“Somebody really doesn’t want this released,” Guillermo del Toro says of Ken Russell’s controversial film, The Devils, which still hasn’t had an uncut release on disc. Both praised and reviled on its initial release in 1971, director Ken Russell’s disturbing, politically-charged period horror The Devils has had a patchy release history. Cut by both its ... The Devils | Guillermo del Toro has “been trying for decades” to get controversial film released in 4K
“Somebody really doesn’t want this released,” Guillermo del Toro says of Ken Russell’s controversial film, The Devils, which still hasn’t had an uncut release on disc.
Both praised and reviled on its initial release in 1971, director Ken Russell’s disturbing, politically-charged period horror The Devils has had a patchy release history. Cut by both its own studio and the BBFC due to its combination of sex, torture and religious imagery, the film has only been sporadically available in the decades since.
One fan of the hugely controversial film, however, is director Guillermo del Toro. The Mexican filmmaker recently appeared on Video Club, the French YouTube channel Konbini's equivalent of the Criterion Closet, where he picked out some of his favourite films on disc and talked about what they meant to him.
Reaching for a copy of The Devils, he said that he once owned it on VHS and watched it until the tape wore out; he can quote entire passages from the grisly drama by heart, and says that it had an influence on the style of his latest film, Frankenstein, now on Netflix.
Del Toro also revealed that he’s spent several years trying to get The Devils released as a 4K disc – but has repeatedly been thwarted in his attempts.
“I’ve been trying to get have it released – the uncensored version or the censored version, whichever one. A really good release in America, in 4K would be fantastic.”
Although the film as a whole has a combative tone, one scene in particular, involving a large effigy of Christ and several nuns, has commonly been snipped out of most officially-available cuts. For years, a 111-minute theatrical version was the closest anyone got to seeing Russell’s intended version; Mark Kermode managed to unearth a 117-minute director’s cut from Warner Bros’ vaults in the early 2000s, which was briefly screened in cinemas in 2002. To date, the latter has never appeared on disc.
Starring Oliver Reed as Father Urbain Grandier, a real-life priest who was tried for witchcraft in the 17th century, the film was loosely based on Aldous Huxley’s book, The Devils Of Loudun. It’s a feverish, disturbing film about sexual repression, power and political corruption – subjects its director and collaborators (including Derek Jarman) plunged into fearlessly.
“Ken Russell was unique,” del Toro says. “He has an energy that nobody else has. When people see baroque filmmaking, they think it’s easier. It isn’t… When you make tables for a living, when you’re a carpenter, which is a director, you know when somebody’s delivering something exceptional. Ken Russell’s The Devils is one of the greatest movies ever directed.”
Del Toro then explained that The Devils informed the look of the scientist’s lab in Frankenstein, and that he’d used Oliver Reed’s full-on performance as a reference point when talking to Oscar Isaac about playing the title character. “I said to Oscar, ‘You have to be [at the] Oliver Reed pitch. It’s a pitch that no one else has.”
Unfortunately, del Toro’s had the same frustrations as most other film fans when it comes to tracking down a definitive version he can keep on his shelf. He mentioned the BFI DVD release of the theatrical version, which came out in 2012, and mentioned the version briefly uploaded to the iTunes Store in 2010 before it was swiftly removed.
“It came on… Apple TV for half a day – somebody made a mistake,” del Toro said. “It came out and I bought it three times from three different accounts. So I have it on my computer.”
A modern, 4K disc – uncut or otherwise – is still frustratingly out of reach, however.
“Somebody really doesn’t want this released,” del Toro said. “Seriously!”
When asked who that somebody might be, the filmmaker replied, “If I knew [who it was], then it would be released. But there’s almost a mandate not to release it.”
Elsewhere in the episode, del Toro talks knowledgably and passionately about such films as Todd Browning’s infamous Freaks, several Hitchcocks, and multiple previous adaptations of Frankenstein. He also talks enthusiastically about his long-time friend James Cameron’s Avatar movies, including the upcoming Fire And Ash, and says the three films as a whole are “absolute masterpieces.”
It’s a wonderful episode, and well worth seeing in full – we’ve handily embedded it above.
Frankenstein is available now on Netflix.
