Here’s a piece of news that gives us particular pleasure, especially because we’ve also lamented that today bold and original films like those of past decades are no longer made, and we’ve wondered whether audiences would respond to what we consider classics. The release in its complete edition of the insane masterpiece by Ken Russell The Devils, one of the most important films of the seventies and beyond, has come to dispel our doubts. We don’t know whether it’s due to morbid curiosity about the subject and the added scenes, or genuine interest in the work of one of the world’s greatest and most visionary directors, but the film, which in North America was supposed to stay in cinemas for only a week, has enjoyed such success that Warner has decided to increase the number of cinemas showing it, to meet the numerous requests. To put it in context, last weekend The Devils, released on 350 screens, grossed $1,725,000, with an average of $4,925 per screen.
The Director’s Cut of The Devils and Its Return to the Cinema
The release currently showing is the 4K restoration of the film’s only existing director’s cut from 1971, rebuilt in 2004 under the supervision of Ken Russell and editor Michael Bradsell, with the collaboration of the English critic and scholar Mark Kermode and Paul Joyce, who reintegrated the scenes cut due to censorship on a film that caused scandal and underwent cuts and seizures everywhere, even in Italy, where it had limited circulation with an 18-and-over ban. Based on Aldous Huxley‘s 1952 book “The Devils of Loudun” and the stage play from which it was adapted in 1961, The Devils is one of the most explicit and powerful films ever made, and this is a unique opportunity for many to see it on the big screen for the first time in Russell’s original vision. Here, The Devils has been in theatres since October 19 and so far sits only in sixteenth place in the box office, but it still has to be released in the United Kingdom, Poland, France, Australia/New Zealand, Germany, Austria, Greece, the Netherlands, and other territories.
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