The Devils (re-release)
The Devils, starring Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed, is a timeless and unique cinematic masterpiece. With this groundbreaking, iconic film about obsession and corruption, the influential director Ken Russell cemented his reputation once and for all.
The film is set in seventeenth-century France, where Father Urbain Grandier rules over the walled town of Loudun, much to the chagrin of Cardinal Richelieu, who seeks to bring every independent town under the king’s control. When the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne turns her obsession with Grandier into accusations of possession, the Church seizes upon this hysteria to publicly destroy him. What follows is an orgy of abuse of power and mass hysteria.
This new 4K restoration, compiled from the original camera negative, presents the definitive version of The Devils, in accordance with the edit that Russell himself had already created in 2004. The Devils is the uncut and unfiltered cinematic experience that Ken Russell always envisioned, and for the first time, the film has now been restored and is available in 4K. The film’s sound has been remastered from the original English “Composite 35mm Mag” film—converted to 96 kHz—and supplemented where necessary with other original film elements. The restoration of the picture and sound was carried out by Warner Bros. Post Production Creative Services, Water Tower Color, and Warner Bros. Sound.
