I'm currently preparing for a final exhibition which I will be posting about closer to the time (although it feels far to close for comfort as it is). One of our final assignments on the course was to write and personal essay about an art subject that interests us: a handily focused and narrow brief eh?
Anyways, here is my essay in which I hope I didn't get too over excited and completely meander around the question.
Irrespective of my writing skills (which you are more than welcome to constructively criticise by the way), I do feel the subject of The Devils very interesting one regardless of your knowledge of horror or film.
P.S. I do not own any of the pictures. They are the property of Warner Bros.
The Devils: Artistic
Expression in Film and its Censorship
By Stella Frangleton
The winner of Best Foreign Film at the
Venice Film Festival while, at the same time, being banned in Italy:
The Devils (1971) has been the subject of an ongoing battle between
film critics and film censors since its release - gaining both
acclaim and castigation. Having only been seen in its full version at
film festivals, the fullest version available is more than evidently
an artistic vision of a tragic historical event. Even as a fairly
hardened and liberal film fan, I must admit I found The Devils a
difficult watch; however, it was difficult with a purpose and
intelligence. I did not feel the empty exploitation of a thrown together exploitation movie; I was being made to feel uncomfortable because
the director, Ken Russell, was trying to express a vision – an
alarming vision, yes, but not one without thought and relevance. Had
Russell expressed this in a painting or gallery, would he have
received a similar butchering of his piece? I believe The Devils was
treated such because the images are not simply to disgust momentarily
(a construct unfortunate many shocking films follow). They have been
constructed masterfully both for visual and emotional impact. In
essence, it has been treated badly because it is made so well; it is
affecting. I intend to examine art in film being treated differently
from other art forms: how and why.
The Devils is, I believe, Russell's
strongest morality play. It focuses on the important differentiation
that needs to be made between true faith and the use of faith as a
manipulative tool (the possessions at Loudon, the real historical
event on which the film is based, being a particularly sordid example
of the latter). One of the reasons critics claimed the film was not
art is due to the explicit nature of some scenes, some going as far
to call the film perverted or sadistic. I find this a somewhat
redundant criteria, especially when considering revered painters; how
many disturbing and sensual paintings come to mind when considering
the work of artists such as Goya and Courbet? The scene that remains
cut even from the current release is the scene that typifies
Russell's pivotal concept; it is known, starkly, as 'The Rape of
Christ'. The scene sees the nuns - driven into a frenzy by political
schemers in an attempt to incriminate the powerful Priest Grandier
for possessing the nuns - tear down a life size icon of Christ and
ravish the fragments in a nightmarish fervour. These intense images,
however, are intercut with a scene of the Priest Grandier, a troubled
man who we have seen grow in purity as he connects with his faith
more throughout the film, reach a sort of catharsis as he calmly
takes communion alone in the countryside. As the corrupt reach their
climax of depravity, Grandier reaches the climax of his faith.
Interestingly, the head of the Catholic Legion of Decency in America
at the time of the films release (Father Gene Philips) did not find
fault with the sequence. He described it as 'portraying blasphemy,
but it is not blasphemous' and felt that the a scene from The
Exorcist (1973), wherein a possessed girl masturbates with a
crucifix, was more offensive as it did not appear to discuss the vast
separation between acts such as these and true Catholicism, which
Russell does.
Other works have discussed the
destructive marriage of church and state, notably Arthur Miller's
1952 play: The Crucible. Hysteria is a key aspect in both pieces –
showing how the state can encourage it under the guise of religious
piety, and how this leads to people acting on previously repressed
feelings and grudges. Abigail is the main example of this in The
Crucible; she uses the ensuing witch hunt to accuse the wife of the
man she had had an affair with. Similarly, Jeanne Des Anges in The
Devils goes so far with her denouncing of Grandier because she was
attracted to him, something for which she received penance, and
became resentful of him. Unlike The Devils, The Crucible did not get
such a frosty reception from critics and authorities and I think this
may not just be down to the more sexual content in The Devils.
Miller was openly historically inaccurate; although he based it on a
true event, as with The Devils, he made clear it was a work of
fiction and had fitted the setting to his purpose. As The Devils was
intended to be as accurate as it could be from the existing
recordings it is much more gut-wrenching; there are vastly gorier and
sexually overt films out there but they aren't as real or emotionally
charged as Russell gets his to be. The work of Francis Bacon, Three
Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion in particular, was
brought to mind when considering images of charged emotion coupled
with religious imagery such as in The Devils. Bacon described the
image of the crucifixion as 'a magnificent armature on which you can
hang all types of feeling and sensation' and he used his
interpretations of it to express his disgust with man's inhumanity to
man something; which I feel Russell was trying to express too. Both
abandoned realistic imagery and made it bold and almost vulgar, I
think, so the viewer couldn't ignore it. The Crucible may discuss
similar issues to The Devils but it is not as determined to make the
viewer feel the artists' revulsion at the atrocities they are citing.
Both Russell and Bacon were criticised
for the alarming nature of their works however: Bacon's paintings
were allowed to exist whereas Russell's film was not. What is the
distinction between a traditional artist and an artist who works in
film, that makes one viable for unsanctioned editing and the other
not? I feel that film censors and critics either fear that people
won't go into a film viewing it as art. Or, the censors are the
people not viewing it as art and therefore miss the point. This seems
all too true of the treatment of The Devils; Ken Penry, one of the
BBFC censors at its time of release, even said 'We all took against
the film . . . although we realised it was a very fine piece of
filmmaking'. The tragic irony of this statement defines what is wrong
with the continued suppression of The Devils full cut. Russell
intended it as art; it has been received widely as such and yet the
fear that some unsuspecting person will pick it off DVD shelf and
feel compelled to write a strongly worded letter still overpowers the
right to artistic freedom. I appreciate that what people's
preconceptions of what they will view in a cinema probably aren't
films like The Devils but to not be allowed to watch in our own homes
is like trying to buy a painting but being refused of the grounds
that we might not appreciate it 'correctly'.
The aspects of humanity portrayed in
The Devils may be disturbing but they do exist – something I am
trying to explore in my own work. Russell uses images to highlight
aspects of human behaviour that he finds worthy of discussion:
something I am trying to achieve in both photo and film media.
Whereas, Russell's message is more focussed to state and religion –
I would like mine to be more open ended. I want to know how viewers
interpret the images painstakingly woven by people such as Russell.
His context for The Devils is pleasingly ambiguous; while being able
to be viewed as a period drama, the visuals allow it to attain a
timeless dreamlike quality which I found interesting and have tried
to incorporate into my own film piece. A strong enough sense of
context to retain a connectivity throughout the piece but far removed
enough to provoke deeper thought than simply threading the images
together to create a story. I also agree strongly with Russell's
belief in the strength and purity of humanity while being able to
appreciate the baser aspects; I believe the more we embrace what is
bad about ourselves the less energy we have to spend suppressing it
and we can channel that energy into better things. I would like my
exhibit to be one of exploration for the viewers; maybe they will
love it, maybe it will repulse them. Either way, they will hopefully
have explored a part of themselves which I believe is healthy to do
so; as, I think, does Russell.
While I can appreciate why an
alternative cinematic release may be sensible as a viewer is likely
to be expecting entertainment, not challenging art, in a cinema I do
not agree with suppressing the piece from public release. Any reason
a censor may have for suppressing the film has to be linked to a fear
of the public's misunderstanding (as there are far more explicit films available the 'inappropriate content' reasoning is redundant).
However, any audience seeking out this film at an Art Cinema or on
DVD is evidently not the audience censors are afraid of
misunderstanding the film; therefore, the reasoning behind continuing
suppression seems confused and irrelevant. The censorship of Russell's
vision seems to stem from both censors' and critics' confusion as to
whether film should be entertainment or art. I believe it is for the
filmmaker to make this decision and their film should then be treated
accordingly rather than artists having their work forced into being
that which they never intended it to be.
