Ken Russell’s The Devils, or, Ladies Love Cool Grandier

The Devils is almost exactly as old as I am, which is something I had to keep reminding myself as I watched the new restoration of the director’s cut, currently running in major theater chains under an NC-17 rating. The restoration is so clean, and the picture quality is so flawless, that it can be easy to treat it like a new release and forget to put yourself in the mindset of someone watching it fifty years ago. Ideally, the movie wouldn’t require that kind of translation. It’d be timeless. It’s set in the town of Loudun in France, during the time of the Inquisition, and tells the true-life account of a womanizing priest Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), and Jeanne des Anges (Vanessa Redgrave), mother superior of the town’s convent, who’s sexually obsessed with Grandier and driven by jealousy to falsely accuse him of witchcraft. Because it’s a period movie, there’s little in the costuming or subject matter that feels locked in the 1970s. At least, until Michael Gothard shows up as the…