Ken Russell's THE DEVILS (1971/2026 re-release)
" I have a great need to be reunited with God. " Seeing this again (this time from a 4K master transferred immaculately you migjt say to film), it occurs to me that I may not have seen *all* of the "Rape of Christ" set piece before, and it is a great artistic good we see every flailing body of flesh and blood and hair and so on. But really that is not the most shocking thing in this film - that may not even be in the top 5 (mostly because the constant zoom ins and outs make it into kind of an almost adorably debauchery-packed relic) - rather it is when the wretched King has all of his "Blackbird" protestants running around and he just shoots one among many of them dead ("bye bye blackbird" he chortles). I mean... fucking Christ ! This had and always will have a power and incredible force to it because it is driven by a conflict between the Priest Grandier and the Baron (Reed is a towering inferno of conviction and ultimately the hero that the wo...
