo! A moment which fills out his character arc a little more) and would quite literally provide a climax for the scene in the church, but remembering back to the 1971 version there is still a heck of a lot of material in there that performs more or less the same function (and the scene of Father Grandier taking a simple communion in the barren countryside that had been intercut with the nuns going wild is still present in the 1971 version). The scenes of Jeanne's fantasies still seem far more powerful and potentially borderline inflammatory to me than this extra footage of writhing nuns (which also includes too many Jess Franco-anticipating zooms back and forth for my liking!)

I totally agree with Michael that if the choice is between not releasing an important film at all or releasing the film in at least one of the most complete versions in existence up until the early 2000s then at least that is something. Having the film more widely recognised is also of extreme importance - while I hate to use the "strange denizens of this forum" argument, there is something to be said for having the film released to find a much larger potential audience beyond the people on this forum (and other forums of course!) who remember seeing it and those who have seen the couple of authorised theatrical screenings in recent years. The British television screenings, the last having been almost a decade ago and in a compromised aspect ratio, are likely where the film had its widest exposure and the reason that, at least speaking from my perspective, people have been so vociferous about the film's greatness, as they know how powerful a piece of work it is.

Having the film available, even if just on DVD (or especially on DVD, given the continued success of that format over Blu-Ray), will let a whole new generation of people see the film easily for the first time (plus in the correct aspect ratio for the rest of us!). This might not seem to be important if it is going to be a slightly incomplete version, but the key thing is that it will be available and building up a reputation again. Who knows what may happen from there as more people see it and (hopefully) like it, then realise that there may be some more footage out there somewhere?

A possible success of this release could mean the beginning of Warners softening its policy to the film - maybe the BFI could, a long time in the future and pointing towards what happened with this release, release a Blu ray of either this version or the 2004 restored version. Who knows, seeing what happenes when the film comes out in the UK could inspire Warners US to hand the film over to someone like Criterion as well, or at least dump it into their Archive. But none of this will likely happen soon or without this release which was obviously difficult enough to prepare - this obviously seems like a situation of a film that can only be issued in baby steps due to Warner US's reticence, not a case of "how many different editions of the same film can we make you buy"!


And I totally agree with Person - this is a film where everyone involved was arguably at the peak of their game, working on an epic scale production. Oliver Reed included, who is an absolute revelation here.

I suspect this is why Russell was persuaded to remove the sequence at the rough-cut stage, after getting assurances from John Trevelyan and Lord Harlech that they'd stand up for the rest. Vivid though the scene certainly is (and how!), it's not actually dramatically essential - it doesn't add anything to our understanding of either the nuns' mass delusion or the surrounding politics.


I've never seen the US cut, but I understand there were significant alterations made to the more extreme moments of Sister Jeanne's fantasies - and those arguably would damage the film, since without the explicit blasphemy combined with graphic eroticism their central point would be strongly diluted if not lost altogether.

One of the greatest things about the film is that Jeanne's fantasies are where Russell shows the most delicate touch, one that could almost be overlooked by the audience but which provides fuel to the argument that the film is not blasphemous but is about people who are taking religion and using it to achieve their own ends without consideration of others (which is really the primary theme of the entire film).

For example in the scene where the scene of the crucifixion of Christ is shown almost like a stage tableau (something which relates back to the scene with the King's play at the beginning of the film, and which in its quarry setting feels anticipatory of similar staged scenes from Russell's later works), some time is used to show an entirely different actor as 'Christ' on the cross before Jeanne falls fully into her sexual fantasy and Grandier appears in the same position. That opening moment is a brief but incredibly important and delicate one in a scene which pushes to a peak of erotic madness, raising a whole set of new ideas about representations and representatives of idols, and the worship of images of saints in either specific or wider terms.

Can you be a bad person from the perspective of the framework of the Church and State and still do good things? Conversely can you remain pious and rule abiding in Earthly terms, but in doing so end up entirely losing your moral bearing?

Russell was lucky with the timing to a certain extent - The Devils was one of the first films to be passed by the BBFC after they raised the X certificate age limit from 16 to 18, permitting far more graphic material to be shown, and he also had two unusually sympathetic supporters within the BBFC itself, in the form of John Trevelyan (already a Russell fan) and Lord Harlech (a Catholic), who absolutely grasped what Russell was trying to do.

In fact, if it hadn't been for the objections of other BBFC examiners, they might have been even more lenient - in his memoirs, Trevelyan singled out The Devils as an example of a film where extreme violence was essential to the point being made (specifically that a man, although clearly no saint, would voluntarily undergo the most horrific tortures rather than renounce his faith).


Yes, absolutely - this whole question of iconography on several levels (the King of course not only being an icon himself but one who's consciously toying with his own image) is one of the film's key themes - that and the way religion becomes exploited as a political tool. And I suspect it's the latter element in particular that explains why the film is still such a hot potato in the US - in Britain, we simply don't have religion and politics intertwined to the same extent, or any particularly significant fundamentalist voices. Even the BBC's favourite frothing fundamentalist Stephen Green has largely disappeared from the mass media since he was exposed as a wife-beater.

And the king is toying with the iconography of others as well, as in the darkly comic scene where he has a Protestant dressed as a blackbird released from a cage in order to gun them down! (the black sheep perhaps! And it also leads to the wonderful anachronistic line "Bye, bye...blackbird!" intoned by the King!)

There's a lot of projecting onto others, or forcing people to perform a role that has been deemed to be theirs throughout the film. The worst thing is that everyone more or less accepts their function with little or no protest, or with the knowledge that any protest is futile (or, damningly, with a barely concealed delight! Even Grandier talks of wanting to be brought to account for his sins at the beginning of the film, although likely he would not have been able to predict the specifics of what was to come!). Most of the inhabitants of Loudon in the film end up taking on the role of the blackbird at one point or another.

That theme of wider religious and political (and medical with the two Burke and Hare-style quack doctors!) voices being more to blame than the individuals is also key to Jeanne (with the other nuns eventually being coerced into acting as a kind of blunt chorus to her actions) not being purely characterised as 'the bad guy' or as an 'evil liar' and more as a confused person who triggers and then is caught up in events bigger than they can deal with - after all if your entire life was seen through the prism of religious ideas and thought then what other way would there be to deal with your feelings of lust towards something except through your feelings of love and reverence for a certain religious figure? And once your reputation (and infamy) is bound up with events, can you help but enjoy milking the celebrity for all its worth?

The crucifixion scene feels like it is an inflammatory use of the image of Christ (which would be made much more explicit by the "rape of Christ" scene near the end, where the absolute lack of reverence to the idol, even compared to Jeanne's visions, is underlined several times, in the same way that the nuns were earlier parodying the marriage of Grandier), but at the same time it shows the way religion could also be used, as being a way of working through and dealing with an issue that may be facing someone at a particular moment in their lives - Jeanne's tragedy is that instead of someone sympathetic to her feelings counselling her and helping her work through her confusion, she is brutally abused and exploited for larger goals of bringing Grandier (and the city walls) down.

Why are Warners opposed to the release of a BR?

You'll have to ask them.

BR might make the powerful point of the film even more obvious. Speaking personally, I watched this movie as a bootleg in 2009 and it was the most traumatic film experience of my life. I saw this as someone raised in the religious and political environment that this film addresses. I was in tears by the end of it - which I credit to Reed just as much (if not more so) as Russell. With my background and my continued interest in church-state politics (especially the abuse of religion as a tool of social control), I was impressed and overwhelmed. Never had I seen a drama that addressed these issues so powerfully or explored the logic of it so searchingly. My emotional reaction was as much shock at the spectacle - I still get chills when I recall Grandier's speech to the panel - as a major sting of recognition. All of this as a bootleg. That's just my conjecture, though. I'm sure WB has a more mundane reason. One would hope that a pile of money from this release from might change someone's mind in a few years.

Michael, my understanding (going by the ever reliable Wikipedia page, erm) was that there is more added footage in the 2004 cut than an extension of the masturbation scene and the Rape of Christ sequence.. So I'm guessing this won't be included on the disk, reinserted with the film (too late right?), or even included as deleted scenes? (Surely WB don't care about a bawdy dance?)

Thanks for the clarification above though, the British cut doesn't sound 'butchered' after all; can't wait to finally see it...

The version of the film included in this release will be the British theatrical version, exactly as it was released in 1971. Given the lack of a true "director's cut" (probably impossible to create now, even with Warner Bros' wholehearted co-operation) and the impossibility of going down the 2004 reconstruction route, it's probably most sensible to go down that route - and of course the BFI may have been contractually obliged to do so in any case.

As for the rediscovered materials, I could be wrong about this but I think the thigh-bone scene will be included in the version of Hell on Earth featured here - as far as I'm aware, the only cuts are to the build-up to the "rape of Christ" footage, and the actual sequence itself.

I don't remember the other shots from the 2004 version, though it was the first time I'd seen the film in nearly a decade and so I'm not the most reliable judge. The only additions I can swear to are the "rape of Christ" scene and the thigh-bone scene (though this is nowhere near as graphic as Wikipedia makes it sound!).

When I saw this bit, I thought "This can't be real. Somebody find the culprit!!"

But it is. BFI, you never cease to amaze me!! First Herostratus, then Deep End, and now The Devils.

What else is there to come now? The Last Movie, probably?? Or, even wilder, and Uncut Magnificent Ambersons?

Either way, this proved to me once again how effing awesome this label is. I will look forward to this SO much!!

If they loathed the film so much then they should have done as you say and left Russell and the BFI to get on with it.

The problem, I think, is that Warners don't just loath The Devils, but they believe it is immoral - and therefore it their moral duty to protect us from this filth. This controlled release is designed to balance anti-censorship/financial worries with religious concerns.

This release sounds incredible, the lack of a BR is a huge bummer though (hopefully this well sell enough to persuade Warners to allow an HD upgrade)