On a recent morning in Cannes, Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan sat over coffee at the Hotel Martinez and recalled a phone call he received nearly 60 years ago, not long after he’d made a splash on the British folk scene. On the other end of the line was a rising screenwriter and director called Ken Loach. “He said he was making his first feature…and would I help him with the music?” Donovan told Variety.
The film, a kitchen sink drama called “Poor Cow,” based on a novel by British playwright and author Neil Dunn, tells the story of a working-class single mother leading a hard-luck life in the slums of London. It’s a movie that set the tone for the type of social drama that propelled Loach throughout a remarkable, prolific career.
This week at the Cannes Film Festival, Loach will bow what he says will be his final film,...
The film, a kitchen sink drama called “Poor Cow,” based on a novel by British playwright and author Neil Dunn, tells the story of a working-class single mother leading a hard-luck life in the slums of London. It’s a movie that set the tone for the type of social drama that propelled Loach throughout a remarkable, prolific career.
This week at the Cannes Film Festival, Loach will bow what he says will be his final film,...
- 5/23/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
When Ken Russell’s provocative religious horror “The Devils” became available to stream for the first time last week, cinephiles the world over were re-introduced to one of the greatest under appreciated films of all time — one that is surprisingly poignant in our current state of political unease. Infamous for its controversial release (the film was banned in several countries and received an X rating only after Russell cut a handful of the most incendiary scenes), the 1971 epic offers a stylish and scathing parable about the dangerous ways that the powerful can exploit religious zeal to stay that way.
Based on the true story of the trial of Urbain Grandier, a Catholic priest who was executed in 1634 on charges of witchcraft, Russell adapted “The Devils” from John Whiting’s 1960 play and Aldous Huxley’s 1952 novel, The Devils of Loudun. Russell digressed stylistically from his source material, taking a contemporary approach...
Based on the true story of the trial of Urbain Grandier, a Catholic priest who was executed in 1634 on charges of witchcraft, Russell adapted “The Devils” from John Whiting’s 1960 play and Aldous Huxley’s 1952 novel, The Devils of Loudun. Russell digressed stylistically from his source material, taking a contemporary approach...
- 3/22/2017
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Sympathy for The Devils: The Suppression of Ken Russell’s Delirious, Incomparable Masterpiece
Despite the pronounced pedigree of its origins, Ken Russell’s glorious 1971 film The Devils is still mysteriously unavailable in the United States. An infamously plagued reception continues to usurp deserved attention away from its subversive content, though a growing legion of champions within the critical arena which had once sacrilegiously abandoned it has resulted in its growing recuperation.
Based, very loosely on a 1952 novel by literary giant Aldous Huxley depicting the downfall of 17th century French priest Urbain Grandier, it relates an incidence of hysteria and mob mentality run amok in the totalitarian paradigm of the Catholic Church. Russell, his project backed by none other than Warner Bros. studio itself, crafted an off-putting extravaganza of a film (shall we say, making Huxley’s text more Grandier) depicting events decried as pure blasphemy.
Wit unabashedly blunt sexual...
Despite the pronounced pedigree of its origins, Ken Russell’s glorious 1971 film The Devils is still mysteriously unavailable in the United States. An infamously plagued reception continues to usurp deserved attention away from its subversive content, though a growing legion of champions within the critical arena which had once sacrilegiously abandoned it has resulted in its growing recuperation.
Based, very loosely on a 1952 novel by literary giant Aldous Huxley depicting the downfall of 17th century French priest Urbain Grandier, it relates an incidence of hysteria and mob mentality run amok in the totalitarian paradigm of the Catholic Church. Russell, his project backed by none other than Warner Bros. studio itself, crafted an off-putting extravaganza of a film (shall we say, making Huxley’s text more Grandier) depicting events decried as pure blasphemy.
Wit unabashedly blunt sexual...
- 10/10/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Franzen, Mohsin Hamid, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Malcolm Gladwell, Eleanor Catton and many more recommend the books that impressed them this year
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate) is a brilliant, sprawling, layered and unsentimental portrayal of contemporary China. It made me think and laugh. I also love Dave Eggers' The Circle (Hamish Hamilton), which is a sharp-eyed and funny satire about the obsession with "sharing" our lives through technology. It's convincing and a little creepy.
William Boyd
By strange coincidence two of the most intriguing art books I read this year had the word "Breakfast" in their titles. They were Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Greig (Jonathan Cape) and Breakfast at Sotheby's by Philip Hook (Particular). Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was...
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Five Star Billionaire by Tash Aw (Fourth Estate) is a brilliant, sprawling, layered and unsentimental portrayal of contemporary China. It made me think and laugh. I also love Dave Eggers' The Circle (Hamish Hamilton), which is a sharp-eyed and funny satire about the obsession with "sharing" our lives through technology. It's convincing and a little creepy.
William Boyd
By strange coincidence two of the most intriguing art books I read this year had the word "Breakfast" in their titles. They were Breakfast with Lucian by Geordie Greig (Jonathan Cape) and Breakfast at Sotheby's by Philip Hook (Particular). Greig's fascinating, intimate biography of Lucian Freud was a revelation. Every question I had about Freud – from the aesthetic to the intrusively gossipy – was...
- 11/23/2013
- by Hilary Mantel, Jonathan Franzen, Mohsin Hamid, Tom Stoppard, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, William Boyd, Bill Bryson, Shami Chakrabarti, Sarah Churchwell, Antonia Fraser, Mark Haddon, Robert Harris, Max Hastings, Philip Hensher, Simon Hoggart, AM Homes, John Lanchester, Mark Lawson, Robert Macfarlane, Andrew Motion, Ian Rankin, Lionel Shriver, Helen Simpson, Colm Tóibín, Richard Ford, John Gray, David Kynaston, Penelope Lively, Pankaj Mishra, Blake Morrison, Susie Orbach
- The Guardian - Film News
Stage and screen actor known for playing battle-axe aunts, village gossips and servants
When Mel Brooks visited the film set of Up at the Villa (2000), in which his wife, Anne Bancroft, was starring, he proclaimed Barbara Hicks, who has died aged 89, the funniest woman he had ever met. This stalwart character actor, always lodged some way down any cast list as if to prove the truth of Stanislavski's dictum that there are no small parts, only small actors, was a fund of stories, many of them unprintable. And Hicks, though slight of build, with a long face and asymmetrical features, was certainly not a small actor.
As another admirer, Alan Bennett, once told her wistfully: "When you go, Barbara, there'll be a terrible hole in Spotlight." And so there is, for since first appearing on television in 1962 playing Miss Print, a comedy sidekick to Richard Hearne's popular Mr Pastry,...
When Mel Brooks visited the film set of Up at the Villa (2000), in which his wife, Anne Bancroft, was starring, he proclaimed Barbara Hicks, who has died aged 89, the funniest woman he had ever met. This stalwart character actor, always lodged some way down any cast list as if to prove the truth of Stanislavski's dictum that there are no small parts, only small actors, was a fund of stories, many of them unprintable. And Hicks, though slight of build, with a long face and asymmetrical features, was certainly not a small actor.
As another admirer, Alan Bennett, once told her wistfully: "When you go, Barbara, there'll be a terrible hole in Spotlight." And so there is, for since first appearing on television in 1962 playing Miss Print, a comedy sidekick to Richard Hearne's popular Mr Pastry,...
- 11/7/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
"In the week where the film industry honor the six decade career of the late director Ken Russell, comes the announcement of the death of Christopher Logue," writes Rhett Bartlett. "Mr Logue wrote the screenplay for Ken Russell's sole film in 1972 — Savage Messiah," a biopic based on the life of French sculptor Henri-Gaudier Brzeska. "One year before his screenplay, Mr Logue appeared in Ken Russell's 1971 bold film — The Devils, as Cardinal Richelieu, the French clergyman who begins the film by influencing Louis Xiii to raze fortified castles and suppress feudal nobility." Bartlett also notes that Logue appeared as the "Spaghetti-eating Fanatic" in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky and "made a brief appearance in Jerzy Skolimowski's Moonlighting (1982) and 19 years later in [Charles Shyer's] The Affair of the Necklace. Christopher Logue died on 2 December 2011, five days after Ken Russell."
"'Now hear this' — the three words that Christopher Logue, who has...
"'Now hear this' — the three words that Christopher Logue, who has...
- 12/8/2011
- MUBI
By Rhett Bartlett
In the week where the film industry honour the six decade career of the late director Ken Russell, comes the announcement of the death of Christopher Logue.
Mr Logue wrote the screenplay for Ken Russell’s sole film in 1972 - Savage Messiah ; adapted from the H.S Ede book of the same name authored in 1931.
Click to read more…...
In the week where the film industry honour the six decade career of the late director Ken Russell, comes the announcement of the death of Christopher Logue.
Mr Logue wrote the screenplay for Ken Russell’s sole film in 1972 - Savage Messiah ; adapted from the H.S Ede book of the same name authored in 1931.
Click to read more…...
- 12/5/2011
- by Scott Feinberg
- Scott Feinberg
The Devils
Directed by Ken Russell
Nearly forty years after its release, The Devils remains shocking. It is both unabashedly critical of establishment while also refusing to adhere to the commonly accepted conventions of “serious” cinema. Stylistically, the film employs an unconventional score, an overzealous use of zoom (to be fair, it was the 70s) and non-period detailing. Despite the film’s exploitative presentation of sex and violence, there is little doubt that it is the rather cruel depiction of religion that continues to drive the film’s controversy.
In order to gain political control of France, Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) seeks to destroy the influence of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), a sexually liberated Priest who has been charged with running the fortified town of Leon. In an attempt to ruin Grandier’s reputation, they accuse him of causing the possession of Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), a hunchbacked nun. The...
Directed by Ken Russell
Nearly forty years after its release, The Devils remains shocking. It is both unabashedly critical of establishment while also refusing to adhere to the commonly accepted conventions of “serious” cinema. Stylistically, the film employs an unconventional score, an overzealous use of zoom (to be fair, it was the 70s) and non-period detailing. Despite the film’s exploitative presentation of sex and violence, there is little doubt that it is the rather cruel depiction of religion that continues to drive the film’s controversy.
In order to gain political control of France, Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) seeks to destroy the influence of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), a sexually liberated Priest who has been charged with running the fortified town of Leon. In an attempt to ruin Grandier’s reputation, they accuse him of causing the possession of Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), a hunchbacked nun. The...
- 11/29/2011
- by Justine
- SoundOnSight
(Alexander Mackendrick, 1965, PG, Eureka!)
Alexander Mackendrick made several of Ealing Studios' finest films (Whisky Galore, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers among them), but only two of his post-Ealing pictures approach greatness. One is the devastating attack on demagogic journalism, Sweet Smell of Success (1957), the other his neglected version of Richard Hughes's 1929 novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, a book that anticipated Lord of the Flies.
Superficially an exciting nautical adventure yarn, the subtle, psychological fable centres on a party of Victorian children, captured by Caribbean pirates on their way to England, who send their accidental captors to the gallows. Its real theme is a continuing preoccupation of Mackendrick's, the idea of innocence as a destructive force rather than a simple virtue, and the children come over as merciless, unaccountable subversives. As the chief pirates, Anthony Quinn and James Coburn head an excellent cast.
Douglas Slocombe...
Alexander Mackendrick made several of Ealing Studios' finest films (Whisky Galore, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers among them), but only two of his post-Ealing pictures approach greatness. One is the devastating attack on demagogic journalism, Sweet Smell of Success (1957), the other his neglected version of Richard Hughes's 1929 novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, a book that anticipated Lord of the Flies.
Superficially an exciting nautical adventure yarn, the subtle, psychological fable centres on a party of Victorian children, captured by Caribbean pirates on their way to England, who send their accidental captors to the gallows. Its real theme is a continuing preoccupation of Mackendrick's, the idea of innocence as a destructive force rather than a simple virtue, and the children come over as merciless, unaccountable subversives. As the chief pirates, Anthony Quinn and James Coburn head an excellent cast.
Douglas Slocombe...
- 8/13/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Continuing Simon Augustine's countdown of the Most Disturbing Movies (Read Part 1 for the previous 13) [<< #12]
11. The Devils (1971) 10/7
(Still not on DVD as of publication)
A grand freak-out of religious sexual frenzy, persecution and humanist martyrdom, The Devils is probably the most censored film in history and the most accomplished film by supreme agent provocateur and English madman Ken Russell. Based on sci-fi demiurge Aldous Huxley's semi-historical novel The Devils of Loudon, it is the story of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), the leader/priest of an outpost of Protestantism in a sixteenth-century France that Louis Xiii - prodded by corrupt Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) and his henchman - is trying to “persuade” (with theology, Christian love, and torture) to become more Catholic.
11. The Devils (1971) 10/7
(Still not on DVD as of publication)
A grand freak-out of religious sexual frenzy, persecution and humanist martyrdom, The Devils is probably the most censored film in history and the most accomplished film by supreme agent provocateur and English madman Ken Russell. Based on sci-fi demiurge Aldous Huxley's semi-historical novel The Devils of Loudon, it is the story of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), the leader/priest of an outpost of Protestantism in a sixteenth-century France that Louis Xiii - prodded by corrupt Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) and his henchman - is trying to “persuade” (with theology, Christian love, and torture) to become more Catholic.
- 11/4/2009
- by underdog
- GreenCine
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) presents the world premiere of a visionary work of epic proportions, War Music, adapted and directed by Lillian Groag (A.C.T.'s The Rivals) based on Christopher Logue's ravishing translation of the Iliad. In a wildly theatrical, totally modern interpretation of one of the mightiest conflicts of all time, Groag reignites the wrath of Greek warrior Achilles against his archrival, Agamemnon. With movement by award-winning opera, theater, and ballet choreographer Daniel Pelzig and featuring original music composed by John Glover alongside an eclectic selection of rock and pop music, War Music cements A.C.T.'s position as the Bay Area home of unique fusion works in the vein of such groundbreaking pieces as The Overcoat and The Black Rider.
- 4/1/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) presents the world premiere of a visionary work of epic proportions, War Music, adapted and directed by Lillian Groag (A.C.T.'s The Rivals) based on Christopher Logue's ravishing translation of the Iliad. In a wildly theatrical, totally modern interpretation of one of the mightiest conflicts of all time, Groag reignites the wrath of Greek warrior Achilles against his archrival, Agamemnon. With movement by award-winning opera, theater, and ballet choreographer Daniel Pelzig and featuring original music composed by John Glover alongside an eclectic selection of rock and pop music, War Music cements A.C.T.'s position as the Bay Area home of unique fusion works in the vein of such groundbreaking pieces as The Overcoat and The Black Rider.
- 2/26/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) presents the world premiere of a visionary work of epic proportions, War Music, adapted and directed by Lillian Groag (A.C.T.'s The Rivals) based on Christopher Logue's ravishing translation of the Iliad. In a wildly theatrical, totally modern interpretation of one of the mightiest conflicts of all time, Groag reignites the wrath of Greek warrior Achilles against his archrival, Agamemnon.
- 2/25/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.