I haven't seen this movie yet (I'm planning to soon), but there are criticisms that don't make sense.
"Like everyone who's committed, I found it my duty to bear witness against the moral outrages or, if not my time, that at least somebody's time. I mean, you can't just sit around."
Does he mean to imply that if it didn't happen recently then it shouldn't be mentioned and should be forgotten about?
"It is about time that someone had the courage to tell it like it was about Loudon, a seemingly respectable provincial town beneath the facade of which seethed simmering intrigues, unholy alliances, greed, fear, lust, avarice, sacrilege, and nausea. The story has gone untold for too long. Aldous Huxley wrote a book about it, and John Whiting wrote a play about it, but only Ken Russell has made a movie about it."
That's right. If it was already addressed then it should never be addressed again; that's why there has only ever been one holocaust drama or movie about slavery.
"I don't know about anyone else, but frankly, I left the Cinema Theater feeling like a new, a different, and, yes, a better person. The poisons of our political system had been drained from me. I entered the theater as an unwitting participant in the atrocities of our time. But believe me, that's all behind me now. It took courage for me to go see The Devils, just like it took courage for Ken Russell to make it.
And it took courage for all those folks to congregate in the lobby and lounge of the Cinema Theater before, during, and after the performance. They were ordinary people--kids, students, young folks mostly--you might find living next door. And yet they had gone out into the night to see for themselves, so that the martyrs of Loudon might not go unmourned.
Now they spoke quietly among themselves of the atrocities they had witnessed, or hoped to witness soon. Listening to them, I felt we could all sleep a little sounder from now on. If the movie industry had more hard-nosed, tell-it-like-it-is artists like Ken Russell, Loudon might never happen again."
Exactly, if you're not 100% sure that whatever statement you're making is going to automatically change the world right from the get go then you should never bother to make any statement at any point in time ever.
Maybe I'll understand Ebert's position better after seeing the movie, but at the moment, that is what he seems to be saying.
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muzilon
10 years ago
Ebert was being ironic/satirical, e.g. his reference to the nuns being "well-stacked". The fact that he reprinted his zero-star review of The Devils in his book I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie - a compilation of his negative reviews - makes it fairly obvious that he regarded it as exploitative sensationalism: http://tiny.cc/zs65wx
Elsewhere in the same book he says that Ken Russell's films are "an exercise in wretched excess."
And is it just me? Or does all the actors look like people picked up from the 70ies? The sideburns and everything ^^ Couldn't they give the actors a more authentic look?
I don't think Russell was terribly worried about anachronisms in this film. The king shoots the man in the bird costume and says "Bye Bye Blackbird". The freak who "inspects" the nun to see whether she's still a virgin says "There's been
hanky-panky", a phrase that didn't come into use until the 19th century, etc.
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dalldorfw
10 years ago
My problem is that his sarcasm seemed shallow and misdirected (again, I haven't seen the movie, but I just rented it so we'll seen soon how much I agree with the review)
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muzilon
10 years ago
My problem is that some people are failing to grasp the sarcasm in Ebert's review. A recent article in the Boston Globe quotes one paragraph out of context - the writer obviously thought Ebert was praising the film! http://tinyurl.com/lgnjyka
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Kompressor_Fan
10 years ago
One of the most repulsive films I ever saw.
The bad news is you have houseguests. There is no good news.
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