So I will bid adieu to that over-the-top hyperbolic baroque style director, Ken Russell. It was only a couple of weeks ago there was a programme about the British Board of Film Classification where letters between the head of the BBFC, John Trevelyan, and Russell over the controversial film, The Devils (1971). It was a fascinating, the censor telling the director to make cuts and certainly the infamous orgy scene along with the ‘rape’ of Christ (see this excellent article by Mark Kermode). The censors didn’t get or maybe they did, and by all accounts Trevelyan was worried about the American financiers. I re-read Huxley’s The Devils and viewed the film again. It is a very powerful and political film. The main issues being of religious bureaucracies, sexual repression, oppression, political subterfuge, witch hunts, persecution and execution..all added to a potent celluloid mix. No wonder the moralists hated it. Also, what also increased the power of this film was its minimalist set created by Derek Jarman. The film, The Devils, deserves its own post, which I will write at some point.
Russell, no stranger to controversy, directed Women in Love (the infamous wrestling scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed). The rock opera, Tommy, which too was over-the-top but better for it. There was The Music Lovers, The Boy Friend, Lisztomania, Altered States, Gothic and Lair of the White Worm. I saw the prequel to Women in Love, The Rainbow, in the cinema circa 1989 and was highly disappointed by it. It just had none of the originality and passion of the sequel.
I believe that Russell was underrated. Censor and critiques couldn’t see beyond the “indecency”. The director Alex Cox and film critic Mark Kermode argue The Devils is one of the ten greatest achievements of cinema history. I think they are right.
