Tag: seventeenth century

Ken Russell’s
The Devils

Ken Russell’s The Devils

Director – Ken Russell – 1971 – UK – Cert. 18 – 114m

*****

Restored. Remastered. Uncensored. Ken Russell’s notorious masterpiece finally reaches the big screen as he originally intended it to be seen – from the BFI London Film Festival 2026 which runs from Wednesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 18th in cinemas and on BFI Player, a new 35mm film print previews at BFI Southbank from Friday, October 23rd to Thursday 29th, and the film is out in UK and Ireland cinemas Friday, October 30th

NSFW.

To anyone who has seen the version of The Devils released theatrically in the UK with an X certificate in 1971, and put out on DVD by the BFI about ten years ago, watching this new version has about it the sensation of tasting forbidden fruit. (If you’ve never seen that version, all I can say is, start with this one: this is the version that Russell intended.) It’s perhaps instructive to look at what has changed, in other words those scenes which were considered by the BBFC and / or distributor Warner Bros. too shocking for inclusion back in the day.

Writing about the X certificate version on its DVD release, I noted that the four areas in which the film didn’t hold back were sex, religion, politics and torture.… Read the rest

Tags artistic quality, BBFC, BFI, blasphemy, British cinema, British Film Institute, Cardinal Richelieu, Catholic Church, Christian spirituality, Christopher Logue, church history, city walls, concession, convent, decadent, demon-possessed, director's cut exists, distributor, diversion, eerie, experimental, father, France, Graham Armitage, gratuitous, John Trevelyan, Ken Russell, knock down walls, LFF, LFF 2026, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2026, Loudun, Louis XIII, modern city, Monarch, mother superior, nation, nudity, nun, nunsploitation, Oliver Reed, orgy, Peter Maxwell Davies, political history, politics, power, power base, priest, promiscuity, protector, public lavatory, rape, Rape of Christ, religion, restoration, score, self-governing entities, seventeenth century, sex, sexuality, sister, torture, total freedom, UK, UK censor, Vanessa Redgrave, Warner Bros., X Certificate

Features Live Action Movies

The Devils

Director – Ken Russell – 1971 – UK – Cert. 18 – 106m 41s (cut)

*****

UK DVD release date 19/03/2012, cert. 18, 107 mins plus extras, £19.99. Reviewed for Third Way

40 years after its 1971 theatrical release, the late Ken Russell’s key work reaches UK DVD in its original UK X Certificate version with a host of invaluable DVD extras. Although a more complete (2004 restoration) director’s cut exists, the nature of the excised material makes the current cut as complete as is ever likely to be released on DVD. In terms of controversy, the film has everything – sex, religion, politics and torture – and Russell’s original cut didn’t hold back in any of these areas. This presented headaches for not only the distributor Warner Bros. in terms of a mainstream US release but also the UK censor who questioned, as the BBFC’s secretary John Trevelyan succinctly put it, “whether artistic quality justifies total freedom.”

The plot concerns seventeenth century France where Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) is attempting to increase the Catholic Church’s hold on the nation by persuading decadent monarch Louis XIII (Graham Armitage) to knock down the walls surrounding cities that enable their functioning as self-governing entities.… Read the rest

Tags artistic quality, audio commentary, BBFC, BFI, blasphemy, British cinema, British Film Institute, Cardinal Richelieu, Catholic Church, Christian spirituality, Christopher Logue, church history, city walls, concession, convent, Craig Lapper, decadent, demon-possessed, Derek Jarman, Director of Devils, director's cut exists, distributor, diversion, editor, eerie, experimental, father, France, Graham Armitage, gratuitous, home movie, John Trevelyan, Ken Russell, knock down walls, Loudun, Louis XIII, Mark Kermode, Michael Bradsell, modern city, Monarch, mother superior, nation, nudity, nun, nunsploitation, Oliver Reed, orgy, Paul Joyce, Peter Maxwell Davies, Pinewood, political history, politics, power, power base, priest, promiscuity, protector, public lavatory, rape, Rape of Christ, religion, score, self-governing entities, seventeenth century, sex, sexuality, sister, statue of Jesus, torture, total freedom, UK, UK censor, Vanessa Redgrave, Warner Bros., X Certificate

Animation Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
My National Gallery

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date June 4 2024
No Comments on Exhibition on Screen
My National Gallery

Exhibition on Screen: My National Gallery

Director – Phil Grabsky, Ali Ray – 2024 – UK – Cert. U – 98m

*****

Employees, punters and celebrities choose their favourite painting in London’s National Gallery – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, June 4th

There have been documentary films about the UK’s National Gallery before, notably the wonderful, three-hour-long National Gallery (Frederick Wiseman, 2014), so, in a way, it’s a brave subject for the Exhibition on Screen people to take on. And yet, as a British production company making movies about art in art galleries, it was inevitable that they would tackle the subject sooner or later. Their version commences with a likeable enough establishing montage of what one might call ‘behind the scenes’ and ‘footfall’ – shots of various National Gallery employees at work opening the door, looking after various aspects of the art housed in the gallery and even putting out tasty-looking croissants in the cafeteria.

There are satisfying little touches throughout. A shot of The Feast Day of Saint Roch, Canaletto, with out of focus people passing in front of it, makes it feel like you’re really there in the scene depicted.

Alan Allison, security officer and gallery assistant (pictured on the front of the trailer, below) wears black clothing with a striking, patterned blue tie.… Read the rest

Tags “the Python foot”, 2D animation, air raid, Ali Ray, animation, animator, architect, aristocracy, art, art galleries, art history, ballet school, behind the scenes, bereavement, British Sign Language, British society, broken string, BSL, Canada House, Canaletto, celeb, children, classical piano concerts, closing announcement, collector, colonial bubble, Crown Estates, Dame Myra Hess, deaf, diplomacy, diversity, Edgar Degas, Exhibition On Screen, fathers and daughters, feminism, film festival, Florence, footfall, Giovanni Bellini, grandad, grandfather, grandma, grandmother, hang, Hetty Feather, horror film, horror movie, Houses of Parliament, Humphrey Jennings, Impressionists, Italy, Jacqueline Wilson, John Nash, Jonathan Conlin, Kenneth Clark, lack of representation, lute, Madonna, Michael Palin, monsters, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, mothers and sons, Narcotics Anonymous, National Gallery, Nelson’s Column, nineteenth century, occult, one-painting show, painter, parents and children, Phil Grabsky, Pierre-August Renoir, Public Record Office, punctuation, pyramid, Royal Academy, safe storage place, science fiction, seventeenth century, Sir George Beaumont, skull, slave trade, Stewart McAllister, Syphilis, Terry Gilliam, the City of London, The Strand, Trafalgar Square, Turner, twentieth century, university, venereal, Venus, Westminster, witchcraft, witches