The Devils (1971) (Ken Russell) Discussion Thread

[nekromantik]

Yeah its a shame when a movie like this has cut footage destroyed or not allowed to be used.

Im getting even closer in ordering it!

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

It's almost comparable to The Magnificent Ambersons, a film which is great but you always watch it thinking if it could have been much better, and how, if it was the film Orson Welles intended.

RKO chopped 50 minutes of the film and added a happy ending while Orson Welles was out of the country. The footage was subsequently destroyed; the only record of the removed scenes is the cutting continuity transcript.

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

It's almost comparable to The Magnificent Ambersons, a film which is great but you always watch it thinking if it could have been much better, and how, if it was the film Orson Welles intended.

To be honest, I don't think the two situations have that much in common.

Ambersons was mutilated by the studio without Welles' consent or participation, and turned into a radically different film with an ending that was shot by another director.

By contrast, though The Devils was also modified in post-production, the changes were a matter of taste and tone, not more fundamental issues like structure and conclusion. Another crucial difference is that Ken Russell himself supervised the final editing and signed off the UK cinema cut. Granted, the film was subsequently butchered by Warner Bros, but that doesn't apply to the version on the BFI DVD.

Certainly, the uncut version of The Devils would be a better film - but I doubt very much that it would be completely revelatory in the way that the uncut Magnificent Ambersons undoubtedly would be. It seems very clear that Welles' original cut was a markedly different, more complex and significantly darker film than what RKO actually released - whereas the UK cinema cut of The Devils is broadly the film that Russell intended to make, just slightly less graphically offensive. Come to think of it, Freaks might be a more valid comparison.

Mind you, Craig Lapper's piece in the Devils booklet performs a similarly valuable service to Robert L. Carringer's research into the original version of Ambersons, in that it's the closest anyone has come to a verbal reconstruction of Russell's original intentions.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Michael Brooke

To be honest, I don't think the two situations have that much in common.

Hence my qualifier 'almost'!

I know Ambersons was completely butchered – "edited by a lawnmower" was, I believe, Welles reaction – but my point was the general public will never see the directors' preferred version of their films.

[Michael Brooke]

Originally Posted by Nosferatu@Cult Labs

Hence my qualifier 'almost'!

I know Ambersons was completely butchered – "edited by a lawnmower" was, I believe, Welles reaction – but my point was the general public will never see the directors' preferred version of their films.

Yeah, but I think Ambersons is a slightly exaggerated example, because the changes were so massive that it ended up as a radically different film.

Freaks might be a better comparison - as with The Devils, the studio was horrified by the end result and simply didn't know what to do with it, so they tried to tone it down and hoped for the best. And in both cases the cut footage was subsequently lost.

Mind you, even then the differences are pretty pronounced - Freaks is thought to have lost half an hour, whereas the cuts to The Devils amounted to only a tiny fraction of that.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

I suppose when you think about it in a historical context, comparing it to Freaks and The Magnificent Ambersons, considering the controversy around the whole film and a couple of scenes in particular, The Devils actually fared quite well!

That said, it's a shame the cuts and lost footage have to be contextualised in such a way to make them more palatable.

[Daemonia]

Originally Posted by trouserpress

Got mine!

Yikes! Someone stole your head and put a DVD there instead!

[trouserpress]

Originally Posted by Daemonia

Yikes! Someone stole your head and put a DVD there instead!

It's a better look for me. I'm thinking of having surgery to hold it there permanently.

[napalm-in-the-morning]

Amazon have yet to deliver! This release seems to be getting excellent reviews. Particularly the picture quality. An impressive achievement considering how used to HD we have all become.

[Demoncrat]

Originally Posted by napalm-in-the-morning

Amazon have yet to deliver! This release seems to be getting excellent reviews. Particularly the picture quality. An impressive achievement considering how used to HD we have all become.

Ditto. WAAAAAAAAH. Ahem.