Scenes of torture and death linger long after viewing, as does the pervading nihilistic atmosphere. The film's mixture of demented sexuality, raw violence and religious imagery was a heady mix, even by Russell's standards. Yet it was the theological, political and sexual content that landed Russell in hot water. The Devils is a white-walled nightmare of a film with a horrifying wipe-clean aesthetic. The visual style of the film is also stunning, in particular the sets designed by a young Derek Jarman, inspired by the Huxley line about Sister Jeanne's exorcism being akin to a 'rape in a public lavatory'.

The film's score by British composer Peter Maxwell Davies is unique and haunting, and especially great considering it was his first. Its startling array of performances, in particular Reed and Redgrave's, are some of the best British cinema has to offer. Writing to the soundtrack of Krzysztof Penderecki's opera, based on the same events (as well as Sergei Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel, another work about religious hysteria) he adapted the story with equally fiery aplomb.įifty years on from its release, The Devils is a film rightly celebrated for its artistry. 'It inspired him to immediately research the text that the play was based on: Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudun.' Impressed with Huxley's detailed interpretation, Russell started work on his script. 'He first saw it when it was on the London stage,' Russell's partner Lisi Tribble Russell tells BBC Culture.

Russell became aware of the filmic potential of the story of the so-called 'Loudon Possessions' through a 1960 play by John Whiting based on the same historical events.

Charged with heresy and cavorting with devils, he undergoes a show trial which will only ever go one way. Hysteria then unfolds among Loudun's Ursuline nuns, leading to a mass orgy, a chaos for which Grandier is blamed. However, the obsessive lust for Grandier held by the town's abbess Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) leads to the nun making a false accusation that he has possessed her, which the establishment exploit in order to oust him. Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) plots with King Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) to take control, but their men, led by Baron De Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton), face strong opposition from Grandier. The Devils follows the fate of Loudun, a self-governing town under the temporary protection of the debonair, womanising priest Father Urbain Grandier (Oliver Reed).

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