The Devils is a 1971 historical psychological horror-drama film written, produced and directed by Ken Russell, and starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed.

He is having an affair with a relative of Father Canon Jean Mignon, another priest in the town; Grandier is, however, unaware that the neurotic, hunchbacked Sister Jeanne des Anges, the abbess of the local Ursuline convent, is sexually obsessed with him.

When Madeleine returns a book by Ursuline foundress Angela Merici that Sister Jeanne had earlier lent her, the abbess attacks her and accuses her of being a "fornicator" and "sacrilegious".

Laubardemont summons inquisitor Father Pierre Barre, a "professional witch-hunter", whose interrogations involve depraved acts of "exorcism", including the forced administration of enemas to his victims.

Duke Henri de Condé (actually King Louis in disguise) arrives, claiming to be carrying a holy relic which can exorcise the "devils" possessing the nuns.

As Grandier burns, Laubardemont orders for explosive charges to be set off and the city walls are blown up, causing the revelling townspeople to flee.

Laubardemont informs Sister Jeanne that Mignon has been put away in an asylum for claiming that Grandier was innocent, and that "with no signed confession to prove otherwise, everyone has the same opinion".

When government is at its most immoral, history shows that it tends to ally itself with the Church, and to deflect public attention from its own corruption by demonizing convenient scapegoats—artists, philosophers, progressives... in a word, liberals."

According to journalist John Baxter and Russell's widow Lisi Tribble, he was familiar with the story by the time United Artists proposed the project to him, having watched a production of Whiting's play in London and subsequently being inspired to research its historical basis.

[1] Some extraneous elements incorporated into the screenplay were not found in either source, including details about the plague, which were supplied by Russell's brother-in-law, a scholar of French history.

"[15] In Russell's original screenplay, the role of Sister Jeanne of the Angels, the disabled Mother Superior, was significantly larger, and continued after Grandier's execution.

"[25] In the role of Father Mignon, a priest who attempts to usurp Grandier's power, Russell cast Murray Melvin, despite the fact that he was decades younger than the character, who was intended to be in his eighties.

[29] Russell and Jarman were further influenced by the blank white sets of Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and the cityscape in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927).

[1] Jones recalled filming at the castle as challenging due to cold weather and having the flu during this period of the shoot, to which Russell was "frightfully unsympathetic".

Vanessa Redgrave, who can be, I think, a fine actress, plays Sister Jeanne with a plastic hump, a Hansel-and-Gretel giggle, and so much sibilance that when she says 'Satan is ever ready to seduce us with sensual delights', you might think that Groucho Marx had let the air out of her tires.

"[52] Bridget Byrne of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner alternately praised the film as "brilliant, audacious, and grotesque", likening it to a fairytale, but added that audiences "have to grasp its philosophy, work out the undercurrents of seriousness, close the structural gaps for [themselves], even as [they] are transported by a literal orgy of splendor.

"[53] Writing for the Hackensack, New Jersey Record, John Crittenden praised the film's visuals as "genius", but criticised Reed's performance while asserting that Redgrave was underused.

The website's critics consensus reads, "Grimly stylish, Ken Russell's baroque opus is both provocative and persuasive in its contention that the greatest blasphemy is the leveraging of faith for power.

[67][68] The British theatrical cut, which runs 111 minutes, was given an 'X' certificate (no one under 18 years of age admitted);[69] despite the BBFC's approval of this version, it was banned in 17 local councils across Britain.

[70] In the United States, it was truncated further for theatrical exhibition: The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) edited to approximately 108 minutes, and also awarded an 'X' rating.

[73] The director's cut (approximately 117 minutes), with all aforementioned footage restored, was screened for the first time in London on 25 November 2002, along with a making-of documentary titled Hell on Earth, produced for Channel 4.

[68] In a 2014 videoblog titled "Kermode Uncut: What To Do About The Devils", Kermode revealed that Warner Bros. was responsible for blocking various efforts to allow the director's cut of the film to be released on home media, as they considered the tone of the deleted material, specifically the "Rape of Christ" sequence, to be "distasteful", and that they also had turned down offers from distributors such as The Criterion Collection interested in buying the film or acquiring the North American sublicensing rights.

[80] On 30 May 1995, the UK theatrical version made its debut on British television as part of BBC2's Forbidden Weekend, a series of films with troubled censorship histories; the screening was introduced by Cox and then-BBFC director James Ferman.

[83] A bootlegged NTSC-format DVD was released by Angel Digital in 2005, with the excised footage reinstated, along with the Hell on Earth documentary included as a bonus feature.

[87] On 19 March 2012, the British Film Institute released a two-disc DVD featuring the 111-minute UK theatrical version (sped up to 107 minutes to accommodate the technicalities of PAL colour).

Described by Sam Ashby as a "hypnotic, nightmarish monochrome that loops some of the more religious iconographic moments" from Russell's original, the film was captured from a screening of The Devils at the Elgin Theater in New York City.

Jarman noted that Maddeline's escape from Loudun in the original film's ending gave the impression that "she walks into a blizzard of ashes" when rendered on Super 8 stock.

When screening The Devils at the Elgin at festivals or his studio, Jarman would synchronize the film to a cassette tape recording of Nico's cover version of the Doors' song "The End".

[96] Film historian Joel W. Finler described The Devils as Russell's "most brilliant cinematic achievement, but widely regarded as his most distasteful and offensive work.

[99] In 2014, Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro publicly criticised Warner Bros. for censoring the film and limiting its availability in home video markets.